Press

VARA TV Magazine
March 2002
By Patrick Remmers

Boyzone / Warzone

All of a sudden, the young British actor Damian Lewis (1971) was allowed to play the leading role in the prestigious war-series ‘Band of Brothers’, adding himself to the fashionable British generation in Hollywood. How did he survive the violence (of war)?

The last time we could see the redheaded actor Damian Lewis (30) at work, was in the by NPS broadcasted thirty-something drama Hearts & Bones, as Mark Rose, the kind husband of Emma (who did take to one’s heels with her own brother in law). In that quality Damian was almost electrocuted when he tried to catch a rat hidden behind the oven. A much bigger shock (in the literal sense) however awaited Damian on the first day of a boot camp prior to Band of Brothers. It seemed that exactly he, a plain boy from South-London, was the one that the directors Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg had on top of their list for the role of Major Richard Winters. VARA TV Magazine had an exclusive talk with the amiable Briton who, as they say, is so ‘hot’ at this moment as you can imagine.

Because Damian’s carrier runs like a train. Since New Year the 30-year actor resides in Hollywood, where he, together with Morgan Freeman, is shooting the newest Stephen King movie Dream Catcher. Besides that, Damian plays one of the most important leading roles in the new Forsyte Saga, and is tipped for the role of a villain / entrepreneur in the newest James Bond movie. At least this afternoon on the set of the Forsyte Saga production, the ladies of WGBH Boston (co-producers of The Forsyte Saga) are hanging on his rosy tingled lips. Just like thousands of other young girls and women, as we are told. With that ’sensual’ mouth he, for that matter, is able to speak a perfect American English. In the company of Miss Ellen Dockser and her New York colleague from the American co-producer, Lewis unconsciously falls back in the North-Atlantic tongue that was an important part of his portraying the American Hero Richard Winters. The role of Soames Forsyte, that Eric Porter set down so adequate, is next in the line of impressive leading roles that fall to his share. It must merely surprise the actor who graduated eight years ago from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Because until two years ago he just evening after evening acted in theatre, and it were most of all his classmates Ewan McGregor and Joseph Fienes who were successful.

“Did it surprise me?” asks Damian while he’s eating a plate of porridge in the double-decker at the set in Liverpool that is converted to the dining car. “Did it actually surprise me?” he repeats. “I don’t know - yes and no, is the answer. No, because at this moment I’m eight years a professional actor, on Broadway and with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In other words, I’m known longer in the ’scene’. Yes, because it is of course remarkable that all of a sudden everything comes all at once. But that is television for you, eh. I’m extremely pleased with it, if that’s what you mean. In the end, the take off of a carrier is not something you can decide by yourself. As an actor you are every time dependent of the project you’re involved in.”

The role of Major Winters in the ten-part spin off of Steven Spielberg’s war drama Saving Private Ryan, at least was a big surprise. Lewis: “My agent told me that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks were looking for British actors to play a part in a new war drama. Other impresario’s heard that too, so it could happen that on a day in August 2000 about 500 colleagues came to the auditions for Band of Brothers. It seemed like the auditions for the musical Oliver, because there was a big queue.”

Three other auditions followed, and after 4 months the director came with the announcement that Damian immediately had to pack his suitcases as he would be flied into Los Angeles that same week to meet ‘Tom’ and ‘Steven’. Lewis didn’t have the faintest idea what was waiting there for him: “Of course everybody in my surroundings said that it was really going to happen now. ‘America will be lying at your feet’, they said, and ‘everybody will want to work with you soon’. But I couldn’t see it in that way yet. I don’t happen to be somebody who is planning his carrier ahead, and is constantly busy with what he will be doing next. In this stadium it also wasn’t exactly clear that Major Winters would become the major character. The script wasn’t finished and negotiations were in full gear. Of course I had read Stephen Ambrose’s book by then. That book was written from the perspective of the person of Winters, but in one way or another it still didn’t occur to me that for the television series they would make a very large appeal on me.”

The actor, who previously played a part in the much acclaimed war drama Warriors, was soon to find out. After he went through a text with Tom Hanks (chuckling: “No matter what they say about me, at least I can say that I acted with Tom Hanks”), it appeared that the young Briton was the one that the famous directors were thinking of as the leading role. On purpose Lewis was non-committal during the preparation period. “It was a very strange sensation”, he has to admit. “On Friday I was still on the set of Hearts & Bones, and on Monday I already was crawling through mud with all those Americans and a hand full of Britons. Soon the rumour was spreading that a Briton would play the leading role. I saw how the Americans were nudging each other: ‘Who the hell is Winters? Did you already found out who is going to play Winters?’ In this kind of situations I normally prefer to wait and see which way the cat jumps, but at a certain moment it couldn’t be avoided. One by one they came to me and shook my hand. ‘Congratulations, Lieutenant Winters, sir. Permission to…?’ and so on. It seemed as if they expected me to immediately give them orders. I was a little surprised and only said: yeah, all right, go ahead, fine. When it appeared that my condition wasn’t too great, and the Americans actually wanted me to address them as if I really was Winters, I realised that I had to put my business straight.”

Laughing: “And I really did swear a lot, I can tell you! Get out of your bed at six in the morning; then run eight kilometres and also three-quarters of an hour fitness. It was a nightmare. Our coach, a Vietnam veteran, didn’t let the grass grow under your feet. It seemed as if I did end up in a scene of Full Metal Jacket. (With a strong American accent:) ‘You better not give up on me, Winters. I am watching you. Your ass is mine!’ In the end things really improved and after ten days I had no problems with giving orders all around.”

Apart from the comradeship and struggle of a group of young soldiers, Band of Brothers also portrays the terror and pure horror of a war. Did participating in a drama that doesn’t at all glorify the war alter the way he views military intervene? In a resolute tone: “Absolutely. I think that the term ‘citizen soldiers’ hit the nail on the head. Because soldiers are nothing else than young lads: normal civilians, like you and me, who are placed in extraordinary situations. With all horrible effects. You can see it now in Afghanistan. On CNN they calmly say: ‘The groundtroops are put in action’. Does anybody has the faintest idea what that really means? What it means for a hardly 19 years old boy to be send in a tunnel in a rock? The fear that he will feel? The fear his opponent feels?”

“I think that it is best if we try to avoid war situations as much as possible. It is said that you can’t negotiate with terrorists, but history teaches us that even widely acclaimed political organisations in the end have to sit around the table with terrorists in order to negotiate an agreement. The viewing of Band of Brothers at this specific time is ideal, because after watching this series the viewer will even more be inclined to say that sending young people to the front is a more than bad thing.”