Crime and Peace of Mind with ‘Life’ Cops Damian Lewis and Donal Logue

In a world where threats and criminal acts occur by the minute, it must be a Herculean feat for a cop to take a Zen-like approach hunting down bad guys. But if you were perceived to be one of the bad guys in prison before being given a second chance to return to the world of law enforcement, would you re-think your quest for vengeance when you returned to the force? For actor Damian Lewis, stepping into the role of Detective Charlie Crews on NBC’s Life was a challenge in going against the grain of conventional TV cops. After all, if your character is a wrongfully accused ex-con cop, it’s not like you could draw inspiration from an officer gone sour like Harvey Keitel’s character in Bad Lieutenant.

As for actor Donal Logue who plays Lewis’ boss, Captain Tidwell, taking a Zen-like approach to his own life has been the best approach to not only his character but also his career. In many ways, Life has been good for both of them.

With Life fitting nicely into its new Wednesday, 9 pm timeslot on NBC, our own Troy Rogers spent a few quiet minutes alone to get into a Zen-like state before opening his eyes and ears to find himself on a conference call with Life actors Damian Lewis and Donal Logue.

THE DEADBOLT: Which mall did you guys shoot Black Friday in?

DAMIAN LEWIS: It was a mall down in Delano. Was it Delano? Yeah, that’s right.

DONAL LOGUE: Delano, yeah, Redondo Beach area, kind of Manhattan Beach. South Bay.

LEWIS: It was in South L.A. Why, did you like the look of the stores? Are you going to go do your Christmas shopping? There were some good bargains going on. I did some shopping, I’m telling you.

THE DEADBOLT: I read that the addition of Donal would lighten your workload. How has that turned out?

LEWIS: They lied.

LOGUE: That’s not true at all.

LEWIS: Well, it lightens my workload in that - and he’ll never hear me say this again - but it’s such a joy working with him. And I think it’s really just improved the dynamic in the police station. Donal’s character, Tidwell, he has no responsibility to the conspiracy story. He’s kind of like a floating satellite and he can come in and wreck things, and influence things, and affect things, and then leave again as much as they want him to.

And, you know, already we’ve seen him be integrated into our lives in a more personal way with his relationship with Reese, which is fantastic. And he’s got his whole fish-out-of-water story going, which is this abrasive, un-PC, Manhattan cop landed in PC LA. So there are a lot of fun dynamics there. I mean it just makes it more enjoyable. Do I get half days off now? No, I’d be lying if I said that. Usually because if there’s a half day then Donal, then I’m doing scenes from episodes we haven’t finished yet. So…

THE DEADBOLT: How do you see Charlie and Ted’s relationship evolving?

LEWIS: Oh, well, I think they will for the time being remain firm friends. Ted has a financial acumen that Crews does not have and I think there’s potential for Ted to be set some kind of challenge which may affect his relationship with Charlie. He may be asked to make a choice. People might try and get to him in order to get to me. Already we’re seeing a little bit of that with his return to prison, which will be coming in upcoming episodes.

Don’t give that away to the viewers just yet, but there’s possibility there because he holds so much of Charlie’s money and is really a trustee of Charlie’s money. So there’s potential there. But otherwise I think they’ll remain good friends. And, you know, they’re kind of like Oscar and Felix.

THE DEADBOLT: Donal, you mentioned that Tidwell is a character that you’ve never really played before. What drew you to him when you first read the script?

LOGUE: I was more drawn to - because I didn’t know who he would be exactly - I was kind of more drawn to Rand Ravich and Far Shariat, who I had met, because I had discussed with them the possibility of doing the show called [MR7] they did, which was actually a really neat show [that] ended up being with a mutual friend of mine and Damian’s, Donny Wahlberg. And so I liked those guys.

And I was always a fan of Damian so, you know, it was more just talking to them about what the possibilities could be, because I didn’t know exactly who he would be - how bombastic, how crude. And I’m not saying he’s really those - he’s as much as I thought he might be in that way, but it was just interesting. It was very different from stuff I had been doing, kind of immediately before it, so I think the juxtaposition felt even more severe.

But I really kind of love the dynamic and I haven’t really thought about it as much as - I think Damian described it really well. You know, I get to be this like free-floating satellite who isn’t tied to some of the broader conspiracy things. And it’s fun because every week of television there’s kind of an [option] to re-invent yourself, or there’s a chance for them to show something about your character that had been …

You know, I always feel like he has some things that we haven’t revealed yet that make him who he is. And so you always have this chance to redeem yourself, and I look forward to kind of in serialized acting the way one-hour television is. So unlike a film where if you’re kind of plugging through a film two-thirds of the way through and you have no clue where you’re going, and you’re in trouble, here it kind of actually works to your advantage.

THE DEADBOLT: What can you tell me about your upcoming project 1%?

LOGUE: I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s not going to happen at HBO. It was a really exciting thing, and it was kind of a really cool project, but maybe they felt like there are too many biker shows on the air right now or something like that? But it was neat because it wasn’t very “tough guy”, it was more character driven. And this guy Michael Tolkien, who’s a brilliant writer, wrote it.

I haven’t even been in that world for so long. I’ve just been enmeshed in Life and I love finally being able to give myself completely to Life in my mind, because in this work, as we go through as actors, sometimes there’s something behind you and something ahead of you that’s affecting where you’re at. And so now I can just kind of just be Zen-like, like Charlie Crews, and just kind of go with the flow of what I’m doing on this show.

Other Conference Call Highlights:

Donal Logue on his many comic book movie roles:

“It’s interesting because I really wasn’t a big comic book guy. And I think people assumed I am and I have been. But I have a lot of respect for the genre and I have a lot of friends who were really into comic books. And I kind of existed on the periphery of a scene of guys who were into fantasy and comic books and D&D and things when I was in high school and college.

“I think just being in Blade, trying to put me in that comic that Marvel world and Ghost Rider and things like that. But I love comic book villains because this English comic book writer, James Robinson, wrote a script about the people who have given their lives to comic books and how there’s kind of a broader world out there.

“And, you know, it’s really fun… there’s a real joy in acting to be able to just give yourself to being a vampire. One thing absurd sometimes is on Ghost Rider, for instance, a lot the fans come down hard on the film adaptation of the comic book. And part of me, honestly, has to say, ‘Look, you’ve got a skeleton on fire on a motorcycle. At what point do we really need to get too nit-picky about the criticism dramatically?’ I actually enjoy doing something like Life a lot more because it’s just realistic. It’s just kind of this element of ‘the real’ to it that I like.”

Damian Lewis on fans still recognizing him from Band of Brothers:

“Yes, I’m still convincing people I didn’t win the second World War. It can be quite overwhelming. But I mean, yes, what a privilege to have been involved in telling that story. I’ve said before I was slow to realize the enormity of the [scope] and the importance of the project and of the story and the task in hand to represent those guys well and responsibly.

“So having committed it to it like that with thirty other guys, we kind of developed our own band of brothers. And those guys are good friends and we got married together and had children together over the last seven, eight years and we all hang out together.

Life Partners: Damian Lewis and Donal Logue Speak Out

This season, Life fans were given a treat in the form of Donal Logue, the veteran actor (Blade, Grounded for Life) who came in to play the role of New York transplant Captain Tidwell, the new boss of Detectives Crews and Reese. We got a chance to join in on a conference call to interview Logue and Damian Lewis (Crews) about some interesting developments for the show, including Rachel’s imminent departure, Crews’ daddy issues and why six seasons sounds about right.

You’re both very funny in the show — how much is on the page and how much just comes out between the two of you?

Damian Lewis: Well, we’re both unintentionally funny. That’s a problem.

Donal Logue: I actually really enjoy playing comedy in a dramatic setting; if there’s funny moments, that’s great, but it doesn’t have to be the focus. And, you know, Damian is pretty hysterical. I actually kind of wish that some more of the kind of play that we have just while we’re working found its way into the dynamic between them.

Will your love lives on the show become increasingly complicated?

Donal Logue: You know, it’s interesting, because we’ve always joked around in my circle that you should beware if your girlfriend comes back from work and someone has really pissed her off. If she keeps talking about someone who really got under her skin, that person is the threat. But what’s interesting about Tidwell is that he so casually, I think, has started to plot out this broader trajectory for [his and Reese's] relationship, almost without even discussing it with her.

Damian Lewis: And Crews is Crews. The show is a lot about wish fulfillment, and I think we still want to see Crews having more fun. So I think it won’t be an end to the random bubblegum blondes that fall in his lap, you know, metaphorically and literally. But clearly his ex-wife is the love of his life and has always been, and Connie was his salvation. So while he was in prison they served slightly different purposes. But I think there’s still more fun for him to have before it all gets too serious.

So, Donal, does Captain Tidwell look down on the cops in L.A., or look up to them, or just generally find them funny?

Donal Logue: Tidwell is the character that probably understand least of any character I’ve ever played. I think that there was a broader kind of antagonism that I was supposed to show the city of Los Angeles, the department, the character of Charlie Crews. But at the same time, I can’t help but throw in the character having a lot of respect for Charlie Crews and liking him, and liking his quirkiness, and liking his sense of humor. And so I feel like I have my foot on the brake and on the gas simultaneously. So there are times that I’m just kind of surprised in which direction I go as well, and which direction the character goes.

In the episode “Jackpot,” we saw Crews go out to work on a case with Jessie Schram’s character, Rachel. Are we going to be seeing more and more of the two of them working together in the future? What’s it like working with Jessie?

Damian Lewis: Jessie is gorgeous. She is the sweetest girl and a really good actress. Rachel feels abandoned by Crews, who’s basically trying to be a single parent with Ted’s help — so it’s a little bit like having two dads, although I obviously make Ted make an apron when we’re at home. But to be honest, I think there’ll come a point in the next few episodes where her character is put to bed for the time being. I think it’ll be too dangerous for her to be around, because the evil elements in Crews’ life will come for her. After that I don’t know what’ll happen. She certainly won’t disappear for good, but I think she’ll go away for a little while.

Donal, you’ve played so many different characters on TV and in films — what character do fans just automatically recognize you from when they see you out and about?

Donal Logue: It’ll tell you who the fan is. There’s people who really liked the movie Blade. And Grounded for Life was interesting because it’s the first time I was on a television show that was on for a long time. It kind of had a weird afterlife in syndication and in different countries and stuff.

Damian, have you been told how much longer Charlie’s investigation into the conspiracy is going to continue? Will it last as long as the show does?

Damian Lewis: Well, this may sound cynical, but you never know in network TV, so I think the guys work as well as they can to tie up some loose ends at potential stopping points for the TV show, you know, when the TV show might just be no more. So there will be some kind of answer given at the end of this season. But it’ll also be left open in anticipation that we’ll get a third season. And if we get a third season… you’ve seen the Crew’s conspiracy board in Crews’ closet. There were six conspirators. Now, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but that sounds like six seasons to me. ]]> http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/interviews/20081118-twop-life-partners-damian-lewis-and-donal-logue-speak-out/feed/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081116-los-angeles-times-%e2%80%98life%e2%80%99-support-from-nbc/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081116-los-angeles-times-%e2%80%98life%e2%80%99-support-from-nbc/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:13:10 +0000 mokulen37 http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/?p=588 Los Angeles Times
16 November 2008
By Maria Elena Fernandez
Source

‘Life’ support from NBC

The critically acclaimed cop show with Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi has the goods, but needs the viewers.

Charlie Crews is a patient man. But how much longer is this Zen-striving Los Angeles police detective supposed to wait for TV viewers to discover that they can’t live without his quick wit, astute observations or sparkling red hair?

Even a man seeking to have no worldly attachments would find it difficult to ignore the sophomore slump that afflicts not only his show, NBC’s critically acclaimed ” Life,” but all prime-time television this season as well. No show that had its first season truncated by the writers strike last year has yet bounced back in the ratings.

But “Life” did receive a double-boost this month when NBC moved it back to Wednesdays from the dark hole of Fridays and gave it a full-season order. The drama, which stars Damian Lewis as the police detective who wrongfully spent 12 years in prison, registered 8 million viewers per show last year and has averaged just 6 million this season. Despite the ratings dip, NBC, much as it has done with critically acclaimed, low-rated shows such as ” Friday Night Lights” and ” 30 Rock,” is sticking by “Life.”

“We’re trying to get ‘ Desperate Housewives’ or ‘House’ to be our lead-in,” joked creator Rand Ravich, wishing that he could steal those shows from ABC or Fox.

“It’s a confusing time in network television. But to the network’s credit, so far, they’re not equating the numbers to the show. They’re saying it’s got to do with where we’re putting you or promoting you and what your lead-in is. They love the show.”

Or maybe the three-month labor stoppage should be blamed. The only two sophomore shows being embraced by viewers are the CW’s “Gossip Girl” and CBS’ ” The Big Bang Theory,” the only series that returned with original episodes after the strike. NBC’s ” Chuck,” and ABC’s “Pushing Daisies” and “Dirty Sexy Money” are still struggling to find an audience.

You’d think it would be easy for Charlie Crews to gain a following — after all, many cop shows, even new ones such as CBS’ ” The Mentalist,” command big audiences. And Crews is not just a cop: He’s a great detective, with a sunny, empathetic disposition; a penchant for fruit; and a beautiful, troubled partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi). Framed for homicide, Crews lost his badge and was sent to prison; he used the time to become a better person, learning to live in the moment.

“I enjoy Crews’ contradictions,” said Lewis, during a scene break underneath the 6th Street bridge in downtown L.A. for an episode that will air Wednesday. “I enjoy the blend of dark and light and the possibilities that are presented to you when you’re able to write a character with a totally blank canvas.”

Like Crews, the show itself is light and dark and defies genre, making it a challenge to promote. Is it a procedural? A serialized drama? A dramedy?

It could even claim to be a bit of a mystery, given an ongoing story line within the show involving a documentary about Crews being shot by an anonymous source. (It’s such a mystery, in fact, that Ravich will not even discuss it.)

The show is all — and none of — these things. Perhaps, the best way to describe “Life” is it starts and ends with Crews’ character.

“We could really enjoy great extravagant things with him and let him make mistakes and always forgive him because he went through such a dark period in his life,” executive producer Far Shariat said. “But at the same time he can be a little damaged. There’s a lot of arbitrarily quirky characters on TV — people who seem a little bit different or weird for the heck of it — and this seemed like a grounded place to come from.”

The show’s underlying conspiracy — who framed Crews, and why? — is the dramatic engine driving the program.

Last year, the detective discovered who committed the triple homicide he was wrongly imprisoned for, but he still hasn’t figured out who orchestrated it. The clues, so far, lead to as many as six people.

“Charlie had this very visceral moment when he found the actual guy who should have been sitting in that cell for 12 years,” Ravich said. “He found him but he has to ask himself: Can I let him go? If there are people out there who are responsible for doing this damage to you and perhaps to other people, as Zen as he would like to be, Charlie can’t let it go. Is his life going to be this endless quest to answer these questions, which is a kind of prison, or can he be free? We like to think of Charlie Crews as failing at Zen.”

Indeed, by the end of the shortened first season, Crews had returned to a darker psychological place, but this year found him in a lighter mood, even joyous. The show adopted a more casual look, which included dropping partner Reese’s leather jacket and loosening her tight hair bun, and reveled in using Los Angeles as its backdrop.

“There’s so much beautiful, available sunlight here,” Ravich said. As Crews is moving “through these dark things, we wanted to counterbalance that with a lot of it happening in a world of light.”

Katherine Pope, president of Universal Media Studios, which produces the show, calls the professional relationship between Crews and Reese the “second coming of Mulder and Scully” from “The X-Files.” Beyond the cliched “cop partners who don’t get along,” the pair’s relationship is further complicated by the role Reese’s father may have played in Crews’ imprisonment.

“There is a world according to Charlie Crews. Part of that is that everything happens for a reason and everything is connected,” said Pope. “That might sound silly, but coming out of his life, with all the darkness, that can’t help but be affecting. And that’s what Dani responds to. Her problems seem small compared to what he’s been through and he’s still got a smile on his face and tries to enjoy a good piece of fruit or a beautiful sunset.”

As time has passed, Reese has grown more comfortable with the partner she didn’t originally want. And slowly, she’s been piecing together her father’s involvement in Crews’ setup.

But her blossoming romantic relationship with her new boss (Donal Logue) could work against her — and threaten her sobriety.

“It’s a natural progression of the dynamic of partners,” Shahi said. “At first, she was not amused by him at all. She’s the straight-laced one, the scientist. He’s got a kooky, Zen way of seeing inside people and together they’re able to solve the crime.”

In “Badge Bunny,” this week’s episode, the two detectives find themselves knee-deep in the world of police officers and the women who love them. Some fans have complained that Crews’ personal story — that is, the investigation of the conspiracy behind his arrest — has taken a back seat to the crime stories this sea- son.

But as Crews knows, patience can be a virtue — because at the end of this week’s episode, neither Crews nor the viewers will know what hit them.

Fernandez is a Times staff writer.]]> http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081116-los-angeles-times-%e2%80%98life%e2%80%99-support-from-nbc/feed/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081112-twop-24-to-life-in-the-name-of-the-father/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081112-twop-24-to-life-in-the-name-of-the-father/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:13:11 +0000 mokulen37 http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/?p=591 TWoP - The Telefile Blog
12 November 2008
by Daniel Manu
Source

24 to Life: In the Name of the Father

“No Zen for Daddy,” is how Detective Charlie Crews summed up his feelings for his estranged father way back in the pilot episode of Life. Crews has had plenty of antagonists, both personal and professional, to deal with since then, leaving his parental issues simmering on the narrative back burner. But ever since the bare details about an upcoming episode featuring Charles Crews Sr. were leaked online, fans of the show have been wondering: who’s going to play the dad, and what’ll happen when they finally meet for the first time since Charlie’s release from prison?

To find out, we went straight to Charlie himself, actor Damian Lewis. And much to our surprise (and perhaps NBC’s publicists as well), he was happy to address both questions during a media conference call held today.

Filling the role of the senior Crews will be the familiar face of Geoff Pierson, perhaps best remembered as Senator (later President) John Keeler on the third and fourth seasons of 24. More recently, he’s been seen as Captain Matthews on Dexter. “A great actor,” Lewis said. “We filmed [the episode] just a couple of days ago. We had a lot of fun.”

Just don’t expect that light-hearted behind-the-scenes vibe to translate on-screen. This apparently won’t be anyone’s idea of a typical father-and-son reunion. “It’s pretty dramatic when his arrives. Actually, it’s nearly disastrous,” Lewis added. “Charlie holds his dad responsible for not allowing his mother to come to visit him when he was in prison 12 years ago. His dad had, I think, disowned him to a large extent. So there’s a lot of animosity there, and when they see each other, it’s unintentionally aggressive and hostile with almost catastrophic repercussions.”

“He’s getting married, of course, to this hot, smoking young girl, Christina Hendricks from Mad Men, and Ted [Adam Arkin] is busy falling in love with her while she’s about to get married to my dad. So, you know, business as usual at the Crews residence: just anarchy and chaos.”

Personally, we’ve been waiting for this particular storyline to finally bubble to the surface — heck, anything that gives Hendricks more screen-time is fine by us — and Pierson is definitely inspired casting. Besides a slight physical resemblance to Lewis, he’s one of those actors that brings a certain depth and gravitas to every role he plays. (Well, maybe not Unhappily Ever After.)

What do other Life fans think? Was he the best choice? Post your comments below. ]]> http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081112-twop-24-to-life-in-the-name-of-the-father/feed/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/the-climb/2008-11-05-screen-daily-goalpost-starts-sales-on-jean-charles-de-menezes-story-brazuca/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/the-climb/2008-11-05-screen-daily-goalpost-starts-sales-on-jean-charles-de-menezes-story-brazuca/#comments Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:22:37 +0000 mokulen37 http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/?p=567 Screen Daily
05 Nov 2008
Wendy Mitchell

Goalpost starts sales on Jean Charles de Menezes story Brazuca Wendy Mitchell in Santa Monica

Brazuca, the Jean Charles de Menezes project formerly known as Leave To Remain or Jean Charles, has finished principal photography after shooting in both the UK and Brazil.

UK-based Goalpost Film is launching international sales here at the AFM, and Imagem Group will handle Latin American sales. The film will be delivered in mid-2009.

The new title is the affectionate term Brazilians living abroad use for one another.

Henrique Goldman’s narrative drama is about an extended of Brazilian cousins who move to London, who experience big dreams and joie-de-vivre of the expat community but also shows hardship and tragedy (27-year-old innocent electrician Menezes was mistaken for a terrorist and shot dead by police following London’s 2005 bombings).

Producers for the unofficial UK-Brazilian co-production are Luke Schiller of Mango Films, Carlos Nader of Ja Filmes, and Goldman. Executive producers include Stephen Frears and Ken Loach’s longtime producer Rebecca O’Brien.

Goldman also co-wrote the screenplay with Marcelo Starobinas. Guillermo Escalon serves as DoP, Kerry Kohler will edit, and acclaimed composer Nitin Sawhney is writing the score.

Other backing comes from the UK Film Council’s Development Fund and New Cinema Fund and Brazil’s Imagem Group, Paulinia Regional Fund and Teleimage Post-Production Services.

Selton Mello (Drained) stars as Jean Charles de Menezes with Vanessa Giacomo playing his wide-eyed cousin and Ae Fond Kiss star Eva Birthistle playing his love interest.

“I am thrilled to have assembled such a brilliant international cast who will bring this remarkable, tragic yet uplifting story to the big screen,” director Goldman said.

Producers Luke Schiller and Carlos Nader added: “We too are delighted to have brought together such a remarkable and exciting cast. The complex and fascinating relationship between the principal characters will take the audience on a journey to the heart of London’s vibrant Brazilian community.”

Tristan Whalley and Nicki Parfitt’s London-based Goalpost Films has a slate that also includes Chinese family film Happy Ever After, Australian drama Elise starring Natalie Imbruglia, Damian Lewis mountaineering comedy The Climb, and Rupert Wyatt’s Sundance hit The Escapist.

You can’t be a proper TV cop without a gimmick or a past. Charlie Crews has both. He went to prison for murder, a crime he didn’t commit, and spent 12 years being beaten up by the other inmates and studying Zen Buddhism. Now he’s out, with a hefty settlement nestling in his bank, and he’s back working as a detective in Los Angeles. Of course he’s been changed by his ordeal. He’s fond of Zen musings (repeating statements such as “I’m not attached to this car” with great intensity) and is totally out of touch with modern life (a bit like Life on Mars in reverse). As for that gimmick - it’s fruit. Crews just loves fresh fruit. Damian Lewis, who plays him, softens these idiosyncrasies by giving Crews a generous, gentle side, too - not many cops would soothingly tell someone they’ve just shot to “go back to sleep - it’s just a bad dream”. The result is quirky without being irritating, and intriguing without being too clever. We get a double bill tonight; let’s see whether this Life is a long one.

LA Notebook

A thorny question

Damian Lewis rudely interrupted my Sunday morning by jaywalking across the road opposite Santa Monica’s farmers’ market.

The ginger-nut actor was clutching a single white rose which – presuming it was a gift for his actress wife Helen McCrory – raises serious questions about his personal judgement.

As any fool knows, white roses are strictly for weddings and funerals (and are unlucky on other occasions). Did that expensive Eton education teach Lewis nothing?

On Crews Control…

Life Thursday, Itv3, 10pm

NEW! Damian Lewis wowed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic as the US officer leading the Band of Brothers, and now he plays an American again to become Charlie Crews, a brilliant but eccentric cop freed from jail after serving 12 years for a triple murder.

New DNA evidence clears him and he knows he was framed so, alongside a weekly crime to solve, Crews is determined to find out who put him in the frame and why.

He insists on getting his old job back, though thanks to a megabucks settlement he has no need to work.

He drives a Bentley, moves to a mansion, and displays enough eccentricities to unnerve police partner Dani Reese (Sara Shahi) before impressing her with his insights. Twelve years inside have given him an obsession with detail and a knowledge of Zen Buddhism, which he uses to control the anger that bubbles within and sometimes erupts with volcanic consequences.

But he has also learned to love life and appreciate freedom - hence the car, the house and the girls.

Damian says: “It slightly subverts the genre of your cop show. We’re used to seeing gritty, realistic, procedural cop shows - this is much lighter, all based on the fact this man comes out of prison radically altered. He has a cracked personality.”

It’s a bit like House (Englishman as gifted American eccentric) and very good fun. ]]> http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081025-the-daily-record-on-crews-control/feed/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/interviews/20081025-telegraph-damian-lewis-life/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/interviews/20081025-telegraph-damian-lewis-life/#comments Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:25:58 +0000 mokulen37 http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/?p=580 Telegraph
24 October 2008
by Michael Deacon
Source

Damian Lewis: Life

Damian Lewis, star of ITV’s new US series Life, tells Michael Deacon about his role as an ex-convict, being a British actor in America and his love of bicycles

Charlie Crews, the character Damian Lewis plays in Life – ITV’s new drama import from America – is perpetually defeated by modern technology. Lewis isn’t too hot on it himself. The London-born 37-year-old can’t stand Facebook, worries that video games are a threat to the film business and struggles with text messages. When we meet he is wrestling with his mobile phone: ‘Sorry, I’ve just got to text my sister-in-law, who’s a tyrant – if I don’t text back within half an hour she shouts at me,’ he says. ‘My text response time is usually about two days.’ His mobile, grey and chunky, is a model so antiquated that most teenagers would probably mistake it for a TV remote control.

At least Crews has an excuse. At the beginning of the series, he’s just been released from a Californian prison, where he spent 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit (which explains his bafflement about gadgets invented in the meantime). Having received compensation for wrongful imprisonment, he returns to his old job: detective. But now he’s not only tackling run-of-the-mill murders – he’s trying to find out who framed him all those years ago.

He’s not some ‘hard-bitten’ cop show stereotype, though. What marks Life out from the usual police procedural is its ‘lightness of touch’, says Lewis, whose previous successes include Steven Spielberg’s Emmy-winning Second World War series Band of Brothers; Lewis was nominated for a Golden Globe as best actor.

‘Charlie is given his life back,’ he says. ‘And far from being this avenging vigilante, he’s a sort of chrysalis, if you like. He becomes this childlike lover of the new life that’s been given to him. It is of course also a way of suppressing a lot of anger. When those moments bubble up and you see anger in him, I think that roots it in credibility.’ advertisement

Lewis didn’t visit a prison when preparing for the part, but he did plenty of research, particularly when it came to the philosophical side of Crews’s character: ‘I read a bit of Zen, listened to a lot of Allen Carr – that’s wrong, he’s the cigarette guy. Alan Watts, the 1960s philosopher – he’s been discredited by so many people but he was such a magnetic figure, bringing the idea of Zen and Eastern cultures into the West. I’ve been listening to his tapes, which is a soothing way to go to work, hearing about how godless the universe is…’

He also did a lot of reading about American prison life. ‘The homosexuals, interestingly, all deflect attention from themselves in a way that you think would be attention-grabbing,’ he says. ‘They actually make themselves more effeminate: wear lipstick, develop a bit of a walk. That way they make themselves non-threatening, and they get left alone more.’ He pauses, demonstrating the kind of deadpan comic timing he uses in Life. ‘Reminds me of school.’

School was Eton – he was there in the Eighties, when going to public school (and in particular that public school) was about the least cool thing you could do, because of Thatcher and ‘aspirational Conservatism’, he says (with no air of resentment). He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His big break came when Spielberg saw him in a production of Hamlet directed by Sam Mendes, and cast him in Band of Brothers in 2001. He’s since appeared in ITV’s adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, Steven Soderbergh’s Keane and the teenage spy film Stormbreaker.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Lewis’s career is how often he plays characters with American accents: ‘I take great pride in the fact that, on the whole, people think I’m American,’ he says. Intriguingly, there have been quite a few other British actors doing American accents on US television in recent years: Hugh Laurie (House), Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies), Dominic West (The Wire), Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman)…

Surely Hollywood isn’t so short of homegrown actors that it needs to hire British stars to play American roles. ‘Hollywood is hungry for new blood all the time – if the studio fail to get that, they’re in trouble financially,’ Lewis explains. ‘And there are few thirtysomething American actors that the American public don’t already know.’ He suspects that some American actors resent the British, in a ‘they come over here, take our jobs’ type of way, but he thinks this is daft: ‘The industry is global, people go backwards and forwards constantly.’

Lewis won’t be going backwards and forwards for much longer, though. He has two children (daughter Manon, two, and son Gulliver, born last November) with his wife, the actress Helen McCrory (who played Cherie Blair in The Queen with Helen Mirren). When he’s shooting Life he brings the family to stay in Santa Monica with him, but he can’t see them much: ‘A regular day on set is 13 hours,’ he says. Because of the hours, Life will be the last TV series he makes, he says.

If he can be tempted back to TV, let’s hope it’s to guest present Have I Got News for You again. He did it superbly in 2006 (making an impressive off-the-cuff pun about Friesian cows); team captain Ian Hislop says Lewis was one of the panel show’s best hosts.

‘Actually, this is a good opportunity for me to say this,’ he says. ‘In the lead-up to the filming [of HIGNFY], I accepted a horrible put-down [from the writers] in which I basically rubbished bicyclists. I get gyp about it every time I go in my local bicycle shop in Kentish Town. So I’ve always vowed that if I go on again I’ll make a public statement about how I love bicyclists and that I was weak and in desperate need of a gag… That’s never going to go in your article, is it?’

# Life is on ITV3 on Thursday at 10.00pm and 11.00pm ]]> http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/interviews/20081025-telegraph-damian-lewis-life/feed/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081024-tvguidecom-lifes-damian-lewis-shakes-things-up/ http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081024-tvguidecom-lifes-damian-lewis-shakes-things-up/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:31:54 +0000 mokulen37 http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/?p=583 TVGuide.com
24 October 2008
by Mickey O’Connor
Source

Life’s Damian Lewis Shakes Things Up

“Little fazes Charlie Crews,” says Damian Lewis of the Zen-stabilized, wrongly jailed homicide detective he plays on NBC’s Life. Oh yeah? How about an earthquake?

We’ll find out Friday, Oct. 24 (10 pm/ET) when Crews & Co. deal with a crime wave in the aftermath of said tremor in “Did You Feel That?”, an episode that includes a combination jailbreak and armored-car heist by a familiar bad guy. On July 29, life imitated Life, as there was an actual earthquake in Los Angeles. Lewis told TVGuide.com his quake story, and then detailed some other shocking things that will shake out this season.

Lewis was on set between takes during the July quake. “I thought that the facilities boys had attached a truck to my trailer to move it without knowing I was in it,” he recalls. “It was moving back and forth, so I stuck my head out the door, and nobody was there. Then some guy came running up to my door and said, ‘Did you feel that?’” — hence the title of the episode.

Lewis’ TV alter ego — and his partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi) — are nonplussed by the tremors. Crews in particular is cool as a cucumber. “He delights in every new experience. He has already experienced so much terror in his life that everything fascinates him in a childlike way,” Lewis says. “He’s in a position to be free of the normal everyday neuroses the rest of us have,” unlike, say, Donal Logue’s Captain Tidwell, whose reaction to the earthquake is decidedly more dramatic.

Yes, Crews is downright mellow, which is odd considering his history. He was wrongly convicted of murdering his former partner and his family and sentenced to life in prison. After 12 years inside, he was freed and awarded a large ($40-50 million) settlement for his trouble. Also, while he was in prison, his wife left him and remarried. “You can’t be sent away to prison for life and feel OK about it,” says Lewis. This season, he says, Charlie’s Zen-like calm will be challenged in several ways. As he realizes that he has yet to find the man who set him up, a larger conspiracy will take shape. He’ll deal with the on-again, off-again relationship he has with his ex-wife. And… he’ll become a surrogate dad.

Consulting the “conspiracy board,” we already know that there were six people involved in Charlie’s series of unfortunate events. At the TV previews this summer, producer Rand Ravich made it clear that Kyle Hollis might have pulled the trigger in the Seybolt murders, but that there are larger forces at work.

Finding out that Jack Reese, Dani’s father, is one of the six was certainly upsetting, but Lewis says to reserve judgment for now. Not only does Jack seem to have Rachel Seybolt’s best interests at heart, but “he may have been a more protecting figure than we thought.” Lewis says Charlie’s search to uncover the conspiracy will take him away from the insular world of the LAPD, and into the corridors of power. “He’ll be attending a lot of benefit dinners and charity galas,” he hints.

“They’re trying to do the right thing,” Lewis says of Charlie’s stop-start flirtation with his ex-wife, Jennifer. “At the moment, they’re very much in love. They want to be with each other, while trying to be respectful of the fact that’s she’s married.” Like when he asked Jennifer’s current husband, Mark, if he could sleep with her before he went ahead of did it — very respectful. This season will attempt to resolve that dilemma once and for all. “They either need to accept that they’re never going to be with each other and develop some kind of closure, or they’ll always be in love with each other,” says Lewis.

Now that Rachel has moved in with Charlie and Ted, “it’s rather like a gay family,” cracks Lewis. “Rachel has two dads.” Complicating things are Rachel’s close, familial relationships that she had with both Hollis and Jack Reese. “She grew up thinking that Charlie was the guy who killed her family. She’s as damaged as he is; they’re like two pieces of driftwood,” Lewis says. Domestic bliss will not come easily. “You’ll see her at times behave like a bulls— teenager,” says Lewis, revealing that they’ll fight about the amount of time Charlie’s job takes him away from home.

“It’s important to remember that Charlie is a little cracked,” Lewis emphasizes. “His eccentric tendencies are a result of his experiences. He wasn’t like that before.”

Charlie’s skewed look at reality will be reflected in the look of the show as well. “This season goes even more into a comic book or graphic novel kind of [direction] – the way the bad guys aren’t just bad guys, they’re villains; the girls aren’t just girls, they’re like molls, dames.” In a TV season packed with traditional, gritty cop dramas, Lewis says, Life allows viewers to “live in that fantasy world a bit more.”]]> http://www.damian-lewis.com/press/life/20081024-tvguidecom-lifes-damian-lewis-shakes-things-up/feed/