Press Archive

Woman’s Own
May 19, 2003
By Karen Hockney

The Forsyte Saga’s Damian Lewis on reprising his role as Soames and aging on screen.

Me, myself and Irene

It’s a freezing cold autumn day at Liverpool Cricket Club, and the sight of dozens of people milling about in period costume is an incongruous one. The sports club is the setting for the second series of The Forsyte Saga, doubling today for Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, and the familiar faces from last year’s first series are bustling around the set. When ITV announced it was remaking the classic series 30 years after the original, critics and viewers alike waited with baited breath to see the results. With the attention to period detail, lavish sets at country homes all over England and sterling performances from Damian Lewis, Gina McKee and Rupert Graves, it was a huge success.

The intriguing story of Soames Forsyte’s unrequited love for his wife, Irene, continues in the new series. The action is taken up 20 years on, with Soames finally finding joy as the proud father of Fleur, his daughter from his second marriage, and Irene happily ensconced with Jolyon and their son, Jon. But Soames, played by Damian Lewis, still carries a torch for Irene (Gina McKee), and life is complicated further when their children fall in love with each other, to their parents’ horror. ‘Fleur has her father wrapped around his little finger,’ says Damian, 32, as we chat in his trailer. ‘But when she falls in love with Jon, their romance rekindles old bitterness and jealousies between the aging Soames and Irene, and they do everything they can to stop the relationship. It all takes place over a few weeks this time, rather than years, and there’s a lot going on.’

Soames is not the most sympathetic of characters, Damian is happy to admit. ‘He behaves appallingly but he’s totally driven by his frustration of how much he adores Irene. He’s a very repressed character and that’s fun to play – there’s so much bubbling under the surface.’

Like the rest of the cast, Damian, who starred in Steven Spielberg’s epic TV series Band of Brothers and, more recently, in the Stephen King movie adaptation, Dreamcatcher, had to age dramatically for the new series, and his wrinkles and liver spots look amazingly realistic. ‘Here, have a feel,’ he says, tilting his face towards me so I can examine his heavy lines at close quarters. ‘The make-up people use this stuff called “green marvel”. It’s like latex but much harder, and it sets like concrete. You layer it up and the liver spots go on top. It takes about 45 minutes – which isn’t too bad, but it’s longer than I’m used to spending in make-up. I’m supposed to be in my sixties and I’m trying to work out whether I’m going to look like this in the future.’

With around 140 people on set and lots of extras milling about, there are plenty of big quilted jackets being worn over the top of flimsy period dresses. When Gina McKee arrives in the afternoon, she’s dressed for the weather in a black fleece, jeans and boots. Like Damian, Gina, who has starred in the BBC’s Our Friends in the North and The Lost Prince, and on the big screen alongside Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, had no hesitation about agreeing to a second series. ‘I’m usually slightly cautious because my primary decision to say yes tends to hinge on the script,’ she says. ‘But when you don’t know what next year’s script is going to look like, it’s more of a leap of faith. You can get guarantees that it will move in a certain direction, but they aren’t written in blood. The thing about The Forsyte Saga, being based on a book, is that we have a narrative we know we’re going to stick to. I thought we were in good hands, so I had no reservations.’

Nor was she worried about comparisons with the original series, which was broadcast in 1967. “I didn’t know much about the original, other than that is was very successful. People still hold it in a very positive light. But all you can do is your best. With those ingredients, I knew we could make a good stab at it. People did compare it to the original and my experience is that they compared it favourably. It’s really exciting that it’s gone so incredibly well.’

The Forsyte Saga returns to ITV1 on 25 May.