Press Archive

Ulster TV Quick
6-12 April 2002
Issue 15
by Richard Amold

Passion, Money and Adultery

The Forsyte Saga became a TV legend when it was first shown by the BBC in the Sixties. Now ITV has remade the epic – and it’s just as fantastic! This turn-of-the-century drama has passion, money and adultery and family rows. You’re going to love it – especially Damian Lewis as ice cold Soames…

Sitting in the teak effect interior of his trailer, away from the chilly liverpudlian wind, Damian Lewis looks a far cry from the elegant cad Soames Forsyte, his latest starring role in the remake of the classic TV series ‘The Forsyte Saga’ which starts on ITV1 this week. On location, Damian may be wearing the shabby but chic togs of your average jobbing actor, but this man is anything but. He is about to become a major star – the next big thing they reckon.

‘I think it’s important to be “the next big thing” for as long as possible so that people are still talking about you,’ says Damian, with a smile. ‘It seems that as soon as you actually become the big thing people start talking about someone else.’

He certainly doesn’t like playing the part of a star. There is no danger of Damian turning up at the Met Bar with his girlfriend Katie Razzall, a producer for Channel 4 news. This is one actor who loathes the thought of being part of todays celebrity cult.

‘I don’t think that will happen because of the sort of projects that I choose to be involved with’ he says, although Damian freely admits that in the future his choice of roles could be influenced by commercial reasons, as well. ”something that pays for the new shower, for example,’ he smirks.

This is a modest statement from a man who—thanks to the success of the US series Band Of Brothers and thc BBC drama Hearts And Bones – is now in the enviable position of calling the shots. Damian is certain]y a striking man and the fact that there aren’t many red-headed male leads certainly hasn’t hampered his career: ‘I try to avoid conversations about red hair, but I am now about to have one,’ he laughs.

‘I hadn’t realised the effect it had until I came out of the theatre on Broadway where I was playing, and these two Americans said, “God look at his hair! Red hair in Hamlet doesn’t go.”‘

Not that there is any danger of Damian falling out of favour with Americans. After hanging out with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks while making Band Of Brothers, there is no shortage of work on both sides of the Atlantic, so much so that our home-grown star even turned down a starring role in Ridley Scott’s recent blockbuster ‘Black Hawk Down’.

I was very flattered to be offered it because it meant that Hollywood producers and directors were thinking of putting me in their films, but I said no, because I had just played a soldier for nine months in Band Of Brothers.’

Confidence indeed. But then Damian, 31, feels he has reached an age where he can be confident. ‘I felt like a 12-year-old until I was 28,’ he savs. ‘Then 30 came and I thought “Now I feel like a man, and thats good.”

I realised that all those pretensions you have when you’re 19 are about trying to be 30. I don’t have to pretend any more.’

Much of Damian’s confidence stems from his close family life. His mother Charlotte was tragically killed last year in a car crash in India, and although she was able to visit her son on the set of Band Of Brothers, she never lived to see him blossom on the international stage. Not surprisingly, the family remains tightknit.

‘My mother had the most loving, giving and generous spirit, and my dad does as well,’ savs Damian. ‘As parents they were great. Really strict and quick to slam down on any ego crap. But they never left us in any doubt of how much we were loved.’

Next up for Damian is Dreamcatcher an adaptation of a Stephen King novel in which his character gets chased by aliens and becomes possessed by one.

‘I want to control my own career so I can travel between America and Britain. I suppose it is about wanting a little bit of celebrity, but not too much of all that sort of stuff,’ he explains. ‘As soon as you become a “celebrity” you miss out on certain roles, because you are only cast in “fashionable” projects and that is what I want to avoid, I still want to be asked to do the serious stuff. I am ambitious, I would like more than just an English career, I want an international career if I can have it.’

Damian should be careful. With that kind of attitude he is unlikely to remain the next big thing for much longer.