Damian Lewis
Actor, Dad, Redhead, and Ping Pong Champion
Categories Football/Soccer Gallery Sports Twitter

Legendary Footballer John Barnes Coaches a Young Damian Lewis

From the Archives

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | June 24, 2022

We have long suspected and can now definitively share that the photo above, which has been floating around the internet since 2015, is indeed a young Damian Lewis. A little backstory for you – Damian recently shared on The Anfield Wrap podcast with Andrew Heaton that he and some of his pals were coached by legendary footballer John Barnes during his Watford days. Since Barnes played for Watford from 1981–1987, that would make Damian somewhere between the ages of 10-16 during that timeframe.

To narrow down Damian’s age even more, video of The John Barnes Story documentary (26:20 in), which originally aired in 2015 on ITV 4 as part of the Sports Life Stories series, states Barnes found time to coach on the green playing fields of Eton College during his career and we know Damian attended Eton for five years, between ages 13-18. The documentary also states Barnes provided coaching sessions at Eton for “the under 14’s.” My guess, Damian is probably between the ages of 13-14 in this photo. We’d like to thank football fan Simon Corney for his initial clue shared on Twitter back in April, 2015. And finally, we’d like to thank Andrew Heaton who confirmed with the Fan Fun Team that the photo is in fact, Damian. Mystery solved 🙂 And if you need more confirmation, John Barnes confirmed himself:

View more images in our Gallery here

Categories Cricket Personal and Family Life Summertime

Chief Rivalry Cricket Match of the Summer – Aug 22, 2019

The Authors vs. The Actors XI, 2019

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | August 22, 2019

Source: Instagram @actorsxi

It was the biggest cricket match of the summer today, August 22, 2019, as The Authors took on their oldest rivals, The Actors at Eton College.

Over the past eight seasons The Authors have played cricket teams of priests, publishers, soldiers, lawyers, bankers, tea planters and prison guards but they could not score a ‘W’ against their chief rivalry The Actors.

Damian’s team scored a victory today as The Authors lost to The Actors by 39 runs, ending a five year losing streak. Cheers to Damian’s team, The Actors!

Sponsored by Rathbones, the match was umpired by John Betts and scored by Peter Harding. Stars of both screen and page participated in the match, including:

The Actors: Team Captain Damian Lewis, Nick Asbury, Ant Jardine, Nathan Lee, Lachlan Nieboer, Julian Ovenden, Geoff Streatfeild, William Troughton, Dan Tuite, Ben Willbond, and James Wrighton.

The Authors: Team Captain Charlie Campbell, Arthur Beard, Richard Beard, Ben Falk, Sebastian Faulks, Nicholas Hogg, Tom Holland, Jon Hotten, Vaseem Khan, Anthony McGowan, and Adam Rutherford.

To view more images of the match, please visit our Gallery here.

Categories Band of Brothers Billions Fashion and Style Hamlet Hearts & Bones Homeland Interviews Life Magazine The Goat or Who is Sylvia? Theatre Wolf Hall

Rake Magazine Interview: A True Leading Man – Feb 15, 2018

Easy Company

by Tom Chamberlin | The Rake Magazine | February, 2018

Source: The Rake Magazine – Photo by: Kalle Gustafsson

In an exclusive interview with The Rake, Damian Lewis tells Tom Chamberlin why we all, in spite of ourselves, love an anti-hero.

Lewis – from Life to Homeland, Wolf Hall to Billions – has become the finest purveyor of modern drama’s moral ambiguities. In fact, writes Tom Chamberlin, if you can think of an actor who has influenced our golden age of television more than him, speak up…

Among the more ambiguous archetypes of the celluloid age, that of ‘leading man’ is perhaps the least defined. Far from the specific criteria of commedia dell’arte and melodrama, in which the characters are demarcated (bad guy = black hat and moustachioed, etc.), the leading man is purely subjective. Arguably he is the origin of celebrity, pulling screen presence into the limelight of fame. But the list of leading men over the years has shown that no colour, size, hair, manner or cultural identity has ever had dominion over the sobriquet. That is until Damian Lewis entered the fray. For Lewis is a man who, above anything else, is an exemplar of leadership and integrity at a time when the acting world could use a dose of it.

Damian Lewis takes charge of rooms when he enters them. Photoshoots with celebrities are often led by either the photographer, who squeezes every image he or she can from the available time; the stylist, whose job is to make sure a well-curated variety of clothes appears in the magazine; or the publicist, who tends to be the powerbroker. The ‘talent’ can often struggle through the day (except, of course, former Rake cover subjects), regarding the experience as a necessary nuisance. Not so with Mr. Lewis.

Continue reading Rake Magazine Interview: A True Leading Man – Feb 15, 2018

Categories Print Media Voice Work

Damian Voices the Talking Statue of George Orwell, Part I – Nov 7, 2017

George Orwell Returns to Loom Over BBC and Damian Voices the Talking Statue

by Maev Kennedy – The Guardian – November 7, 2017

Source: Talking Statues London

George Orwell has returned to loom over the BBC. A larger-than-life statue of the author and former BBC employee has been unveiled outside Broadcasting House in London.

Orwell’s monument joins the regiment of talking statues, which can address any member of the public armed with a smart phone – his near neighbour, the sculpture of Ariel, by Eric Gill, over the main door of Broadcasting House, already talks back.

The Orwell statue is voiced by the actor Damian Lewis – who is, like the author, an Old Etonian. The school has also welcomed Orwell back, commissioning a replica of the portrait head to remind future generations of scholars that stroppy awkwardness is not necessarily a barrier to genius.

Read the rest of the original article at The Guardian

Categories Helen Personal and Family Life Print Media

Damian Lewis: My Family Values – April 14, 2017

Damian Lewis: My Family Values

The Homeland actor talks about going to boarding school aged eight, why his family notion of duty is not always helpful and how his mother told him not to marry an actor.

by  – The Guardian – April 14, 2017

“I wouldn’t want to impose a sense of duty on my children, but I think a sense of honour is always important” – Source: The Guardian

I grew up in London, one of four children. We were a very loud family, not a lot of listening, plenty of talking. My mum was a hearth mother, she loved to gather us all around her – Sunday lunches were a big thing. She was very good at thinking on her feet – people used to say she should go into politics.

My dad has always been very theatrical. He never worked in the theatre – he’s always worked in insurance – but in another life and another time, he could have done that. His love of the theatre meant I was always going to shows and plays as I was growing up; and then I started acting at school.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: My Family Values – April 14, 2017

Categories Magazine Print Media

The Appeal of Damian Lewis – Sept 4, 2013

Why We All Love Damian Lewis

by Rebecca Cope | Harper’s Bazaar | September 4, 2013

British actor Damian Lewis is no ordinary Hollywood hunk. In fact, at first glance, he’s far from it – where is the perma-tan, the blonde hair, the muscles? Lewis is a thoroughly British pin-up. With his strawberry blonde hair, pale skin and plummy accent, not to mention his impeccably posh pedigree, he’s part of a new group of power-Brits taking over the world. Not convinced? Let us analyse his appeal for you…

The Brody effect

As with all great performances, it’s extremely difficult to separate Damian Lewis the actor from Nick Brody the Homeland character. Damaged, brave, vulnerable, sexy and totally unpredictable, Brody is the ultimate reformed bad boy, and we want to rescue him. So. Much.

We all love redheads in 2013

Redhead, ginger, strawberry blonde – however you want to label it, russet hued locks are enjoying a serious vogue in the last few years. From Florence Welch to Lily ColePrince Harry to Jessica Chastain, anyone worth their salt knows that carrot-tops are cool – and woe betide anyone who denies it.

He’s a family man

Despite the fact that his fame has reached dizzying new heights since Homeland, Lewis is a family man at heart, more happy in the company of his wife Helen McCrory and their two two children, Manon and Gulliver.

He’s “well-brought-up”

Lewis is infamous for being polite, gentlemanly and an all-round nice guy, and that’s largely attributed to his background and education. Born in St John’s Wood, he’s related to two Lords (at least) went to Eton and was an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company. We rest our case.

He’s funny

As his previous stints as a guest host on Have I Got News For You in 2006, 2009, 2020 and 2012 have proven, Lewis is witty and intelligent, which is exactly how we like our Hollywood stars. Here he is being funny on the Jonathan Ross show.

See photoshoot and printed magazine version here
Read the rest of the original article at Harper’s Bazaar

Categories Interviews Print Media

The Double Life of Damian Lewis, Times/Sunday Times, September 22, 2012

Original article in the Times

AND HE DOES THE SCHOOL RUN…
From brooding Marine in Homeland to North London family man – Damian Lewis tells Robert Crampton about his double life

Good news for Homeland fans. The second season starts soon. Even better, Damian Lewis, when I ask him about the likelihood of a third season, says, “I think this show will run five or six years unless they screw it up. As long as we can keep it credible… I don’t see why we can’t just keep going on and on and on.” For those of us – 2.7 million of us, to be precise, very good for Sunday night Channel 4, and including every critic in the country, all of them in rapture – who spent Monday mornings this spring debating the twists and turns of the previous night’s episode, the promise, from the show’s co-star, no less, of lots more to come is thrilling indeed.

Continue reading The Double Life of Damian Lewis, Times/Sunday Times, September 22, 2012

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

Interview: Damian Lewis, actor and star of The Sweeney, The Scotsman, September 2, 2012

Interview: Damian Lewis, actor and star of The Sweeney Damian Lewis, actor and star of The Sweeney.

12:56 Sunday 02 September 2012

FRESH from the US hit Homeland, which won him fans in high places, Damian Lewis is relishing his role in a great British classic set on his home turf Continue reading Interview: Damian Lewis, actor and star of The Sweeney, The Scotsman, September 2, 2012

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

Damian Lewis: ‘You know you’ve hit the zeitgeist when Obama is your number one fan’, Evening Standard, April 2, 2012

Damian Lewis: ‘You know you’ve hit the zeitgeist when Obama is your number one fan’

The star of Sunday night’s most addictive drama, talks to Craig McLean about playing a Muslim, living between LA and London and why he couldn’t say no to Homeland

CRAIG MCLEAN
Monday 2 April 2012 11:01

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

Damian Lewis Interview, Channel 4, February 2, 2012

Damian Lewis interview

02 FEB 2012

You WILL answer our questions, Lewis…

The following feature is available free for reproduction in full or in part.

Damian Lewis is sitting opposite me, drinking tea in a wood-panelled library in a discreetly opulent Central London hotel. With his clipped Old Etonian accent and understated self-confidence, he seems the epitome of Englishness. Which is why it’s surprising that so many of his highest profile roles have been Americans.

Continue reading Damian Lewis Interview, Channel 4, February 2, 2012

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

Inside the Mind Game of Homeland, WSJ Speakeasy, October 28, 2011

Original article at WSJ

Categories Media Print Media Will

Damian Lewis: An Actor at the top of his game, The Independent, October 18, 2011

Damian Lewis: An actor at the top of his game

Damian Lewis’s new film focuses on football. He talks to Kaleem Aftab about sport, politics and the problems of acting with Keira Knightley

The Independent Culture

Football is a funny game with a strange habit of dividing families and testing loyalties. In any other circumstance, Damian Lewis would never dream of highlighting any differences he and his wife, the actress Helen McCrory, have over bringing up their children; indeed they always show the upmost discretion in interviews, but the beautiful game brings out a rarely seen masculine tribal instinct in Lewis.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: An Actor at the top of his game, The Independent, October 18, 2011