Damian Lewis
Actor, Dad, Redhead, and Ping Pong Champion
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 Media Personal and Family Life Print Media

Time and Place: Damian Lewis – Oct 30, 2011

From Camden Town and Manchester to Manhattan and Canada 

by Caroline Rees | Sunday Times | October 30, 2011

Camden was happening – and soon my career was, too. I never anticipated living in Camden Town. As an 18-year-old, I’d gone to the Crush nights at the Electric Ballroom, so I thought this part of north London was a place for students and people wearing tie-dye T-shirts. But I found a fantastic little house with a roof terrace in a gorgeous, very urban row of workmen’s cottages on Prowse Place, a cobbled mews tucked away between Camden and Kentish Town. I bought No 7 in 2001 and lived there for five years. I had Baz Bamigboye on one corner and Amy Winehouse on another. Continue reading Time and Place: Damian Lewis – Oct 30, 2011

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

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

Original article at WSJ

Categories Media Print Media Stolen

Damian Lewis: Back in Britain and Starring in Stolen – June 29, 2011

Damian Lewis: Back in Britain and starring in Stolen

The actor has no regrets about leaving Tinseltown for the mean streets of Manchester — and a spot of fishing.

Damian Lewis, the most famous screen redhead since Shirley Temple
Damian Lewis, the most famous screen redhead since Shirley Temple, BBC 

It’s given that most actors don’t have two ha’pennies to rub together. The London-born actor Damian Lewis seems keen to show he’s not one of them – during the interview he holds two pounds coins, clicking them together to punctuate points he is making. It might be a nervous affectation or a show of ostentation. Given the shiny blue suit and polished brogues that he is wearing at BBC TV Centre, it might well be the latter. This is after all, the actor who was thrust into the spotlight in the epic Spielberg- produced mini-series Band of Brothers in 2001, became an overnight sensation, the most famous screen redhead since Shirley Temple, and was whisked off to Hollywood in the wake of that show. But Hollywood didn’t quite work out, and after some dud films and a cancelled TV series, he is back in Britain, his latest role in a BBC TV film Stolen, an earnest, quietly moving film about child trafficking.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: Back in Britain and Starring in Stolen – June 29, 2011

Categories Interviews Media Personal and Family Life Print Media Stolen

Damian Lewis: Top of the Cops – June 27, 2011

Damian Lewis: Top of the Cops

He made his name playing troubled soldiers and driven detectives. Why has success left Damian Lewis so unsatisfied? He talks heroism and home life.

by with Maddy Costa – The Guardian – 27 June 27 2011

Damian Lewis
 ‘I wasn’t humble enough’ … Damian Lewis. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Subtlety and restraint are Damian Lewis’s hallmarks as an actor. His ability to convey a character’s innermost thoughts with just a flicker of an eyebrow is even more impressive when you discover how animated he is in real life. When we meet, in a chi-chi members’ club in west London, he has a pint of coffee working through his system, and that natural energy is comically amplified. His accent careens from Prince Charles to Jamie Oliver, as he talks about his guilt at not doing more theatre, the appeal of playing policemen and soldiers, and the satisfactions of domesticity; he alternates between supreme self-confidence and genuine horror at what he thinks is coming across as his own solipsism.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: Top of the Cops – June 27, 2011

Categories Media Print Media The Misanthrope

Damian Lewis Interview for The Misanthrope, The Telegraph, November 24, 2009

Damian Lewis Interview for The Misanthrope

By Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph, November 24, 2009

Damian Lewis talks about appearing with Keira Knightley as she makes her West End debut in an updated version of Moliere’s The Misanthrope.

Damian Lewis and Keira Knightley - Damian Lewis in The Misanthrope

Damian Lewis could well be the luckiest actor in London. Or the unluckiest. Luckiest in that he’s about to play the lead in The Misanthrope, which – with tickets flying out of the box-office at record-breaking speed – must be accounted one of the most eagerly awaited West End openings of the year. Unluckiest because the main reason for all the mounting hullabaloo is his co-star – Keira Knightley.

While there’s no disputing the combined allure of the assembled cast – Tara Fitzgerald and Dominic Rowan are also names to conjure with – when it comes to added spice, Knightley’s promised theatrical debut is eye-wateringly hot stuff. The prospect of a live encounter with the ravishing Pirates of the Caribbean star, recently ranked the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, has tipped the internet exchange price for tickets into triple figures. We’re potentially in the same realm of hysteria as that which enveloped Jude Law’s Hamlet, when fans queued through the night for a chance to bag a day-seat.

If the flame-haired Lewis, 38, feels any anxiety or concern about the fact that Knightley looks set to be the centre of much frenzied attention in the coming weeks, he’s not confessing to it when we meet. His last stage appearance, as the inwardly tortured businessman Karsten Bernick in Ibsen’s Pillars of the Community earned him rave reviews at the National in 2005. The part of the people-hating Alceste – the biliously witty anti-hero reconceived as a hip playwright in Martin Crimp’s smart update of Moliere’s 1666 classic comedy – should cement his reputation as one of theatre’s finest talents. But will he get his chance to capitalise on the opportunity?

Read the rest of the article here.

Categories Life Media Print Media

Damian Lewis: Life, The Telegraph, October 25, 2008

Damian Lewis: Life

By Michael Deacon – The Telegraph – 25 October 2008

Damian Lewis

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 bicycle

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.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: Life, The Telegraph, October 25, 2008

Categories Media Personal and Family Life Print Media The Baker

Damian Lewis Marie Claire Interview – March 19, 2008

Damian Lewis interview

by Marie Claire Magazine – March 19, 2008

Brit actor Damian Lewis is making it big in Hollywood. He talks exclusively to marieclaire.co.uk

British Band of Brothers star Damian Lewis, 37, stars in and produces The Baker this month. Written and directed by his younger brother, Gareth, the comedy tells the tale of a hitman who decides to quit the life and hide out in a Welsh village.

How was it to be directed by your younger sibling, Gareth?

I didn’t know quite what to expect…I suppose we were quite polite and very respectful of each other. Sweetly, we were also quite loving towards each other. Probably, if we did it again, we might be more frank. We might just say. ‘That doesn’t work’, rather than be respectful of the fact that we’re working with each other.

Continue reading Damian Lewis Marie Claire Interview – March 19, 2008

Categories Chromophobia Interviews Keane Life Media Personal and Family Life Print Media The Baker The Escapist

Rising to the Challenge: Damian Lewis, Film Interview – Feb 26, 2008

A Real Lewis Family Affair

by James Mottram | Metro.co.uk | February 26, 2008

The actor and producer of The Baker talks to James Mottram about family matters, the brutalising nature of working in LA and taking control of his own destiny.

Damian Lewis is pacing back and forth across his London hotel suite. ‘I’ve drunk a lot of cappuccino,’ he says, running his hands through that distinct crop of red hair. When he finally sits, he starts playing with a ball of Blu Tack that he gets all over his fingers, forcing him to dash to the bathroom to wipe them clean. If it’s a case of nerves, it’s understandable: his first film as actor-producer, The Baker, is due out this week. Written and directed by his younger brother Gareth, it’s a real Lewis family affair. ‘Let’s hope more people than just the family go and see it,’ he retorts. ‘I have a big family, though I don’t think it’ll quite do the numbers.’

Continue reading Rising to the Challenge: Damian Lewis, Film Interview – Feb 26, 2008

Categories Interviews The Baker

Damian Lewis Interview: Marie Claire Magazine – Feb 25, 2008

Making It Big In Hollywood

by Staff | Marie Claire | February 25, 2008


British Band of Brothers star Damian Lewis, 37, stars in and produces The Baker this month. Written and directed by his younger brother, Gareth, the comedy tells the tale of a hitman who decides to quit the life and hide out in a Welsh village.

How was it to be directed by your younger sibling, Gareth?

I didn’t know quite what to expect…I suppose we were quite polite and very respectful of each other. Sweetly, we were also quite loving towards each other. Probably, if we did it again, we might be more frank. We might just say. ‘That doesn’t work’, rather than be respectful of the fact that we’re working with each other.

Continue reading Damian Lewis Interview: Marie Claire Magazine – Feb 25, 2008

Categories Keane Media Print Media

Red Hot: The Irresistible Rise of Damian Lewis – Sept 8, 2006

Damian Lewis: The Chameleon Performer

by Liz Hoggard | The Independent | September 8, 2006

Damian Lewis is an intense chap, capable of conveying a huge range of emotions with the smallest gesture. He’s hotly tipped for an Oscar for his new film. And he’s a real gent. Just don’t call him posh, whatever you do.

“Ask him about that intense thing he does with his eyes,” a female journalist suggested when she heard I was interviewing the actor Damian Lewis. What’s striking about Lewis is how much he manages to convey by doing so very little. There is stillness about him on screen, a faraway look that can evoke anger or desire or – if you saw his rollicking performance as Benedict in BBC1’s modern-day version of Much Ado about Nothing – sheer hilarity.

The press love to brand Lewis as an arrogant posh boy. Like David Cameron, he went to Eton. But, among his generation of actors, no one does grief and repressed emotion so well. In Spielberg’s Second World War epic, Band of Brothers, he played an American soldier facing up to fear with a quiet certainty (it won him a Golden Globe nomination). He was the bewildered newlywed who doesn’t understand why his marriage is falling apart in Hearts and Bones. And in the remake of The Forsyte Saga, he did the unthinkable – making the brutal Soames sympathetic.

For several years now, 35-year-old Lewis has been a successful actor on the verge of becoming a major star. Unlike Ewan McGregor or Joseph Fiennes, his contemporaries at London’s Guildhall drama school, you might still walk past him in the street. But all that should change with the release of his new film Keane: his performance is already sparking Oscar rumours in the States.

Continue reading Red Hot: The Irresistible Rise of Damian Lewis – Sept 8, 2006

Categories Keane Media Print Media

Keane: It’s all in the Mind, The Guardian, September 1, 2006

It’s all in the mind

by Jessica Winter, The Guardian, September 1, 2006
Damian Lewis has taken on what may be his most ambitious role yet: a mentally ill father. He tells Jessica Winter how he spent time in a support home to prepare for the making of Keane.

The stars of what was meant to be Lodge Kerrigan’s third film, In God’s Hands, might have been happy enough with the shoot – Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard became a couple as result of working together – but the director wasn’t. The completed film was scrapped in 2002, owing to what Kerrigan describes as “technical issues with the negative”.

“It was pretty devastating,” says Kerrigan matter-of-factly in his rich baritone. Some others associated with the film absolved themselves of any responsibility, and Kerrigan retreated to reading the novels of Haruki Murakami. Fortunately, the insurance covered the disaster and in 2004 Kerrigan was able to return to the fray, shooting his new film, Keane, in 32 days for less than $1m.

Continue reading Keane: It’s all in the Mind, The Guardian, September 1, 2006