Damian Lewis
Actor, Dad, Redhead, and Ping Pong Champion
Categories Homeland Media Print Media

Soldiering on: Damian Lewis in Homeland, The Telegraph, February 4, 2012

Soldiering on: Damian Lewis in Homeland

After his breakthrough 10 years ago in Band of Brothers, Damian Lewis’s finest work has been for television, his latest role that of a US Marine held captive for eight years

Damian Lewis in Homeland

Photo: Channel 4
Damian Lewis opens our conversation with a sheepish mention of his ardent admirers. ‘I’ve a set of fans who call themselves – you’re not allowed to laugh – Damian Bunnies.’ Their name seems to be a reference to those other copper-top characters, the Duracell Bunnies. They have been following him since his 2001 breakthrough in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed Second World War series Band of Brothers, ‘and they’re absolutely lovely. In the end, I realised they knew so much about me, I let two of them run a fan site.’
Categories Band of Brothers Dreamcatcher Interviews Media Print Media The Forsyte Saga

Guardian Interview: Shooting Star – March 10, 2002

Shooting star

by Jay Rayner | The Guardian | 

Watching Damian Lewis leading the men of Easy Company to victory in Spielberg’s WWII epic Band of Brothers, you’d never guess he went to Eton and attended drama school with Ewan MacGregor. Now, though, he is returning to more familiar territory as the iconic Soames in The Forsyte Saga.

The middle-aged Italian waitress clearly does not recognise the actor she is shouting at or, if she does, she has had enough experience at being a sour-faced waitress not to show it. This is the second time she has asked Damian Lewis to choose what he wants for lunch and it is the second time he has asked for a few more minutes. ‘Look,’ she says, with a fearsome shrug, arms spread wide. ‘We are busy. You don’t order now, then the kitchen, it become busy. You wait too long for your food. You get cross.’ There is a convincing logic here: the small, smokey cafe in London’s St James’s is indeed already crammed with people.

Continue reading Guardian Interview: Shooting Star – March 10, 2002

Categories Band of Brothers Media Print Media

This American Platoon is Led by a Brit, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2000

Damian Lewis survived a slew of tests to win the role of a war hero.

by DAVID GRITTEN, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2000
HATFIELD, England — “I’ve really screwed up my hearing,” grimaces Damian Lewis. “I should have had earplugs in.”

The mud-spattered Lewis, in a World War II paratrooper uniform, has spent the morning shooting blanks (24 for each take) from an M-1 rifle at a crowd of extras dressed as German soldiers.

It is a deafening business, and everyone else on set either wears earplugs or covers their ears whenever director Tom Hanks yells “action!” Continue reading This American Platoon is Led by a Brit, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2000

Categories Hamlet Media Print Media Theatre

Hamlet: Swordplay the Serious Way, New York Times, July 2, 1995

Hamlet: Swordplay the Serious Way

By Matt Wolf, theater critic and journalist in London, New York Times,  July 2, 1995

LONDON— “A HIT, A VERY PALPABLE HIT!” cries the courtier Osric during the climactic duel of “Hamlet.” And in the Broadway production now at the Belasco Theater, those hits are palpable indeed.

Productions of “Hamlet” are often distinguished by verse speaking or physical design. Jonathan Kent’s current staging, imported from the Almeida Theater Company in London, offers an additional virtue in the face-off between Hamlet (played by Ralph Fiennes) and Laertes (Damian Lewis). Beginning on a white rectangular fencing mat, the fight soon spills beyond it, weaving among the chairs of Claudius’s dismayed court as the two combatants become increasingly fevered.

Continue reading Hamlet: Swordplay the Serious Way, New York Times, July 2, 1995

Categories Hamlet Media Print Media Theatre

Who Will Be The New Ralph Fiennes, The Next Hugh Grant? – Jan 1, 1995

Who Will Be The New Ralph Fiennes, The Next Hugh Grant?

By Matt Wolf – New York Times – January 1, 1995

LONDON— NOT LONG AGO, DANIEL Day Lewis and Kenneth Branagh were the British names on everyone’s lips when it came to actors; more recently, Hugh Grant and Ralph Fiennes have dominated Hollywood’s imagination. Which raises the inevitable question: Who among current British actors are poised to become the next Hugh Grant and the next Ralph Fiennes?
Categories Hamlet Media Print Media Theatre

Hamlet in the Park – June 17, 1994

Hamlet in the Park – Theatre

by Alastair Macaulay – Financial Times – June 17, 1994

This most excellent canopy the air, look you . . . It makes a difference to when you can see the firmament Hamlet is talking about, and here is one of the gains of watching Hamlet in the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. With the sky above he counts himself king of infinite space; amid the theatre he might be bounded in a nutshell. Continue reading Hamlet in the Park – June 17, 1994