Damian Lewis Says He Plays American Characters So Often He Forgets to Speak in a British Accent
By Alexa Valiente, ABC News, July 8, 2016
Damian Lewis says he’s been playing American characters for so long that sometimes he forgets to speak in his British accent.
“I go get my groceries in an American accent,” Lewis said in an interview with Peter Travers on ABC News’ “Popcorn with Peter Travers.” “And I get halfway through paying and I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m British, and I have no idea why I’m talking in an American accent to you but I’ve been doing it all week.”
While most people know him as the American characters Bobby Axelrod on the Showtime show “Billions” and Nicholas Brody in another Showtime show “Homeland,” Lewis can finally speak in his British accent in his latest film “Our Kind of Traitor.”
In the movie, Lewis plays the British character Hector, who works for the British secret intelligence service MI6 and has a grudge against a politician who’s done something unspeakable to him and his family.
“Hector himself is a man who worked in the city and left the city and the world of high finance, I think, impatient with its corruption, its implicit corruption, and the way in which the free market is only interested in generating money,” Lewis explained. “So he goes to MI6 and he finds himself really the same person there too: a voice against authority, and something of a maverick.”
Lewis stars in the film with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Harris, whose characters work with Hector to investigate the Russian mafia and try to help a Russian man’s family safely escape Russia.
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