by Lucy Needham | The Mirror | September 2, 2026
Damian Lewis and Andrew Scott’s remarkable family discoveries uncovered as the actors prepared to bring two key figures from the D-Day story to the big screen in Pressure.
The stars of new Second World War thriller Pressure have been discovering remarkable truths about their own families’ involvement in the conflict – as they prepare to bring two of the key figures behind D-Day to the big screen.
Ahead of the UK cinema release of Pressure on September 9, Ancestry has delved into the real-life family histories of the film’s stars Damian Lewis and Andrew Scott, uncovering stories of wartime evacuation, battlefield bravery and being caught in the crossfire of the Blitz.
Lewis plays British General Bernard Law ‘Monty’ Montgomery, one of the senior Allied commanders involved in the high-stakes decisions that dictated the Normandy landings.
Scott plays Group Captain James Stagg, the chief British meteorologist whose forecasts proved crucial to the decision on whether to launch or delay the D-Day invasion.
While the actors portray two men at the heart of the planning for June 6, 1944, records reveal that their own families experienced the realities of war at home and on the battlefield.
For Lewis, no stranger to military drama, having starred in the award-winning Band of Brothers, his London-based family had a remarkable wartime connection of its own.
His father, Watcyn Lewis, was just nine years old when he was evacuated from Britain during the war. Passenger records show Watcyn travelled to Canada in 1940 as one of the ‘Guest Children’ sent overseas to escape the bombing of British cities.
The young Watcyn was thousands of miles from home as Britain faced the threat of German bombing. He later returned to Britain, and at the age of 18, served with the Royal Artillery.
Damian’s grandfather also played a role on the home front, volunteering as an Air Raid Precautions stretcher-party driver in London throughout the war.
Scott’s family history takes him on a different route – from the home front to the battlefield.
His great-uncle, Lieutenant Colonel William Paul Andrews, served with the Royal Engineers in both World Wars. After being seriously wounded at the Battle of the Somme, he was awarded the Military Cross. During the Second World War, he went on to receive a US Bronze Star for his support of American troops.
The discovery adds another personal connection to Scott’s portrayal of Stagg, the largely unsung meteorologist whose expertise would prove vital to the D-Day operation.
Speaking of his role, Scott said: “People don’t typically think about the weather, and he is a typical unsung hero it’s great to be able to honour him in this way.”
The film tells the true story of the tense days leading up to D-Day when Allied commanders faced some of the most consequential decisions of the war.
Based on the 2012 play of the same name, Pressure follows the 72 hours of crucial planning as commanders weighed up whether the weather would allow the invasion to go ahead.
Stagg’s weather forecasts were central to those decisions. With a major Atlantic storm threatening the English Channel, he warned commanders that conditions on June 5 would make an invasion extremely hazardous.
When forecasters identified a brief window of improvement in the weather, General Dwight D. Eisenhower – played by Brendan Fraser – ultimately made the decision to move the date of the invasion to June 6.
In one pivotal scene in the movie, Stagg is seen addressing Eisenhower and his team: “You can muster all the tanks and soldiers and ships that you like. You can amass the greatest armada that ever was, but if you invade tomorrow they are going to be washed away.”
The result was the largest seaborne invasion in history – and the beginning of the Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Western Europe.
Pressure is in UK cinemas September 9.
Read the rest of the original article at The Mirror.