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Written By GingersnapComments Off on PBS Masterpiece Interview with Damian Lewis, May 2003
From a Repressed Tortured Soul to a Possessed College Professor
by Staff | PBS Masterpiece | May, 2003
Whether they realized it or not, viewers of the popular Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks miniseries Band of Brothers were watching an English actor in the starring role of Major Richard Winters, the taciturn American hero of an airborne unit during World War II. The real Major Winters is salt of the earth from Pennsylvania. The actor Damian Lewis is from London’s Abbey Road and attended Eton. Otherwise, you’d never know the difference.
While on hiatus between the production of series one and two of The Forsyte Saga, Lewis played Jonesy, a possessed college professor in the forthcoming film of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher.
Lewis recently talked by phone from London about the Forsyte remake, Soames’s inner life, and what it’s like to play an alien.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on I’m Not as Screwed Up as Soames – April 4, 2002
I’m Not as Screwed Up as Soames
by Daphne Lockyer – The Evening Standard – 4 April 2002
Damian Lewis has been parking his motorbike somewhere in the bowels of London Television Centre. As a result of his wind-blown journey he is trying to instil order into his appearance as he approaches, running long fingers through a mop of messed-up hair that is, rather dramatically, the colour of blood oranges.
What with the whiff of tungsten and motorbike oil and all that Easy Rider stuff, it’s difficult for a moment to imagine him as Soames – the quintessential, lavender-scented, tightly corseted, late 19th century man – in Granada TV’s much-vaunted remake of The Forsyte Saga. He just seems too, well, modern.
“Ah, Soames,” he says, sitting down now, rubbing together chilly, bluetinged hands. “Dependable, upper-middle class, privately educated, solid, fastidious, arrogant, meticulous, emotionally repressed … I had to button myself down considerably when I was playing him.”
For all that, some of the adjectives at least apply to Damian himself. He’s an Old Etonian, after all, and there’s a certain classy self-assurance about him that only a very expensive education tends to buy.
“I can see why they cast me,” he says, “but I’m a lot more ef fusive than Soames – a lot less screwed up. I also don’t express my dangerous side by expecting my wife (if I had one) to flip onto her back and think of England.
“There is something quite pinched and ugly about the character, the kind of thing that meant you needed a couple of drinks at the end of a day playing him to shake the guy off. But I didn’t dislike him – I wouldn’t have been able to play him if I did. If I thought he was just a Machiavellian bastard, I wouldn’t have given him any chance to redeem himself. And as far as I’m concerned, no character, including Soames, should ever truly be beyond redemption.”
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis Interview: USA Weekend Magazine – March 10 2002
Black Hawk Down, Elvis, Steve McQueen, and Broadway
by Evelyn Poitevent | USA Weekend Magazine | March 10, 2002
“Band of Brothers” star Damian Lewis, 31, has been touted by everyone from the “New York Times” to “People” magazine as Hollywood’s new golden child. And rightfully so. The British actor — a veteran of London’s Guildhall School (where he studied drama with Ewan McGregor and Joseph Fiennes), the Birmingham Repertory and Royal Shakespeare Company (where he befriended Ralph Fiennes) — has not only proved himself worthy of the stage during the last decade, but has also made his mark on British television (BBC’s “Warriors” and “Hearts and Bones”). “Band of Brothers” brought him to American audiences — and rest assured, that was just the beginning. We caught up with the humorous, fun-loving (yet humble) redhead, who’s currently filming a Stephen King thriller, “Dreamcatcher,” in Canada. Continue reading Damian Lewis Interview: USA Weekend Magazine – March 10 2002
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Fighting Talk, New Woman – October, 1999
Love Wars
by Staff | New Woman | October, 1999
Ioan Gruffudd and Damian Lewis play soldiers in a new BBC drama, so we thought we’d check out their basic training in the love wars.
We love a man in uniform, and they don’t come much better-looking than Ioan Gruffudd, 25, and Damian Lewis, 27. They’re officers in “Warriors”, BBC’s new hard-hitting series about Bosnia. But if they were really in the army, would they lead the charge or get beaten up in the showers?
Right, you ‘orrible men, we’re taking you over the NW emotional assault course to see what you’re made of…
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on 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.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Great British Hopes: Damian Lewis – Feb 11, 1995
Great British Hopes: Damian Lewis
by Kate Bassett – The Times – 11 February 1995
Damian Lewis
Profession: Actor
Age: 23
Claim to fame: The New York Times hailed him as “The new Ralph Fiennes? The next Hugh Grant?”
Distinctive features: Six foot three. Flaming red hair. “I wasn’t aware of my hair until critics started talking about it as part of the performance,” says Lewis good-humouredly. “Maybe there’s a whole play going on on top of my head.”
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on 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?
