Category: Print Media

Damian Lewis has played a vast range of characters, from emotionally racked fathers to villainous aristocrats. But his recent television projects suggest that he’s developing a specialty: prisoners who find life outside to have its own considerable challenges.

In NBC’s quirky series “Life,” Lewis played an ex-cop released after years of being wrongly imprisoned. And now in Showtime’s “Homeland,” which premiered Oct. 2, Lewis takes on the role of Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody, who is rescued after spending eight years in Afghanistan as a POW. Although he returns home a war hero, he is obviously troubled. A CIA agent believes Brody may actually be planning a terrorist attack against America.

“These two men do seem to have similarities,” said Lewis recently by phone during a break in the filming of the drama, which is winding up production of its final first-season episodes in North Carolina. “They both seek revenge. There’s a vigilantism to both of them.”

Brody in the initial episodes is ominously quiet, conveying a turmoil beneath his haunted expressions, highlighted by strikingly blue eyes. “He’s a controlled explosion,” Lewis said.

The British actor, who makes his home in London with his wife and two daughters, has been delighted with the twists and turns in “Homeland.” It stars Claire Danes as driven CIA agent Carrie Mathison, who is battling her own demons as she obsessively pursues her suspicions about Brody. The series also features Mandy Patinkin as Mathison’s mentor.

“I’m surprised by the honesty of the writers — they have remained true to what they had originally pitched to me,” said Lewis, who undertook extensive research, including talking with former soldiers, reading firsthand accounts about post-traumatic stress disorder, and studying the Koran.

He’s invigorated by the complexity of his character and the series’ post-Sept. 11 perspectives: “This is really an explosive and controversial character. And what’s important to me in this piece is that any preconceptions about who’s bad and who’s good are challenged. The world is revealed as less black-and-white than some people believe.”

Executive producer Howard Gordon said he and fellow executive producer Alex Gansa (they previously worked together on “24” and “X Files”) felt that Brody was the most difficult of the main characters to cast and the most difficult to play. “Part of it is not knowing who he is and knowing who he is.” He called Lewis “an extraordinary actor with an all-American face, which is astounding because he’s British. He takes the role very seriously, and he’s done his homework.”

Read the full interview at the Los Angeles Times website.

Question: What attracted you to this show and this character?

DAMIAN LEWIS: Well, what I read was a thrilling psychological and political thriller with a CIA agent convinced that this hero who returns, having been a POW with Al Qaeda for eight years, might have been turned by them and is a terrorist. I just enjoyed the contradiction that someone could return a hero in the nation’s eyes, but possibly not be that person. That is a thrilling premise. That is a great set-up, for any show. As the first chapter of your novel, that takes you to the next chapter.

This show is not just about the CIA catching terrorists. It’s not about that. It’s a character piece. It’s about more complex issues. It’s about family and identity. It’s about identity on a political, national, spiritual, and faith-based ideological level. It’s about identity on a more intimate, localized level, in regard to family and relationships with your loved ones. It also deals with mental frailties. It deals with mood disorder, in Claire Danes’ character. It deals with post-traumatic stress disorder, in my character. It deals with how one reconnects with family. The motif of parents and children runs through the piece. As fun as it is to just be in a thriller, where you jump from one incident to the next, I was intrigued by the fact that it wanted to tell a broader story as well.

If you’d gotten the same role and it was 22-episode run that was much more grueling and a much bigger commitment, would you still have been interested in the part?

LEWIS: That is a conversation that the networks have repeatedly, as to whether they should start producing 12-part series, instead of these 22 to 24 episode series, in order to get the stars to come do their shows. It’s a big commitment to ask someone to work on one role for nine or 10 months of the year. It does affect your decision-making, definitely.

How do you compare this to previous roles that you’ve played?

LEWIS: Oddly enough, there are similarities with this show Life that I did for NBC, a couple years ago, about a man who goes away. In the case of Life, he was sent to prison and spent 12 years there, and came back a changed man, in some way, from his experience. In this show, he’s a prisoner of war for eight years, and he comes back a changed man. I’m still very sad that Life didn’t go longer. It was one of the better shows on TV, that year. If you look at what NBC had, it was definitely one of the better shows that NBC had. NBC was crazy to cancel that show.

In England, we can’t make this kind of TV. We don’t have the resources. We actually don’t have the writers to write it. We don’t have film and TV language in our DNA, in the same way you guys do here. The big concept, in telling it compellingly and entertainingly, but in a psychologically real and complex way is something we don’t come up with as often as you guys do. So, for me to be here is a thrill.

Do you feel that cable is a little bit more freeing?

LEWIS: Well, they show my ass a lot more. I’ve noticed that. And, I’ve seen Morena’s tits, and that’s weird. But, that’s Showtime. No. If cable wants to distinguish itself from network, just by showing tits and ass, literally, then that’s sad. At times, you do wonder, if that’s the only distinction. It’s like, “Well, we haven’t seen anybody’s bottom in three episodes, so we need to write that scene.” But, is that really so important? No. For personal reasons, because I’m a Brit, I live in London. I don’t mean this grandly, but it was never my intention to live in L.A. and do a big network show. I did Life because it was just so good and I couldn’t say know to it. I really just wanted to do it.

Read the full interview at Collider.com.