Damian Lewis

Becoming an American Hero: British Actor has won Acclaim for his role in ‘Band of Brothers’, The Record, October 21, 2001

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BECOMING AN AMERICAN HERO: BRITISH ACTOR HAS WON ACCLAIM FOR HIS ROLE IN `BAND OF BROTHERS’

by Virginia Rohan, The Record (Bergen County, NJ), October 21, 2001
21 October 2001
by VIRGINIA ROHAN

Every day during the filming of “Band of Brothers,” Damian Lewis diligently worked with a dialect coach because he was determined to sound like a flesh-and-blood Yank.

“My American accent, before I did ‘Band of Brothers, was kind of wishy-washy, a cross between John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart,” Lewis says in a crisp, unmistakably British voice. “I feel quite comfortable doing a straightforward American accent now. I was kind of an honorary American for last year.”

Mastering Ameri-speak is one of many impressive feats Lewis pulls off in HBO’s 10-part World War II miniseries. The London-born actor, virtually unknown in America before this role, has won critical acclaim for his poignant and convincing turn as Richard Winters, the laconic lieutenant who quickly emerged as the leader of U.S. Army’s Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.

Based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s bestseller of the same title, “Band of Brothers” follows this disparate group of men from their paratrooper training in Georgia to their amazing sweep through Northwest Europe from their harrowing jump into Normandy on D-day to their fierce, bloody fight in the Battle of the Bulge to the capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden. Continue reading Becoming an American Hero: British Actor has won Acclaim for his role in ‘Band of Brothers’, The Record, October 21, 2001

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Damian Lewis: “I want to work with some girls!”, Now Magazine, October 17, 2001

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Damian Lewis: “I want to work with some girls!”

by Jay Bowers, Now Magazine, October 17, 2001

After starring in two major war dramas, Damian’s had enough of playing soldiers

Damian Lewis is the star of Steven Spielberg’s new 85 million war drama on BBC2, but his success has been marred by the death of his mother and an illness which almost cost him his next role.

It’s been a year of extreme highs and lows for Damian Lewis. The London-born actor landed the biggest role of his life when he beat 7,000 hopefuls for the part of hero Major Richard Winters in Steven Spielberg’s epic war drama Band Of Brothers. But just months after filming finished, his 63-year-old mother Charlotte died in a car crash while on holiday in India. Continue reading Damian Lewis: “I want to work with some girls!”, Now Magazine, October 17, 2001

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An Officer and A Gentleman – Oct 15, 2001

On October 15, 2001February 1, 2020 By Damianista Comments Off

Eton-Educated British Actor Damian Lewis Overcame a Near-Fatal Motorcycle Crash and a Family Tragedy on His Way to the Spotlight

by Russell Scott Smith | US Weekly | October 15, 2001

IT WAS A COLD WINTERS NIGHT IN London when Damian Lewis crashed, face-first through a car’s windshield and almost died. That evening, in 1998, the actor had been buzzing along the chilly, dark streets on his Honda VFR750 motorcycle, heading home from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Barbican Theatre, where he was playing Don John the Bastard in Much Ado About Nothing. Suddenly, a car veered into Lewis’s path. His bike rammed the car’s front bumper, and he flew over the handlebars; Lewis broke the car’s windshield with his chin. “Thank God I had a full-face helmet on,” the 30-year old actor says. “If I hadn’t, I’m not sure I’d be here now. Or at least my acting career would be very different.” Continue reading An Officer and A Gentleman – Oct 15, 2001

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A minute with… Damian Lewis, Woman’s Own, October 8, 2001

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A minute with … Damian Lewis

by Tim Oglethorpe, Woman’s Own, October 8, 2001

A former Eton schoolboy, British-born Damian is set for international stardom for his role as American war hero, Dick Winters, in Steven Spielberg’s 10-part 65 million TV series Band of Brothers. He’s currently filming an adaption of the 1960’s television hit The Forsyte Saga

Tell us about Band of Brothers.
My character, American Dick Winters, is a leader of a crack paratrooper unit which paved the way for the Allied advance across Europe during the Second World War.

How tough was the preparation for it?
They treated us, as much as possible, like real soldiers. We spent 10 days in boot camp in Aldershot. It was tough -getting up at 6am, doing 80 press-ups, going for a run, taking a cold shower and then continuing the day in much the same way. But I think it was necessary to do. It created a bond among the actors playing the soldiers and it also made us physically fitter. Continue reading A minute with… Damian Lewis, Woman’s Own, October 8, 2001

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Acting Tough, Daily Mail, October 6, 2001

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Daily Mail Weekend Supplement
6th October 2001

Acting Tough

British actor Damian Lewis beat off hundreds of rivals to land the lead in BBC’s Band of Brothers, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ £86 million WWII epic which has caused critical controversy for overplaying America’s role in defeating the Nazis. In this compelling diary, he tells of his own battle to win the role of American officer Captain Dick Winters, his agonizing first meeting with Hanks – and the extraordinary filming regime, which turned actors into men of war.

LATE AUGUST 1999: Call from my agent. Hollywood’s coming to town. Hurrah. Another chance to record myself on tape for some big blockbuster which will gather dust on a shelf in LA. ‘But this is different,’ my agent, Stephanie Randall, stresses, ‘It’s Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. They’re seeing everybody, and they want you to play an American. This is gonna be huge.’

DAY OF AUDITION: I head off on my motorbike. It rains on me. I arrive, soaked, having found the only parking spot left in Soho to park my bike. I walk down some steps into a colourless basement.

Continue reading Acting Tough, Daily Mail, October 6, 2001

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Places to go… People to meet, Daily Telegraph, October 5, 2001

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Places to go… people to meet

by Emily Bearn, Daily Telegraph, October 5, 2001

Damian Lewis is an Old Etonian who plays an American war hero in Spielberg’s latest epic, and dreams of being the next James Bond. Emily Bearn meets the young contender

DAMIAN LEWIS (if the actor’s publicists in London, New York and Los Angeles are to be believed) is destined to be pretty big – he is already big enough to turn up for our interview two hours late. We have arranged to meet at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, which has been Lewis’s home for the past six months while he has been filming a new adaptation of Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga for ITV.

Journalists and photographers are milling around the hotel’s palm-fronded foyer, being sporadically debriefed as to Lewis’s whereabouts by Michael, a member of his publicity team, who is directing operations from a mobile telephone. We are plied with complimentary croissants and told that the delay is attributable to Lewis’s intense filming commitments, coupled with a recent unscheduled appearance at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he had his appendix whipped out.

Continue reading Places to go… People to meet, Daily Telegraph, October 5, 2001

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Command Performance, The Sunday Times, September 30, 2001

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Command performance

by Jeff Dawson, The Sunday Times, September 30, 2001

Jeff Dawson meets Damian Lewis, the British star of Spielberg’s Band of Brothers, the most costly TV series ever.

Tony To, the executive producer of Band of Brothers, reckons Damian Lewis is like “a young Steve McQueen”. At the very least, the actor turns up to our interview on a motorbike. “I love it when they talk like that,” he laughs, wrestling off his waterproofs in a north London Thai restaurant. “I mean, Steve McQueen’s the epitome of cool, isn’t he? Raced his car, shagged women…”

Aged 29, posh (his words), blokey, but ultra-confident in that public-school way, these are strange days for Damian Lewis. In one breath, he will refer to the house he shares with his brother in London’s unglamorous Kensal Green. In the next, he’ll mention his new chums “Tom” and “Steven”, tossing off their names as if they were a pair of drinking muckers rather than Messrs Hanks and Spielberg. It’s under their patronage that he has suddenly found himself paraded around Hollywood as the Next Big Thing. Continue reading Command Performance, The Sunday Times, September 30, 2001