Tea and a Mag part three

In any event, becoming a film star, as opposed to a TV star, does not any longer suggest an automatic elevation. The film industry is going through one of its stagnant formulaic phases; television, by contrast, especially American television, especially American television drama, is enjoying another golden age, one cracking series after another, so many it's hard to keep up. "A lot of independent film types have migrated to TV," explains Lewis. "And US TV has become more ambitious, going on location, going abroad, going into long-form drama, hiring foreign actors. Long may it continue."

One of the first results of television's new courage was the series that made Lewis's name, Band Of Brothers, in 2001, at the time the most expensive TV series ever made. As in Homeland, Lewis played an American soldier, this time a real-life Second World War veteran, Major Dick Winters, who led an infantry company in the last year of the war. Band Of Brothers had a huge impact. "I've had people salute me in the street. They come up: 'Major Winters, I just wanna shake your hand and thank you for everything you did.'"

What? And they're not taking the piss? "Oh, yeah, maybe they are," laughs Lewis, pretending he's been duped. "No, you know what Americans are like, very earnest. And people develop an intimacy with characters on TV because you're in their sitting room. It's different from being up on a silver screen. It's more invasive."

Lewis met the real Winters when Band Of Brothers was filming, but they didn't really stay in touch. "This Band Of Brothers cottage industry emerged afterwards and all these old boys were wheeled out and for some of them it has been a terrific ten years. I had mixed feelings about it and felt the need to distance myself. As an actor, I wanted to avoid the idea that I had won the Second World War. Dick was a very private man, the epitome of actions speaking louder than words." When Winters died last year, Lewis wrote to his widow, Ethel.

Although he's good at portraying these strong, silent military types, Lewis isn't at all like that in the flesh. He's loquacious, a little verbose even, emoting in the way actors are traditionally supposed to, something of a party animal (a fabulously good dancer, according to a friend who's seen him in action), not campy but not ruggedly masculine either, although he has become a slightly unlikely sex symbol in recent months, something that he characteristically mocks. "I did try to lose a bit of weight for the first season of Homeland and I didn't actually quite get there, but in the end it turns out no one wants to see my with my clothes off, so that's OK."

He is, he says, "a bit of a softie." As a teenager, forced to choose between indie rock and Duran Duran, he "was right in the Simon Le Bon camp in a fairly dreadful way. And prog rock." The point is that when he plays these tough, self-contained, duty-bound guys, Lewis really is acting.

"I'm not a switch-on, switch-off actor. I have to immerse myself and stay engaged with the material all the time. That can be fun, unless the character is in a constant state of anxiety and paranoia, which Brody is; then it can be quite wearing. Revving myself up from nothing into this other reality is an ordeal, and I find it gets harder and harder. And also it prevents you from doing other things. I can't read a novel on set, for instance; it's too immersive. i just sit reading The Spectator. And the New Statesman," he adds, "just to cover my tracks."

It sounds as if, as and when Sergeant Brody's number comes up, Lewis will be happy to come home, play more golf and more football, spend more time at his holiday home in the Brecon Beacons, see what turns up, maybe do some more telly here. he has hosted Have I Got News For You four times and loved it. "It's the thing I most enjoy doing. Maybe that's why I won TV Personality Of The Year, not TV Actor Of The Year. Maybe I need to get a Pringle sweater and some grey loafers."

Until then, it's back to North Carolina to finish the second series. "There's such enthusiasm for this show, such love, everyone second-guessing away like crazy. It seems like a show that'll run and run. It is the best job in either film or TV. It's just fabulous." And then, he can't resist adding, with the charm and candour that come from irresistible confidence, "He says with some bias."