Tea and a Mag

Tea and Mag

  I Can't Believe I'm Getting Paid For What I've Always Wanted To Do'

Damian Lewis talks to Gabrielle Donnelly about work, marriage -- and why he'd like to star in a romance.

by Gabrielle Donnelly, Woman's Weekly, July 30, 2013

On screen, Damian Lewis tends to specialise in characters that, frankly, would make your heart sink if your daughter brought them home. They're either withdrawn (Major Winters in Band Of Brothers), tortured (Soames in The Forsyte Saga) or impossibly complicated (Nicholas Brody in Homeland). So it's a bit of a treat to find that, off screen, he resembles nothing so much as a friendly ginger-haired puppy, all jokes, windmill-armed impressions of himself and other actors, and self-deprecatory comments delivered in his real-life accent -- neither American nor old-Etonian (which he is), but down-to-earth London with, endearingly, a hint of his Welsh grandparents.

Softly spoken, and with piercing blue eyes,  he sits in front of me…

"Whether it's Homeland or Romeo & Juliet, great writing has great subtext, meaning there isn't just one thing going on at any one time," he enthuses. "Having so many things happening makes it very interesting to play. Of course, there were some days on Homeland when there was so much going on, I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing, so I just looked slightly blank and everyone thought 'Brody's being complicated,' which is great!"

source damian-lewis.com