Interview: Damian Lewis

Within a few days, I’ve seen three sides to Damian Lewis. There’s the brilliantly gifted screen actor who plays Marine Sergeant Nick Brody, an American POW who may have turned Jihadist after eight years in captivity in Afghanistan in Channel 4’s gripping US import, ‘Homeland’. Then there's the born stage performer at a Bafta Q&A, oozing confidence, playing to the gallery and toying with his questioner. And finally there’s the warm, thoughtful, self-deprecating guy sitting in the wood-panelled library of a London hotel. While many of his best-known characters have hinged on his mastery of suppressed emotion and underplaying, the man himself is rather more open. He explodes out of his armchair with excitement on discovering he’s getting a poached egg with his chicken caesar salad, but also sits in comfortable silence while pondering the psychological complexities of his latest challenge.

‘Well, I discussed with Alex [Gansa] and Howard [Gordon, show co-writers] the way in which Brody might have become a Muslim – and I’m not saying he has!’ he adds hurriedly, running his hand through his familiar and carefully tended red hair. ‘But it was important that it wasn’t a brainwashing, a “Manchurian Candidate”-type affair – that he might have found Allah as a force for good, a nurturing, sustaining, positive thing. I thought that would be far more interesting and powerful, and, as a prisoner of war, he would certainly have had more access to a Koran than a Bible. But this is a thriller, so you want provoke people in that way, putting this symbol of the upholding of Western belief systems into this situation. Seeing a man praying to Allah is enough for some people to assume he is a terrorist.’

His research took him to Brian Keenan’s chronicle of life in captivity, ‘An Evil Cradling’; to meet people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder; and to the London Central Mosque, where he was invited to sit in on prayers. His school days at Eton instilled in him ‘a watered-down, digestible Anglicanism’, but Lewis now feels he responds to different aspects of different religions. ‘I don’t believe Jesus was the son of God, although I’m inclined to think he might have been a great prophet.’ He massages his brow and strokes his chin, playing the philosopher with a pleasing lack of self-consciousness. ‘You know, I think I am faintly spiritual. I’ve had loss in my life, and I like to think my mother’s energy lives on in some faintly Buddhist way. I do find some comfort there.’

But Jack Bauer in '24' was still torturing people several years into the series… ‘I know! It was quite, er, uncompromising. But the Bush administration had stated that there were information-extraction methods they were prepared to use, effectively saying “stop at nothing”. Howard and Alex’s politics are actually left of centre, and I marched that day in 2003 like everyone else. It’s serendipity that the political climate now suits those politics. All of us are more likely to question our governments, whether they’ve gone about pursuing terrorists in the right way. There’s even greater uncertainty now, and “Homeland” reflects that.’

These ambiguities extend to Carrie, the character played by Danes (or ‘Danesy’ – you can take the boy out of public school…), a CIA agent who doubts Brody’s loyalties. Like her quarry, she has her own mental health issues. ‘It’s handled sensitively,’ he says, confidently slinging a leg over the arm of his chair.

Lewis, too, has played psychologically troubled characters, most remarkably in ‘Keane’, a gruellingly compelling indie about a New Yorker struggling to come to terms with the death of his daughter. It was that performance, he says, that got him the role of Nick Brody, but the experience has left a slightly sour taste. ‘I wish “Keane” had enjoyed a longer life than it has. I know it can sound strange, but it was great fun, immersing myself in this devastating story of grief.’ The chicken caesar salad sits untouched for five minutes as he talks intently about the shoot – testament to his ongoing commitment to the film.

That hasn’t always been the case. Two or three years ago, Lewis toyed with sidelining acting in favour of pursuing writing or directing. ‘I’d been acting for a certain amount of time and started to feel like I understood it. So I started reading all these books on writing and directing, and realised they were preoccupied by the same things as actors. I thought that was interesting, so I decided to re-explore acting again and, well, try to be better.’ He laughs, adding sheepishly, ‘I carry a notepad around with me to jot down script ideas, but it just gets filled up with “wallpaper for kitchen” or “do taxes”.’

Brody feels like an amalgam of past roles: the mental torment of Keane, certainly, but also the coiled intensity – and army fatigues – of Major Richard Winters in HBO’s iconic miniseries on D-Day and its aftermath, ‘Band of Brothers’. He puts some of his characteristic on-screen restraint down to the latter. ‘I think they cast me as Winters because they couldn’t find an American actor stiff and old-fashioned enough. And intially there was probably this fear of overacting. You see that in a lot of young English actors who come trained in the theatre tradition. They all watch Michael Caine’s masterclass – [does decent Caine impression] “You. Don’t. Blink.” – and they’re very still, but they actually do nothing. But film is in the American DNA. American actors have this confidence to be naturalistic and expressive on the screen. Much more is revealed. It might almost be an accident I act the way I do, born of a fear not to be stage acting in front of the camera.’

Three others who got an early break on the show – Stephen Graham, James McAvoy and Tom Hardy [‘we all resented him for getting the only sex scene’] – could harrdly be accused of a fear of expressiveness, I suggest. Could it be something that British actors absorb on American sets? ‘Oh great, you’ve just ruined my brilliant generalisation,’ he laughs, before grinning slyly and invoking another young ‘BoB’ actor to support his own hastily constructed thesis. ‘When I was speechifying and giving orders, one person would always pop out, and it was Michael Fassbender, expressing a huge amount by doing very little. I remember thinking: Whatever it is, he’s got it.’

‘Band of Brothers’ made Lewis a star – something he’d judiciously prepared for at the age of ten, standing in front of a mirror and pretending to be interviewed by Terry Wogan. ‘And now I’m going on his radio show,’ he says, proudly. But he has negotiated the pitfalls of celebrity carefully, especially when his performance as archvillain Soames in ITV1’s splendid 2002 revival of ‘The Forsyth Saga’ threatened to thrust him into Colin Firth realms of heart-throbbery. ‘I think you can control the levels of intrusion: you can contribute to it or you can steer away from it,’ he now says with the authority of a happily married family man.

His wife is actress Helen McCrory; the pair met during the Almeida’s disastrously received 2004 production of ‘Five Gold Rings’, but Lewis is still desperate to work with her again. ‘I want us to do “Much Ado About Nothing”. It’s how she talks to me anyway, rudely and dismissively.’ Even his reputation as one of the most successful ‘Have I Got News For You’s guest presenters can't salvage the prospect I propose as I leave him to finally devour his lunch. ‘Me as the chair and Helen on the panel? That would not be possible. I chair panels at home where there’s insurrection and rebellion all around me. Only there’s very little applause at the end.’

‘Homeland’ starts Sunday February 19, 9.30pm, Channel 4