If you have the same drive and passions that everybody else has - for example, if you're trying to do the right thing for your family and do the right thing for people you employ - then you can be forgiven quite a lot.
— Damian Lewis
It's such an overused phrase: 'to be part of the conversation.' But it's true. It is nice to be part of the conversation - just be sure they are talking about you in the right way.
We had a good time mucking about during 'Band of Brothers' when we were young and single.
It's sad that children don't spend enough time looking around and being amazed by what's in the real world.
I am extremely lucky, and I enjoy the level of work that I am able to work at.
There is a machismo about an American male who is robust, athletic, able to build things, and he takes care of stuff. And it's a point of pride.
My background was fairly conservative, and I think there's a strong notion of duty in a background like that, and I don't think that's always helpful.
I grew up in London, one of four children. We were a very loud family, not a lot of listening, plenty of talking. My mum was a hearth mother: she loved to gather us all around her - Sunday lunches were a big thing. She was very good at thinking on her feet - people used to say she should go into politics.
It's important to have a big-enough house in order to have space.
If you pick up an eighteenth-century play, at the top it says 'The Argument,' and then you have a list of characters, and then you have the play. I was just always struck by that - that, of course, good drama is about conflict.
My kids think America is swimming pools on the roof, screening rooms, and hot dogs. They love it here.
I just don't consider myself to be, you know, an American actor. I don't want that life.
Having been on a private jet only two or three times, it's one of life's great luxuries.
An interesting insight into the ruthlessness of studio executives: I was having a conversation with Alex Gansa, a creator of 'Homeland,' and I said, 'So you guys must have seen 'Life' and liked me in it, right? That's the most recent thing I've done over here.' And he went, 'No, Damian. You actually nearly didn't get the job because of 'Life.'
It's successful, middle-class Arab men and women, professionals with seemingly happy family lives, who are prepared to go to paradise for a greater cause. That's terrifying.
That's all you can do as an actor - take the best thing available.
I'm one of those idiots; when I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till make-up comes off.
Fallible characters are more interesting than superheroes in the end.
I came of age as a male lead actor just as the TV landscape dramatically shifted.
There is a latent anger in a lot of people that went to boarding school at an early age. I was eight. And I loved it over the five years, but I think the adjustments for eight-year-olds are a lot. And I think it informs who you are for a long, long time.
I found that the quality of TV material that came to me was so great and was just often better than the film material I got. And when I find a good movie that I really like, I jump on it because it's exciting to do.
I'm not good enough to flip in and out of my Brit accent to my American accent.
The irony is that, coming from a white-collar British background, I tend to play blue-collar Americans!
My parents came to see me in a play at Eton when I was 16. And then, when I said I wanted to try for drama school, they knew there was enough passion there for them to be brave and back me.
When I was at drama school, I remember going to Amsterdam for new year and sitting with friends on the front of a P&O ferry in the wind, having some sort of 'Titanic' moment, declaring ourselves to be the new kings of theatre.
There's a high head count on 'Homeland.'
I found the hedge-fund guys I met all to be very, very concentrated listeners - watchful and articulate and quick to defend, if needed. They all seemed to have this contained sitting posture. The legs, if they weren't crossed at right angles, tended to be close over the knee, their hands put together.
I had no ambition to go to America and be in a TV show. It's not like I've rejected something or decided that I've found something better. Your life just takes you off in strange and different directions.
It's constantly fascinating for me that something that feels absolutely right one year, 12 months later feels like the wrong thing to do.
I just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing.
Television audiences are ruthless - look what happened to 'The Killing.'
I didn't know 'Homeland' was going to be 'Homeland.' I just did it because it was a terrific script, and they pitched me the story line, and I was like, 'Huh, that's interesting.'
There are jobs that come along in your life, if you're lucky enough, that elevate you in a considerable way. And 'Homeland' was definitely one of those jobs.
I loved doing 'Homeland.' I loved playing Brody.
There's this sort of cloud that hangs where people are like: 'How long can you keep the heat of 'Homeland' going?' People have short memories is the truth, and Hollywood loves the new and shiny.
My wife has a horror the children will start talking American if we spend too much time out there.
I'm not averse to telling people off.
I've been careful to work with good people on interesting material, mostly.
Would I have traded 'Homeland' for anything else? No. Would I trade 'Billions' for anything else? No.
This high-end, novelistic form of TV, you know, is just peppered with despicable people who do marvelous things and marvelous people who do despicable things.
I went to boarding school from the age of eight - first to prep school, then to Eton. One thing that kind of education teaches you is community living: there's little retreat. That's why people come out of it and talk about lifelong friendships forged in the furnace.
All you should try to do is behave with honour. If you can. At all times.
I will always find a defense for characters, and that's why it's fun playing characters that are morally ambiguous, or are at least perceived superficially as being problematic.
I am Damian Lewis, not Daniel Day-Lewis.
I want to do theatre and film and direct my own things and develop.
If you believe - which I do - that acting is a bit like advocacy for your character, then of course I want to find the positive points.
I investigated post-traumatic stress disorder. I've been to a unit where people are suffering from it, and I read a lot of literature. I looked at footage of soldiers in the combat zone. I found 'Restrepo' to be unbelievably useful.
I think very few people still understand the distinction between CEOs on Wall Street and the hedge-fund billionaires operating separately.
None of us, remember, knew that 9/11 was gonna happen. We didn't live in a state of anxiety and fear about Osama Bin Laden. The CIA might have, and they failed to prevent it. But the general public didn't have any knowledge. Now we have knowledge of it, and it's a very clear and present danger in our lives.
I went to boarding school, and what that teaches you is to cope emotionally at a young age and to suppress a lot of emotion. Being in the army is, in a way, similar.
