Damian Lewis is an English actor and producer who is best known for starring on the Showtime series “Homeland” and “Billions”.
Early Life
Damian Lewis was born on February 11, 1971 in St. John’s Wood, London, England, the eldest son of Charlotte Mary and John Watcyn Lewis, a City insurance broker with Lloyd’s. Damian’s grandparents on the paternal side were Welsh. Lewis went to several English boarding schools during his youth. As a child, he also made several visits to the U.S. to visit relatives during summer breaks from school. He became interested in acting at age 16 and was educated at the independent Ashdown House School in Forest Row, East Sussex, before going on to Eton College and graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1993.
Career
Lewis once worked as a telemarketer selling car alarms, a job he detested. His first television appearance was as a medical student in “Hickory Dickory Dock”, an episode of Poirot, broadcast in 1995. He also appeared as a rakish student in an early episode of the drama series A Touch of Frost (1996). He appeared in Robinson Crusoe (1997) as Patrick Conner. He appeared in Jonathan Kent’s production of Hamlet, playing Laertes. This production was seen by Steven Spielberg, who later cast Lewis as Richard Winters in Band of Brothers (2001), the first role of several that required him to have a credible American accent.
He was in the 2000 series called Hearts and Bones as the love interest of Dervla Kirwan. Subsequently, Lewis portrayed Soames Forsyte in the ITV series The Forsyte Saga, which earned him positive reviews. He returned to the US to star in Dreamcatcher, a Lawrence Kasdan film about a man who becomes possessed by an evil alien. The character is American but when possessed he takes on a British accent. On the heels of this role, he starred in Keane as a Manhattanite with a fragile mental state who is searching for his missing daughter. Despite the film’s poor box-office, Lewis’s performance in the role was very well reviewed.
He played Jeffrey Archer in the TV special Jeffrey Archer: The Truth. Since 2004, he has appeared in a number of films, as well as the 2005 BBC TV adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing, as part of the ShakespeaRe-Told season. Lewis played the role of Yassen Gregorovich in the film Stormbreaker. In 2006, he appeared in Stephen Poliakoff’s BBC drama Friends and Crocodiles. He has appeared on BBC’s Have I Got News for You as guest host several times; on 10 November 2006, 1 May 2009, 18 November 2010, 27 April 9 November 2012 and 31 October 2014.
In 2008, Lewis starred as the main character Charlie Crews in the American television series Life on NBC. The show premiered in the US on 26 September 2007 and was affected by the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. Only half of the first season’s shows were produced. Regardless, the show won a 2008 AFI Award for best television series. Although the show received critical acclaim, when it returned the following television season, it was shuffled from night to night, and eventually cancelled by NBC to clear its time slot for The Jay Leno Show.
Lewis appeared the following year in the lead role in The Baker, a film directed by his brother, Gareth. Damian took a supporting role of Rizza in The Escapist, which he also helped produce. He led the cast in Martin Crimp’s version of Molière’s comedy, The Misanthrope, which opened in December 2009 at the Comedy Theatre, London. Other cast members included Tara Fitzgerald, Keira Knightley and Dominic Rowan.
Lewis played Tory Prime Minister Simon Laity in two seasons of Number 10 on BBC Radio 4.
He played Gareth, the father of an 11-year-old Liverpool F.C. fan, in the 2011 film Will.
From 2011 to 2013, Lewis had a starring role as Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Brody in the Showtime series Homeland. In 2013, he narrated poetry for The Love Book App, an “interactive anthology of love literature developed by Allie Byrne Esiri”.
From 2016 to 2021, he starred as billionaire hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod in the Showtime series Billions.
Personal Life
Damian was married to actress Helen McCrory from 2007 until her death in 2021. They have two children together, Manon (b. 2006) and Gulliver, (b. 2007.) The family resides in a Victorian townhouse located in Tufnell Park, north London. They bought the house in 2007 from fellow British actor Hugh Laurie.
They also own a house near Sudbury in Suffolk.
Lewis is also a big soccer fan, particularly of Liverpool FC, and in 2006 he participated in the Soccer Aid fundraiser. He’s also the patron of London-based charity Scene & Heard, which aims to get inner-city children involved with the arts. He is also a trade justice ambassador for the charity Christian Aid. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lewis and McCrory supported Feed NHS, a scheme to give food from high-end restaurants to NHS staff. By early April 2020, they had raised over $1 million for the charity. Although it started in London, its success allowed programs to roll out to other cities in the UK.
Honours
Lewis was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to drama and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to drama and charity.
Net Worth
Lewis has a net worth of $25 million.
