Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
Actor best known for playing Sergeant Brody in Homeland (Emmy & Golden Globe winner) and Band of Brothers.
Eight records
The keepsakes
The luxury
I would quite like to take a whittling kit, where I could whittle useless [objects].
In conversation
Presenter asks
Are you a ball of sort of kinetic energy who feels you've got to occupy every moment?
Uh No, I'm not, because I fail at that constantly. But I think it's probably part of the way I was brought up, part of my schooling, that one just tries one's best at all times. And giving any less than that is somehow unsatisfying.
Presenter asks
How does your life change when you're not filming? Do you have a period of readjustment, a 're-entry' back into normal home life?
Uh re-entry is a very good word. In fact, it's what we use as well. You have to slot back in with the rhythms of the family. Helen and I are strong, independent people and you become single very quickly again. She quickly feels like a single mum if I'm away for a period of time. I feel like a single man. And it's disconcerting. Once you've become a father and a husband, and your wife and your children aren't there, then what are you? So coming back You're keen and eager for it just to take off exactly where it left off. It never does. It's never that smooth. And there is no shorthand. There's no shortcut.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
Presenter
For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.
Presenter
My castaway this week is the actor Damien Lewis. As part of the wave of British talent that's crashed onto America's shores in recent years, his impact has made a deep impression on the creative landscape.
Presenter
His role as Sergeant Brody in Homeland saw him win both an Emmy and a Golden Globe, and along with Band of Brothers, the Foresight Saga, and a long list of other credits, he now ranks as one of our most well recognized and highly regarded performers. Things didn't always look so peachy. Aged eleven and in the school production of Princess Ida, he forgot the entire third act and stood mute in front of a packed auditorium.
Presenter
Telling then that rather than sending him scuttling into the wings with shame, he soldiered on.
Presenter
And by sixteen he knew performing was, more than anything, what he wanted to do. He says I am a person who's ambitious. I'm ambitious to get the very best from every moment. And even if that's just taking my children to the zoo, I want it to be the best it can be. And that to me, Damian Lewis, sounds
Presenter
Exhausting. Are you a ball of sort of kinetic energy who feels you've got to occupy every moment?
Damian Lewis
Uh No, I'm not, because I fail at that constantly. But I think it's probably part of the way I was brought up, part of my schooling, that one just tries one's best at all times. And
Speaker 4
Mm.
Damian Lewis
Giving any less than that is somehow
Damian Lewis
Unsatisfying.
Presenter
And you are married, of course, to the notable and highly accomplished actress Helen McCrory.
Presenter
The bit about going to the zoo with the kids, you've got two kids. Are you actually able to do that without people with camera phones and paparazzi annoying you? It can be hard to stop and give someone a photo.
Damian Lewis
But uh if I'm with the family I tend to just blanketly say no photos today I'm out with the family. It's good for the children, I think, not to just see their parents endlessly being photographed by strangers. It's a slightly warped view of the world.
Presenter
And do you know when they come up to you, as they're walking towards you, is there a tacit understanding between you and Helen oh, they're homeland people or oh, they're Dormar warehouse people?
Damian Lewis
Well, we were at the Cheltenham Literary Festival recently and we sat and signed books and um I I could have been her assistant and clearly they'd all seen Medea and they all loved Peaky Blinders and um I don't think they knew who I was actually and it was it was quite nice for a bit.
Presenter
How does your life change then when you're not filming? Because the rhythm of filming, of course, is all is all encompassing.
Presenter
Do you have a sort of period of readjustment? A friend of mine who who directs says he calls it a period of reentry, where there's that sort of bump back into normal home life where you're emptying the bins and filling the fridge.
Damian Lewis
Uh re-entry is a very good word. In fact, it's what we use as well.
Damian Lewis
You have to slot back in with the rhythms of the family. Helen and I are strong, independent people and you become single very quickly again. She quickly feels like a single mum if I'm away for a period of time. I feel like a single man. And it's disconcerting. Once you've become a father and a husband, and your wife and your children aren't there, then what are you?
Presenter
Yeah.
Damian Lewis
So coming back You're keen and eager for it just to take off exactly where it left off. It never does. It's never that smooth. And there is no shorthand. There's no shortcut. Do you have to go through the f-
Presenter
Do you have to go through the
Damian Lewis
Yeah.
Presenter
The f
Damian Lewis
But
Presenter
Fight Day. Do you think, Oh, thank God we got the fight day out of the way?
Presenter
Did you say day or week?
Presenter
I love it.
Damian Lewis
You to be specific on that.
Presenter
There's some
Damian Lewis
Always no, there's always things to iron out.
Presenter
We've gone in hard and fast, haven't we, quickly? I don't know.
Damian Lewis
Yeah, it was straight into it. If anyone wants to call me about marriage, relationship counselling, don't. How did you choose your music? What was your criteria for this list of eight? Well, firstly, I have to say, it's ball-achingly difficult to narrow it down to eight songs. And.
Damian Lewis
It made me feel very nostalgic, and I think I am a nostalgic person naturally, remembering people, happy times in my life, and just good tunes. So, this one then, the first one, why have you chosen this? Up until I was about the age of 18, I thought I was Elvis, returned, and spent a lot of my time putting shaving foam, oddly, through my hair and relentlessly quaffing my quiff and at any opportunity getting into my skinny pair of black jeans and my black winkle pickers and my Paisley shirt from Kensington Market. Nice.
Damian Lewis
This is Elvis and I've chosen this one because it has great wit and borderline hysteria to it which I love.
Speaker 4
I said, take it easy, baby, I worked all day and my feet feel just like lead. You got my shirt tails flying all over the place, and the sweat popping out of my head. She said, hey, buzzing over baby, keep on working, for this ain't no time to quit. She said, go, buzzing, over baby, keep on dancing, I'm about to have my supper fit.
Speaker 4
Boss and no one
Speaker 4
Must be no time
Speaker 4
That's what I
Presenter
That was Elvis and Bossa Nova. Baby, I should tell people, Damien Lewis, that you were doing more than a possible Elvis all the way through that. You've got a cracking voice.
Presenter
You're an actor, of course, so it's not surprising that you have a very good ear and can do a good Elvis. You're Sergeant Brody then. For the twenty-two people who are listening who don't know what we're talking about when we say homeland and Sergeant Brody, you were US Marine Sergeant Brodie, a recently freed prisoner of Al-Qaeda. Claire Daines was playing the CIA agent who was suspicious of your motives throughout.
Presenter
Among the many millions of fans famously President Obama loves the show you were invited with your wife to the White House. And did y is it true you sat next to him or sat opposite him and had a good old chin wag?
Damian Lewis
Land
Damian Lewis
Well, it was an unforgettable night. Helen and I were rather amazed to be there in the first place, and were fully expecting to be sat by the revolving door. There were 400 people there, and Helen and I sauntered up through the cherry blossoms, through the White House, behaved like teenage tourists, and had our pictures taken next to the famous portraits of Jackie O and various others. And then I got to the President, and I don't know what possessed me, but I said to him, Sir, Mr. President, we're very keen to keep homeland as current as possible, so if there's any chance of going into Iran, will you let us know? At which point...
Damian Lewis
At which point I saw three security guys either side of me sort of perk up somebody said I ran in the White House.
Damian Lewis
Somebody said I ran. And I sure enough, I had this enormous hand sort of cuff me to one side on my right cheek of my derrier, I hasten to add. And I was sort of shunted along to David Cameron, who was
Damian Lewis
Next in line. But he um the President had a great sense of humor. He looked me square in the eye and he he said, I'll be sure to let you know as soon as it happens. And uh it was remarkable. It was remarkable and it remains remarkable in our in our memories.
Presenter
Tell me about your second disc of the morning, Damian Lewis. What are we going to hear now?
Damian Lewis
We grew up with a lot of music in our house. My father, if they ever made a musical called the Singing Insurance Broker.
Damian Lewis
He would star in it and he sang in a choir when he was younger and he loves opera and it takes barely a glass for him to leap to his feet on any family occasion. And I love this piece of music. I've heard it a lot and I've grown up loving it and I love it still.
Speaker 4
God has rest for leaving.
Speaker 4
Easy oh
Speaker 4
On
Speaker 4
Peace that was.
Speaker 4
Peace the world.
Speaker 4
It's all.
Presenter
Part of Bizet's Proulfisher's duet sung by Luciano Pavarotti and Nikolai Guoroff with the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robin Stapleton. So, Damien Lewis, you were born in nineteen seventy one in St. John's Wood, and as we've heard, it was a a musical family. What sort of a little boy were you?
Damian Lewis
I think initially I was quite a shy boy and um
Presenter
Why do you think?
Damian Lewis
It won't be a good thing. I don't know. I look I see pictures of myself then. I look rather anxious a lot of the time, and I I don't know why that is. I would like to say to you that I was thoughtful and sensitive and thinking, Kirstie, but um that might not have been true.
Damian Lewis
By the time I was, I suppose, eight, I was on sort of full throttle.
Presenter
And what were you interested in? What would you have been playing at? What was in your toy box?
Damian Lewis
My favourite dress-up costume was a First World War officer with peak cap and rifle and um
Damian Lewis
Quite like dressing up as Robin Hood occasionally. You said get dressed in him, so he was a character. Give him the opportunity. The biggest characters of our childhood were invented by my brother and myself, and they were called Bob and Charlie. And Bob and Charlie went up and down the streets, the mean streets I had of St John's Wood, solving crimes of our own, imagining on our grifters, the new Raleigh bike that was brought out in the early 80s.
Presenter
It's given the opportunity.
Presenter
Oh no.
Damian Lewis
And that took up a lot of our time. And
Presenter
I I've read you the Describe your mother as strong. Tell me more about her.
Damian Lewis
Mum was a fiercely protective, loving, giving woman. Tough love, a generation that was still giving tough love, but probably more likely to say, you know, your father and I love you in a letter than to your face, but really, really loved, gave a lot of time to other people. It was sort of a a family joke that our house just off Abbey Road became a sort of refuge for children, friends of all of ours, who maybe didn't see their parents so much, or when they came to stay in London would always stay at our house. And mum was always there, and as they grew older into their twenties, she was always ready to sit down and give people advice.
Presenter
And was it so a house with wisdom and love, and was it a sort of quiet contemplative house, apart from your father getting up to sing at Sunday lunch? Or was it a a loud, rumbustuous place to live? B.
Damian Lewis
B. We were a family that learnt to talk very quickly and make one's point quickly in order to get it in before you were interrupted.
Presenter
Right, so you had to play big in a room to get
Damian Lewis
Your voice heard. Yes, we're terrible listeners, is the truth of it. We were probably all just very keen to make our point. Mostly because we were encouraged to make our point by our parents. You know, substantiate your point. What does that mean? But I think someone might have said at some point, and now listen to someone else's, maybe or maybe I just didn't hear that bit.
Damian Lewis
Uh
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Damian Lewis. Um your third. Tell me about this.
Damian Lewis
Well, my friends will be tittering when they hear this. For someone who already has a bit of a reputation for not having a very cool taste in music, when the band released this album it made an already not very cool band turn into a really uncool band for some. This is now a standard pop song that is known the world over, but I think it's a brilliant song and it's really a song for anyone who
Damian Lewis
Went to boarding school from an early age.
Speaker 4
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
Speaker 4
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical And all the birds in the trees
Speaker 4
Oh joyfully, oh playfully, you're watching me.
Speaker 4
Then they sent me away.
Speaker 4
Teach me how to be sensible
Speaker 4
Logical, or responsible, practical And then they show me a
Presenter
That was Super Tramp and the Logical Song, and you said in your introduction to that, Damian Lewis, it was for anyone who'd ever been to boarding school, and you went to boarding school aged eight. I know this sounds absurd, but please tell me who were you at boarding school then? What sort of how were you dealing?
Damian Lewis
Then what's that?
Speaker 4
Uh
Presenter
With the situation.
Damian Lewis
Um well, I have to you know, I have to say that song is only part of the story because part of my memory of boarding school, certainly early on, it's bucolic surroundings. I have this rather sort of Laurie Lee-esque nostalgia for open fields and being out late at night jumping across the ha and stuff. But I think the other side of it is that, you know, going away at eight is a is a uh
Damian Lewis
A sphincter tightening exercise where y y an eight year old is asked to deal with a with a new situation that I think can be overwhelming and some some swim, some sink. It it it definitely informs who you become later.
Presenter
And you were eleven, I said in the introduction, when you were in this um little school operetta and you were a big part, all the pupils were there. I is it true you forgot the entire third act?
Presenter
It is. It is.
Damian Lewis
True. It's like an actor's nightmare that actors have before, you know, they're getting ready for press night. But I it happened to me in real life. I stood on a stage in front of the entire school with Mrs Woodgates playing the piano from the side and singing
Damian Lewis
at least one song for me and saying quite a lot of my dialogue as I sort of stood there mouthing it on the stage like I might just fool them if I just keep moving my lips. Yes, the headmaster said it was the worst dress rehearsal in his history of being at the school.
Presenter
You went on to Eason then, the the the widely held perception, of course, is that it's this high, octane, privileged, entitled environment.
Presenter
And what is it really like?
Damian Lewis
It really is a high-octane privileged environment, but it's progressive and contemporary whilst holding core traditional values at its heart. It's a massively competitive environment, there's no question. And I think probably somewhere like that just feeds this idea that you better not be the one that's caught out. Because if you're the one that's caught out, you'll be turned on. So it feeds this readiness to be quick, witty, nimble, agile of mind at all times, which of course is its own defence mechanism. And is there by the time you leave very much as part of you as a young 17, 18 year old.
Presenter
No girls, did they bust them in for the socials.
Presenter
Girl.
Damian Lewis
Those will bust in for Scottish dancing. I can show you my Roger de Covoli if you like. Not everybody who says that to me on this.
Presenter
Bye.
Speaker 4
A yeah
Speaker 4
You've never heard it called that before.
Damian Lewis
But uh I
Damian Lewis
Yeah, girls bust in. And also by the time that I was acting at Eton, girls were bust in for performances. So when we were doing school plays, there were no uh little boys dressed up in dresses, thank God.
Presenter
Tell me about your next piece of music then. What are we gonna hear? We're on your uh your fourth of the
Damian Lewis
Good morning, Damien.
Damian Lewis
1989 was later coined by the social historians as the second summer of love. It happened to be the year I came out of school. And after 10 years of boarding school, you know, I grew my hair, I bought motorbikes, I played guitars, I went busking, etc. etc. But I also also went raving. I found myself in fields outside Oxford, you know, dancing until the sun came up. And I was also at drama school, and it was a great sort of romantic time. And this tune still makes me dance a lot.
Speaker 1
Piecing together new thoughts in your mind.
Presenter
That was the great and crystal clear memories for you, Damien Lewis, of being in some field outside Oxford, slightly dazed and confused as the sun comes up. You went after Eaton to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, but you you did mention just a moment ago this the time you had busking, but this wasn't just an afternoon. I mean you didn't just go outside the tube station for three hours, you you properly busked for quite a long time.
Damian Lewis
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Damian Lewis
Yes, I did. I was a street performer. I
Damian Lewis
I have to say s rather self-consciously because I was living out some sort of easy rider fantasy, but I did buy myself a big chopper of a motorbike and I would stick my guitar and my tent on the back of it and motorbike down to the south of France and I would tool around between Avignon and Aix and down to Cannes and Nice and back and I found a place in Aix-en-Provence where I was able to terrorise five restaurants at once by standing right by the fountain in the centre of this square and if they would didn't throw coins in my hat, people would send waiters out with beer, which was a terrible mistake, because then I would never shut up and I would just I'd still be there two hours later just
Presenter
Strumming away. And your father was a successful insurance broker. His his Eaton educated son says, Dad, I'm going to be an actor. And what does what does Dad say?
Damian Lewis
Well, thankfully they'd come to see me. At 16, there was a little group of us. I've said rather grandly in an interview before that we set up our own theatre company. What we did is we put on a production of a play. We put it on independently of the school. And it was the time that I was happiest. And they came to see me in it. And I think they saw enough to at least allow me to audition for drama schools and think, well, this might not be a dream going up in smoke. Let's let them try.
Presenter
What was it about being on stage that so appealed to you that you felt like a fish in water? Um.
Damian Lewis
It was something that was absolutely instinctive, and I felt it was a place where one sort of swam. It's the feeling that people who love swimming feel in water. And because I'm not a brilliant swimmer, I never quite feel it in water, but I feel it there on stage. It's one of the reasons I still love playing football, for the athleticism of it and the challenge to oneself physically, but also just because for 90 minutes you forget about everything except the ball and your relation.
Damian Lewis
geometric relation to other players on the pitch. So and that's not dissimilar to being on stage and being aware that you're playing for an audience and also creating a credible and interesting character from your imagination.
Damian Lewis
Just for me, it's just a l a lovely place to be.
Presenter
Your career then after drama school got off to a pretty good start. You played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet in Tim Piggott Smith's production, Regent's Park.
Presenter
Um it was when you were playing um Laertes that then that you were spotted by Steven Spielberg. It had gone it had gone to Broadway. And that led to your part in Band of Brothers, of course.
Damian Lewis
Well, it might have done indirectly. I to be honest, I think they had no idea that they were auditioning the guy who had al had also played Laertes five years earlier. I think my my casting in Banner Brothers was a sort of needle in the haystack piece of casting. How many auditions did you have to do?
Presenter
Did not
Damian Lewis
I did, I suppose, four or five auditions in a damp basement in Soho, and this exec from LA, this lovely guy called Tony Toe, kept coming over and finally said, Damien, how'd you like to fly to LA and meet Stephen and Tom? sort of jumped out of his chair one day and I realized that I was
Damian Lewis
I was going to LA for the the final blessing.
Presenter
What did your parents make of that? I mean, it was a h it was a huge show that garnered not just great critical reviews, but a lot of attention before it even made it on air. Your parents must have been cock a hoop.
Damian Lewis
They they loved it. Your mum and dad were very, very proud. You know, my mum didn't see it air because she had died um in the year between filming and it airing. But she came on set and she met Stephen and she met Tom and she was very proud.
Damian Lewis
Tell me about your next piece of music, Damien. What are we going to hear now? Your fifth? This is actually one of the songs that I used to sing busking, and it just reminds me of a very happy time.
Speaker 4
I guess the viper spy Or Harold Loud and Leopard Man I'm singing
Speaker 4
Quick Sab
Speaker 4
Oh my god.
Speaker 4
And I ain't got the flower.
Presenter
That was David Bowie in Quicksand.
Presenter
You've just finished uh filming this much-anticipated BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's going to be broadcast, I think, in the New Year. You play Henry the Eighth. Now, here's the thing.
Presenter
He had a fifty four inch waist, and you very clearly don't.
Damian Lewis
Well now here's the thing he did end up
Presenter
He
Damian Lewis
With a 54-inch waist, but he started with a 34-inch waist, and he was always a broad man, big chest, very proud of his calves. In fact, he lauded it over Philip the Fair of France because he thought his calves were better. But he was a svelte, athletic, Renaissance prince, deep into his 30s. There's a bit of contention about why he bloated and became bigger and bigger, but more irascible and chopped more people's heads off. But I think it's because he had a jousting accident. His horse rolled on him and actually concussed him. He was unconscious for two hours, and he woke up and he'd got a badly damaged leg, and he wasn't able to joust, to hunt any longer. And I think he just sort of ballooned.
Presenter
You yourself have got experience of of concussion, I understand. You mentioned earlier that you bought this cracking motorbike when you were a teenager. You had a bad accident on it.
Damian Lewis
I did. I had a crash outside Pentonville Prison on the Caledonian Road, and I was at the RSC at the time, where a cab driver just didn't see me, pulled out, and I went flying over my handlebars and straight into the windscreen of his car, and I showered him in glass. They took forever picking out the pieces of glass out of his face, poor man. But I was out cold on the ground, concussed. Woke up with that very that sort of rather cliched film view of sort of whispering voices huddled in a circle over my head and a a light patter of rain and the orange of a street lamp. I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1
Oh shit.
Damian Lewis
I had broken nothing. I broke nothing. But I was concussed for six weeks. And I tried to go back on stage. I was doing much ado about nothing at the Royal Shakespeare Company. And I had to sit down in the middle of a scene. I just whispered to him, I think I'm going to pass out. And I had to sit down on the barbican stage. I just finished the scene, sat down cross-legged. And then I went off and that was it. I was off for another three weeks. But I was I stayed in my dressing gown for large parts of the day and all I could do was do puzzles. I couldn't read and I couldn't watch TV. They gave me terrible migraines. I launched into terrible rages at the poor video shop man for you know when he'd said, Why is your video late? So I definitely concussed, a sort of minor brain damage.
Presenter
And long term, it's not had any effect. I mean, in terms of your memory.
Damian Lewis
My memory is terrible. We could attribute it to that. Let's have some more music, Damien. Tell me about this thing, your sixth. I love jazz. And when I was courting my lady wife, we went and listened to a lot of jazz, and it was really lovely. And I like the entire spectrum of jazz, but I've chosen a sort of more traditional swing jazz. This guy was really the first jazz superstar. He was dead by the time he was 28. And this is called Goose Pimples. It's a fantastic track. It will remind me of jazz clubs with Helen.
Presenter
Goose Pimples, composed by Fletcher Henderson and Joe Trent, and played by Big Spider Beck and his gang. And you said that was chosen because it reminded you of those, you used a beautiful word, those courting days when you and Helen would go out to jazz clubs before you were married. Damien Lewis, I read that you learned when you were doing Homeland, you learned to tap dance on set with Mandy Patinkin between takes. Is that true?
Presenter
No.
Damian Lewis
But don't let that out. Um no, I didn't learn to tap dance with with Mandy, but I was l I was having tap
Presenter
Lessons. Mandy Petinkin, we should say, plays Saul Berenson in Homeland, a very big part. Mandy was still.
Damian Lewis
Mandy was Mandy, he's a Broadway superstar, but he's like a rock star. And really his first love is to go and sing his own devised concerts of show tunes and this, that, and the other. But we were singing some Sondheim together, and then we launched into this a cappella version of Bohemian Rhapsody during this really
Presenter
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Uh
Damian Lewis
Actually rather grim interrogation seen where I was being interrogated, but Mandy, true to form, quite rightly said, No, Damien, no, no, that note's wrong.
Damian Lewis
But for me
Presenter
Just in there. He's got this very high voice. The type of worldwide Hollywood success that you now have, this sort of explosion of fame in the middle of your professional life following homeland um I mean it's hit in about forty countries I'm told.
Presenter
One of the dangers must surely be that the person that you are and the things that you want to say and do become compromised by feeling that you've got to please, whether it's a kind of studio head or the fact that it's Damian Lewis now saying it'll be reported everywhere, it'll be tweeted, people will have an opinion. Are you conscious that the things you ha the things you say will be followed up? Because you're quite a sparky person.
Damian Lewis
I'm I'd be lying if I said that I it didn't cross my mind. It does cross your mind. But the easiest way to not compromise yourself is to not read
Damian Lewis
The endless stream of drivel
Damian Lewis
There is social media.
Damian Lewis
You know.
Presenter
But if you don't do you tweet?
Damian Lewis
I tweet occasionally, very rarely, and I had to do it only because someone had assumed my identity and I kept getting in trouble with people. Um but um that's the simplest thing.
Damian Lewis
is don't don't follow yourself.
Damian Lewis
You know, say what you want to say and then don't read all the all the rubbish.
Damian Lewis
That might come out in response to it.
Presenter
Uh
Damian Lewis
Tell me about your seventh piece of music. What's this? Well, I respond to music that makes me want to dance. I love dancing. Helen and I dance a lot and started out that way, just sort of dancing around my house in Camden. And this is directly from that sort of jazz funk, disco genre. This is Roy Airs, and it's love will bring us back together. It'll keep me dancing on my island.
Speaker 4
Fortunately,
Speaker 4
I could hear me.
Speaker 4
Seems so far away
Speaker 4
First take astray.
Speaker 4
De a copy
Speaker 4
It's called
Speaker 4
We stuck together.
Speaker 4
Watch me
Speaker 4
I can't check it out for me
Speaker 4
Seems so far away.
Presenter
That was Royere's With Love Will Bring Us Back Together. Um, Damien Lewis, your wife then, of course, is is widely regarded, I think, as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Do you give her advice? Does she give you advice about how to play things?
Damian Lewis
Yeah.
Damian Lewis
Um
Damian Lewis
Helen's very romantic, and I think she still wants me to think that she's brilliant. And I do think she's brilliant. Of course, goes without saying, and I want her to think that I'm brilliant. At the same time, it's useful having a practitioner that you're married to who can give you just a really nuts and bolts honest response to something you've done to help you.
Damian Lewis
you know, improve it. But c certainly if you're in the theatre. And I d fully expect to be, you know, the butler to her dame one day in the house. And um she's absolutely brilliant. And we do help each other.
Presenter
Um I'm going to cost you away, which is unfair of me, but there we go, that's what you're here for. Um how will you survive?
Damian Lewis
Yeah.
Presenter
I'm gonna have to concoct
Damian Lewis
boxed some sort of aloe vera oil-based lotion to protect my skin.
Presenter
Yeah.
Damian Lewis
Uh
Presenter
I think hunts climb trees, can you?
Damian Lewis
I think climbing trees, can you tell me? Tell me then about your eighth disc, Damien Lewis. What is it? This, just to combat the onslaught of Taylor Swift in the car when I'm with the kids, is what every self-respecting dad should do, which is force the music of his youth onto his own children. It turns out they absolutely love this. And when I'm on my desert island, I will hear their laughter and I will hear the mad singing of the family as we barrel along in the car.
Speaker 4
Naughty boys in nasty schools and masters breaking all the rules Having fun and playing cool, smashing up the wood buttons All the titters in the pub Casting man are ready rub Trying not to think of when the lunchtime bell will ring again Oh what fun we had, right did it really turn out bad All I learned at school was hasn't been rule Oh what fun we had, but at that time it seems so bad
Speaker 4
What is to make a
Speaker 4
Blood mothers had enough to die
Speaker 4
Exactly.
Presenter
That was madness in baggy trousers. Time for you to get the books, Damian Lewis. I give you.
Presenter
A copy of the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to take to this island, and you get to take one more book along. What will your book be?
Presenter
This has caused a lot of consternation. I think I'm gonna go for
Damian Lewis
Roberts's History of the World. Okay, it's yours. A luxury too. What will your luxury be? I know you're not allowed anything that's too useful, but I would quite like to take a w my whittling kit, where I could whittle useless obge.
Presenter
Yeah, I wasn't sure.
Damian Lewis
He was given a whittling.
Presenter
Yeah.
Damian Lewis
What would you whittle?
Damian Lewis
Well, I've gonna get I've got to find a way to get the trees down. That's the only thing I haven't quite worked out. But, um, I might whittle little busts of my family to start with.
Presenter
Who would I be to deny you that pleasure? A whistling kit, then it is. Which track would you save from the eight? Goodness. Well, I
Damian Lewis
You know, my first love after myself uh was was Elvis, and I sort of imagine myself beaten, addled by the sun with my sensitive fair skin, and just sort of running around in a grass skirt, singing and dancing to Bossenova baby.
Presenter
It's yours. Damien Lewis, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.
Damian Lewis
Thank you very much.
Presenter
You've been listening to a download from the BBC.
Presenter
You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.
Presenter asks
Is it true you sat next to President Obama at the White House and had a good old chin wag?
Well, it was an unforgettable night. Helen and I were rather amazed to be there in the first place, and were fully expecting to be sat by the revolving door. There were 400 people there, and Helen and I sauntered up through the cherry blossoms, through the White House, behaved like teenage tourists, and had our pictures taken next to the famous portraits of Jackie O and various others. And then I got to the President, and I don't know what possessed me, but I said to him, Sir, Mr. President, we're very keen to keep homeland as current as possible, so if there's any chance of going into Iran, will you let us know? At which point... At which point I saw three security guys either side of me sort of perk up somebody said I ran in the White House. Somebody said I ran. And I sure enough, I had this enormous hand sort of cuff me to one side on my right cheek of my derrier, I hasten to add. And I was sort of shunted along to David Cameron, who was next in line. But he um the President had a great sense of humor. He looked me square in the eye and he he said, I'll be sure to let you know as soon as it happens. And uh it was remarkable. It was remarkable and it remains remarkable in our in our memories.
Presenter asks
Tell me more about your mother. I've read you describe her as strong.
Mum was a fiercely protective, loving, giving woman. Tough love, a generation that was still giving tough love, but probably more likely to say, you know, your father and I love you in a letter than to your face, but really, really loved, gave a lot of time to other people. It was sort of a a family joke that our house just off Abbey Road became a sort of refuge for children, friends of all of ours, who maybe didn't see their parents so much, or when they came to stay in London would always stay at our house. And mum was always there, and as they grew older into their twenties, she was always ready to sit down and give people advice.
Presenter asks
You went to boarding school aged eight. Who were you at boarding school? How were you dealing with the situation?
Um well, I have to you know, I have to say that song is only part of the story because part of my memory of boarding school, certainly early on, it's bucolic surroundings. I have this rather sort of Laurie Lee-esque nostalgia for open fields and being out late at night jumping across the ha and stuff. But I think the other side of it is that, you know, going away at eight is a is a uh A sphincter tightening exercise where y y an eight year old is asked to deal with a with a new situation that I think can be overwhelming and some some swim, some sink. It it it definitely informs who you become later.
Presenter asks
Are you conscious that the things you say will be followed up and reported? Because you're quite a sparky person. Do you feel compromised by fame?
I'm I'd be lying if I said that I it didn't cross my mind. It does cross your mind. But the easiest way to not compromise yourself is to not read The endless stream of drivel There is social media. You know. I tweet occasionally, very rarely, and I had to do it only because someone had assumed my identity and I kept getting in trouble with people. Um but um that's the simplest thing. is don't don't follow yourself. You know, say what you want to say and then don't read all the all the rubbish. That might come out in response to it.
“You have to slot back in with the rhythms of the family. Helen and I are strong, independent people and you become single very quickly again. She quickly feels like a single mum if I'm away for a period of time. I feel like a single man. And it's disconcerting. Once you've become a father and a husband, and your wife and your children aren't there, then what are you?”
“Well, it was an unforgettable night. Helen and I were rather amazed to be there in the first place, and were fully expecting to be sat by the revolving door. There were 400 people there, and Helen and I sauntered up through the cherry blossoms, through the White House, behaved like teenage tourists, and had our pictures taken next to the famous portraits of Jackie O and various others. And then I got to the President, and I don't know what possessed me, but I said to him, Sir, Mr. President, we're very keen to keep homeland as current as possible, so if there's any chance of going into Iran, will you let us know? At which point... At which point I saw three security guys either side of me sort of perk up somebody said I ran in the White House. Somebody said I ran. And I sure enough, I had this enormous hand sort of cuff me to one side on my right cheek of my derrier, I hasten to add. And I was sort of shunted along to David Cameron, who was next in line. But he um the President had a great sense of humor. He looked me square in the eye and he he said, I'll be sure to let you know as soon as it happens. And uh it was remarkable. It was remarkable and it remains remarkable in our in our memories.”
“Um well, I have to you know, I have to say that song is only part of the story because part of my memory of boarding school, certainly early on, it's bucolic surroundings. I have this rather sort of Laurie Lee-esque nostalgia for open fields and being out late at night jumping across the ha and stuff. But I think the other side of it is that, you know, going away at eight is a is a uh A sphincter tightening exercise where y y an eight year old is asked to deal with a with a new situation that I think can be overwhelming and some some swim, some sink. It it it definitely informs who you become later.”
“It was something that was absolutely instinctive, and I felt it was a place where one sort of swam. It's the feeling that people who love swimming feel in water. And because I'm not a brilliant swimmer, I never quite feel it in water, but I feel it there on stage. It's one of the reasons I still love playing football, for the athleticism of it and the challenge to oneself physically, but also just because for 90 minutes you forget about everything except the ball and your relation geometric relation to other players on the pitch. So and that's not dissimilar to being on stage and being aware that you're playing for an audience and also creating a credible and interesting character from your imagination. Just for me, it's just a l a lovely place to be.”
“I'm I'd be lying if I said that I it didn't cross my mind. It does cross your mind. But the easiest way to not compromise yourself is to not read The endless stream of drivel There is social media. You know. I tweet occasionally, very rarely, and I had to do it only because someone had assumed my identity and I kept getting in trouble with people. Um but um that's the simplest thing. is don't don't follow yourself. You know, say what you want to say and then don't read all the all the rubbish. That might come out in response to it.”