Quotes from Damian Lewis

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

Acting can be a narrow and isolated experience, because you only examine your particular part.

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.

You just have to take control of your own performance.

When I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till makeup comes off. I just want everyone to be at ease, and not have the show's creators think, 'Oh my god, he's so English, why did we hire him?'

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.

If you only do issue-based drama, you can become a boring wanker.

I'm one of those pesky Brits.

I remember, when I was doing 'Nicholas Nickleby', James Archer came to see me at the interval and said, 'My father would like to see you after the show.' It felt rather as if I had been summoned by the Queen, and I was cocky enough to think, 'Who the hell is he to summon me?'

I think very few people still understand the distinction between CEOs on Wall Street and the hedge-fund billionaires operating separately.

Fallible characters are more interesting than superheroes in the end.

Seeing a man praying to Allah is enough for some people to assume he is a terrorist.

I don't believe Jesus was the son of God, although I'm inclined to think he might have been a great prophet.

You have to go where the good writing is.

We are not telling Tudor history; we are creating ' Wolf Hall ' from novels, which are already a rereading of Tudor history.

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.

Dramatically it's always more interesting to conceal rather than reveal things.

My kids think America is swimming pools on the roof, screening rooms, and hot dogs. They love it here.

I think you can't be really posh and be an interesting actor. I'm a bit of a posh rough.

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 just don't consider myself to be, you know, an American actor. I don't want that life.

I was, if you like, a successful schoolboy in that I had a degree of talent in all the required things that make you a success at school.

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 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.