Quotes from Damian Lewis

I'm not an American, but I have this weird connection to America in different ways through my dad living here for five years, my godfather being an American who I'm very close to.

No Western government has ever played the long-term in terms of foreign policy.

I am Damian Lewis, not Daniel Day-Lewis.

The best shows succeed because they tap into a national conversation.

The lesson I learned is that sometimes the task you have at hand needs all of your concentration and focus.

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.

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.

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.

You can't be sent away to prison for life and feel OK about it.

Having been on a private jet only two or three times, it's one of life's great luxuries.

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.

Temperamentally I'm not a natural producer, because I don't have the patience.

There's something important, as an actor, about allowing yourself to be approached by people to do roles. People see different things in you.

I am extremely lucky, and I enjoy the level of work that I am able to work at.

Television audiences are ruthless - look what happened to 'The Killing.'

I'm not averse to telling people off.

The irony is that, coming from a white-collar British background, I tend to play blue-collar Americans!

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people.

I think people like to be scared. I think people like tension and suspense in a movie.

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.'

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.

I'm always forming bands.

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.

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.