Damian Lewis

Damian Watcyn Lewis, born on 11 February 1971 in St John's Wood, London, is a British actor and musician. The eldest child of Charlotte Mary Lewis, née Bowater, and John Watcyn Lewis, an insurance broker at Lloyd's, he traces paternal roots to Wales and considers himself "London Welsh." His maternal grandfather was Lt-Col. Sir Ian Bowater, Lord Mayor of London, and his great-great-grandfather was the naval shipbuilder and philanthropist Sir Alfred Yarrow, 1st Baronet, who was of partial Sephardic Jewish descent. Lewis's brother Gareth Lewis works as a writer, producer, and director. Lewis was educated at Ashdown House School in Forest Row, East Sussex, followed by Eton College, and completed a B.A. at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1993. He made the decision to pursue acting at the age of sixteen.

Early in his career, Lewis worked as a telemarketer selling car alarms before securing his first television appearance in 1995, playing a medical student in "Hickory Dickory Dock," a feature-length episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot. That same year, he made his Broadway debut in Hamlet. He also appeared in the drama series A Touch of Frost in 1996 and in Robinson Crusoe in 1997. During this period he was active with the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking on roles including Borgheim in Adrian Noble's production of Henrik Ibsen's Little Eyolf and Posthumus Leonatus in Shakespeare's Cymbeline. He later returned to Ibsen, playing Karsten Bernick in Pillars of the Community at the National Theatre in November 2005. In Jonathan Kent's production of Hamlet, Lewis played Laertes, a performance that was seen by Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg subsequently cast Lewis as U.S. Army Major Richard Winters in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which aired in 2001 — the first of several roles requiring him to perform with a credible American accent. He followed that with the ITV series The Forsyte Saga, in which he portrayed Soames Forsyte, and appeared in the 2000 series Hearts and Bones opposite Dervla Kirwan. His film work during this period included Dreamcatcher, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, and Keane, in which he played a Manhattanite searching for his missing daughter. He portrayed Jeffrey Archer in the television special Jeffrey Archer: The Truth and played Yassen Gregorovich in the film Stormbreaker. In 2005, he appeared in the BBC's ShakespeaRe-Told adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, and in 2006 he appeared in Stephen Poliakoff's BBC drama Friends and Crocodiles.

Lewis starred as Charlie Crews in the NBC series Life, which premiered on 26 September 2007. The show was affected by the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, limiting the first season's output, but it won a 2008 AFI Award for best television series before being cancelled by NBC. In December 2009, he led the cast of Martin Crimp's version of Molière's The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre in London, alongside Tara Fitzgerald, Keira Knightley, and Dominic Rowan. He also appeared in The Baker, directed by his brother Gareth, and took a supporting role in The Escapist, which he co-produced.

From 2011 to 2013, Lewis starred as Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Brody in the Showtime series Homeland, a performance that earned him both a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. He received additional award nominations for his portrayal of Henry VIII in the BBC series Wolf Hall. Beginning in 2016, he played billionaire hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod in the Showtime series Billions, appearing across six of the show's seven seasons before departing in 2021 and returning for a portion of season seven. Also in 2016, he appeared in the British spy film Our Kind of Traitor. In 2019, he portrayed actor Steve McQueen in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In 2024, he played the dual roles of brothers Peter and Will Radley alongside Kelly Macdonald in the vampire comedy film The Radleys.

Lewis has also pursued a career in music. In an October 2022 interview with The Guardian, he described a long-standing ambition to record music and discussed his collaboration with jazz artist Giacomo Smith, which began with cover songs before evolving into original material. He released his debut single, "Down On the Bowery," on 13 April 2023, and his debut album, Mission Creep, followed in June 2023 on Decca Records. On 9 July 2023, he performed the national anthem at the British Grand Prix, accompanied by a saxophonist.

Beyond his performance work, Lewis became a Trade Justice ambassador for the charity Christian Aid in 2010. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his wife, actress Helen McCrory, whom he married on 4 July 2007, supported Feed NHS, a fundraiser supplying food from high street restaurants to NHS staff. By April 2020, the initiative had raised £1 million and expanded beyond London to other cities across the United Kingdom. The couple had a daughter and a son together. Lewis has also been a guest host on the BBC programme Have I Got News for You on multiple occasions, including appearances in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014. He is a supporter of Liverpool F.C. and participated in Soccer Aid for England in May 2006, June 2016, June 2018, and June 2022.