Quotes By Damian Lewis

L.A. still ranks as one of my guilty pleasures, along with butter-pecan ice cream and Coldplay albums.

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

I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old at home, and my mornings are about just dealing with the fact of that. I oddly enjoy it.

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

There are ways of avoiding becoming tabloid fodder and therefore giving people license to pry into your private life. And there's a distinction between being an actor and being a celebrity. You may become a celebrity through acting, but you don't need to do so.

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

I'd feel guilty just doing gags.

I've always had a 'Work hard, play hard' attitude to life - I still do - but sometimes you get involved in something that needs a calm, methodical approach.

I want to make a clear distinction between people who take acting seriously and people who call themselves actors because they've been on reality TV or something.

You just have to take control of your own performance.

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

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

I've always been a narcissist.

Writing and directing might be a red herring, and really I'm just re-examining what it is to act, to do it well and do it properly.

A cricket ball broke my nose when I was a kid so I couldn't breath through it. Before I had it operated on I used to stand on stage with my mouth slightly open.

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

I'm one of those pesky Brits.

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.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

You know, I think I am faintly spiritual.

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.

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

Why do you think so many actors are only half-developed people? It's very easy when you're a young actor to have these intense, explosive friendships for short periods of time, because you can control what's shown of you. Then you go on to your next job and reinvent yourself again. I think it's important to find something constant.

I'm very lucky.

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?'

If you think you don't want to play another psychopath, but the script is amazing, and the director is fantastic, and the story is incredible, then you may end up playing your third psychopath in a row.

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

I'm sponsored by Audi, so I have this rather lovely rather arrangement where they just insist that I'm always in the latest model.

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

You know, this idea of going around the world imposing democracy by growing a middle-class, a trading merchant class that is independent of your faith, is a good notion, but we're all partially different - it's no good imposing systems on people that it doesn't suit.