Damian Lewis: Life
By Michael Deacon – The Telegraph – 25 October 2008
Damian Lewis, star of ITV’s new US series Life, tells Michael Deacon about his role as an ex-convict, being a British actor in America and his love of bicycle
Charlie Crews, the character Damian Lewis plays in Life – ITV’s new drama import from America – is perpetually defeated by modern technology. Lewis isn’t too hot on it himself. The London-born 37-year-old can’t stand Facebook, worries that video games are a threat to the film business and struggles with text messages. When we meet he is wrestling with his mobile phone: ‘Sorry, I’ve just got to text my sister-in-law, who’s a tyrant – if I don’t text back within half an hour she shouts at me,’ he says. ‘My text response time is usually about two days.’ His mobile, grey and chunky, is a model so antiquated that most teenagers would probably mistake it for a TV remote control.
At least Crews has an excuse. At the beginning of the series, he’s just been released from a Californian prison, where he spent 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit (which explains his bafflement about gadgets invented in the meantime). Having received compensation for wrongful imprisonment, he returns to his old job: detective. But now he’s not only tackling run-of-the-mill murders – he’s trying to find out who framed him all those years ago.
Read the rest of the original article at the Telegraph