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you course began like most projectors in the theater
when you were growing up in Abbey Road were you going to the theater lot where
you belting down the Jubilee line to the National
arm I was a member a junior member at the Hampstead
theater Hampstead Theatre Club that
time has that it was like a little postage stamp it was
it was like a shock it was I going to watch you know theater in the back
some got shed on but great-great
a wonderful in a bit in if it innovative writing good job I'm not a writer
an innovative writing came came out of that
sister when Jenny topper was running at I'm
and yeah I was becoming increasingly interested in theater through my teenage
years
arm my father grew
spent five years in Chicago actually in the sixties
as a single man really fell in love with
on the old american musicals as fantastic
musicals at the thirties forties fifties on your toes guys in those forty second
street said
so whenever they were revivals those that was a sort of holiday tree
before we're packed of back to school and have
sorta ha courts like way for from some
train platform in Victoria station and we would we would always go to theater
so that was very much
that was very much also the cultural
doll as a as a family so when did you actually think
acting would be the profession was there a period I mean where
you thought I'm do you something totally different reforming some other line
now on is when I won the acting prize for my bottom
I
when I was 12 years old and we did a very pared-down version A Midsummer
Night's Dream
and I tasted for the first time that's
love that's got that sort of taste of success and
people clapping and laughing and which is
is is intoxicating and then when I was 16 we
we were encouraged at the school I was at to rent
the theater from the school see you could set up an independent theatre
company
then you would go to the school rent the theater rent the costumes rent
the sets and the scenery so %um
encouraged to create your company's we go away raise money in reality of course
that was calling you know uncle Jerry and sank in japan is a hundred quid and
hoping you had enough uncles to make add up to you know
about thousand quid 1500 quit and and
I suppose it was then it was then sigh I was 16
arm I decided that I'd had enough
sitting down during exams and I was
spending more and more time daydreaming looking out the window
and I and I just thats
took route that and in a very real way
and of course so much your career sense has been
acting characters from the other side of the pond I'm just curious will get onto
that later
at Guildhall ditch you play lotto
different nationalities then did you play Americans did you study accents
with a classical training through and through down
you know the this
incredible a age
all cross-fertilization
we live in now between TV film and theatre between
America and Europe because I'm so old
didn't really exists then even i'm talking about.
the mid 90's doesn't seem a very long time ago but even then
you know the the British actors in
our an American TV is universal Pierce Brosnan remington steele
you know here you know a home that they didn't seem to be
too many of them and um so we won encouraged
were encouraged to do dialects and accents but you were just as likely to
learn a
tried to Geordie accent or a Cornish access as you were an American accent
because it was an expected that you would go and play Americans there are
plenty of
brilliant American actors are enough of them over there
um probably something quite sent foale now
a but sup but we'd we'd we'd try to
we try to exchange we invite them back here and they come here and do great
work
you may or may not remember him but we first met on the set a band of brothers
when
obvious E I'll during filming so far before the release
and you worth order stupefied in the most wonderful way
by the fact that it even happened and I remember you
said my gonna be found out I'm is this going to be believable
and of course I went on to be an enormous success how to solve that
seen looking back on it the band of brothers experience
well it was a.m. first the audition experience was
you know long and and you know I kept being dragged back into
damp basements and soho to to another speech from another bit of a script that
none of us have been allowed to see
so was brit we went pretty sure we were signing up for
but Tom you know then tony tells this that the dynamic produces just one day
said
so damian how'd you like to fly to LA meet steven Tom
and stephen Thomas skilled I can hanks
and I said let me check my diary
and a and their now you know them
you know a week later I was I was staying and shutters on the beach in
Santa Monica and
thinking about this is kinda made and then and I was given the role and
arm and then really the the
the preparation for it we we're all set to cap that that
for two weeks that long war camp which still has some
world war two barracks actually from that a red and we stayed in character
for two
whole weeks in Tom a Thanksgiving
great speech actually a at the beginning say
yours is really a a social document and
you should treated as such I'm going to do everything we can to make this
as true to life and on other memory of these men
a in the best way that we can
the training was brilliant and true to life and we had there was a marine
actually who is one of our special ability extras was one other
20 extra guys to bolster our numbers to create
Easy Company in he said it was as it was as
hard to basic training as anything that he had been through so
we were we were taken through it and it was it was really am
and that's why you know and of course I'm not gonna make any sort of claim to
suggest that
our bond is powerful orgasm as important as
as the real veterans that they have now that for and
jumped into non-indian 1944 but all of us who are in bad about this we still
have this annual reunion in
there was a sense that we really word came through something
to get did she do have any idea initially that
common with perhaps the zeitgeist in the way that it did
no I was very reluctant to do another TV show
and in fact this was sent to me by
by my American a teenager said just read this one I know you don't wanna go into
a long-running TV
that read this and he's you know howard corn and
Alex cancer involved in they they ran 24 for the last five six seasons and
and Claire Danes doing and Mandy Patinkin they're already on board
you know this is the one that was talking about and less
let's just read it so I read it and done
and I very nearly didn't do it for just personal reasons going to live in
and Charlotte North Carolina I was in with the family
and but you know there were just too many compelling reasons
a to do it people were certainly shocked by the way in which
Asian pretty is killed in homeland but
actually looking at the archive the series damian were %um
surprised almost that pretty lived as long as he did
did you think he could have died
early are and other circumstances you know it was intimated to me very
strongly that I would probably be in this
only for a couple of seasons no promises were made because I would be that
stupid but but Alexander at Howard spoke to me on the phone
when they were asking me to be in it said you know we really know about to
seize
I when it became a huge head
it became dare I say phenomenon
I think all the executives at the various studios Showtime
Fox is a world Nikon Kelly that ok so
I have a dream you've got you've got and pick up some more story
and noms and so they did
and then that was that created two lever for season three and just how they went
about it
in season three and I think they made a really
good decision through season three brave
brave decisions about not seeing brody initially and then
just seeing dipping into him then coming out but
it was a way of sort of easing away from Brody I think but still giving
thats sort of grand finale
if you like that I think people with want
bro