Homeland star reveals spy secrets

Damian Lewis hosts a new series that recounts real-life spy stories.

He played a spy suspect in the gripping TV drama series Homeland. Now actor Damian Lewis takes a look at the world of real-life espionage in an eight-part docu-drama on TVNZ Duke.

From the truth behind the escape of United States diplomats from Tehran, to the spy operation that narrowly averted all-out nuclear war, the series relates the incredible true stories of the spy wars fought in the shadows.

The first episode tells the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB agent who was ‘‘turned’’ and ended up working for the West. His spilling of Soviet secrets proved invaluable in the 1980s and may have helped avert World War III.

The series, shot on location in London, Moscow and Israel, and using stylised reconstructions, is the brainchild of Lewis’ producer brother Gareth, who persuaded him to try his hand at presenting.

‘‘My brother called me and asked me if I wanted to present it,’’ he says. ‘‘I hadn’t done ‘factual’ before and don’t consider myself a presenter, but I looked at the stories and I was curious. So I came on board.’’

Lewis, who is married to Peaky Blinders star Helen McCrory, already had a keen interest in espionage.

‘‘I did enormous amounts of research for Homeland,’’ he says. ‘‘The cast and writers were invited to Langley [the CIA headquarters in Virginia] where we met some of the field operators. They were all quite reserved and ‘poker-faced’ but halfway through there was an extraordinary moment when John Brennan, the CIA director, walked in.

‘‘It was in the wake of Edward Snowden [the former CIA employee who released highly classified documents to the press], and Brennan got up and was visibly angry as he ranted about Snowden. The temperature rose in the room, and when he had finished he sort of shuffled out as if he had realised he had revealed too much of himself. Later, he came back and apologised for being so outspoken.

‘‘I’ve also read John Le Carre books, like everyone else, so, yes, I’m interested in that world of spying. I enjoy the genre and this series was the opportunity to look behind these stories to see if we could find out something a bit more personal about the people themselves and the ramifications on a global context’’.

Lewis says people in the intelligence services have an acronym for the ways someone’s allegiance may be gained.

‘‘Mice. It’s Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego – and if you can identify an individual who is vulnerable to any of those four reasons, you can target them.’’

And Lewis says that it is years of having to keep quiet about their work that often leads to spies eventually confiding in others, which leads to their downfall.

‘‘The old cliche that it takes a spy to catch a spy is often because, after years of having to compartmentalise their life, they feel the need to speak and their egos are what get the better of them. They often find themselves confiding in other spies. And it’s that increasingly loose talk that undoes them in the end.

‘‘There’s a need for discretion and an ability to be covert, as a spy, otherwise you’d be a bad spy.

‘‘The intelligence services are at pains to point out that not every successful operation or, in fact, few successful operations, reach the front pages. Because it’s all happening covertly. This series is a little look behind the curtain.’’

But he admits that they were concerned that it wouldn’t be exciting enough for viewers because, James Bond’s exploits aside, espionage can often be quite dull.

‘‘Spycraft is often incredibly un-technical. Evocative phrases like ‘dead drop’ and ‘brush pass’ literally means you walking into somewhere like a supermarket, perhaps, with the same carrier bag as me and swapping it. We’ve seen it in countless movies, but it’s what is effective. The challenge to us in making this series was how on Earth to make spycraft interesting. The fact is, it actually isn’t.

‘‘They have to get things done using whatever means they can, even if it means getting civilians to do ‘dead drops’. In one of our stories, the wife of an attache in the embassy in Moscow, was asked to do a dead drop in a supermarket, and she said yes. So there is an odd amateurism and shambolic, chaotic, buccaneering nature to spycraft, even today.’’ – Jim Maloney, TV Guide

Spy Wars With Damian Lewis, Duke, Wednesdays, 8.30pm.