Spotlight on Billions star Damian Lewis
The Homeland star returns in the third season of Billions
MONEY MAN The British actor is back on the small screen in the hit drama series Billions and things aren’t looking good for his character, Wall Street billionaire Bobby Axelrod. A lawsuit hangs over his head, he’s estranged from his wife, Lara (Malin Ackerman), and he and advocate Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) are still trying to destroy each other. Damian (47) says he thinks the show is a hit because “it’s fun watching bad people do bad things”, especially if they want it badly enough and are pushed to extremes. “I think the dark side of human personality is writ large in the show – the way in which people are prepared to behave to get what they want. This is a very compromised group of human beings – people who are extremely powerful, extremely wealthy and will do what they can to retain that.”
FAMILY MAN Damian’s been married to British actress Helen McCrory (49) for 11 years and they have an 11-year-old daughter, Manon, and 10-year-old son, Gulliver. The couple met and fell in love in 2003 when they played opposite each other in a London stage production. He still tries to do theatre regularly as he believes something special happens when people come together as an audience. “Experiencing something in the moment, collectively, is important – especially as we spend more and more time on screens on our own,” he says.
NOT BORN IN THE USA Damian’s American accent in Homeland was so convincing Hollywood scripts quickly started rolling in. “People are quite shocked when they realise he’s not American,” Helen says. The couple have to juggle work and parenthood – while Helen was shooting British TV series Fearless last year, Damian was in the US with their kids where they’re enrolled at an international school. Helen would work for 11 days, then fly to the US for 48-hour visits.