Damian: I’m part of a minority – because I’m an Old Etonian!
DAMIAN Lewis has claimed he is ‘in a minority’ – because he is an actor who went to eton.
the Wolf Hall star, 46, agreed more diversity is needed in the arts, but rubbished the idea that actors from privileged backgrounds get the best parts, insisting his success and that of fellow Old etonians eddie redmayne and tom Hiddleston is not the norm.
Lewis, who boarded at prep school ashdown House before eton, said: ‘We have to protect against lack of diversity. If theatre, film, TV, dance, opera, ballet are going to remain true art forms, they must be reflective of all society.
‘But that’s a different point from saying that only privately educated actors are becoming dominant in acting, because statistically that’s not true.’
speaking in a web chat for the Guardian, he added: ‘a handful of actors from privileged backgrounds have done very well, and of course that’s high profile news. But whenever I work, as an actor educated at eton, I’m still always in a minority.
‘What is true and always rewarding about the acting profession is that everyone has a similar story about them being in a minority, from whatever background.’
earlier this year, Lewis, who has two children with his wife, actress Helen McCrory, told the London evening standard the controversy over the dominance of privately-educated actors was ‘nonsense’.
In the web chat, Lewis – who is currently starring alongside sophie Okonedo in the Goat, Or Who Is sylvia?, a play about a man who has an affair with a goat – also criticised theatregoers who make noise.
He said rustling from food wrappers ‘annoys me intensely’, adding: ‘there were a lot of phones going off the other night, and someone took their very annoying ringtone out of their bag, and for some reason this person just let it ring loudly.
‘I was so dumbfounded by that, that I did stop performing briefly, and ask if they were going to get it. We carried right on and the audience didn’t miss a beat with us and were fully engaged immediately.’