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I went to boarding school from the age of eight - first to prep school, then to Eton. One thing that kind of education teaches you is community living: there's little retreat. That's why people come out of it and talk about lifelong friendships forged in the furnace.
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I'd feel guilty just doing gags.
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If you believe - which I do - that acting is a bit like advocacy for your character, then of course I want to find the positive points.
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I am Damian Lewis, not Daniel Day-Lewis.
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It's important to have a big-enough house in order to have space.
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I'm not an American, but I have this weird connection to America in different ways through my dad living here for five years, my godfather being an American who I'm very close to.
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There's this sort of cloud that hangs where people are like: 'How long can you keep the heat of 'Homeland' going?' People have short memories is the truth, and Hollywood loves the new and shiny.
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Producing is a world of compromise and actors are utterly spoiled all the time.
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The lesson I learned is that sometimes the task you have at hand needs all of your concentration and focus.
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There's a high head count on 'Homeland.'
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Writing and directing might be a red herring, and really I'm just re-examining what it is to act, to do it well and do it properly.
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I grew up in London, one of four children. We were a very loud family, not a lot of listening, plenty of talking. My mum was a hearth mother: she loved to gather us all around her - Sunday lunches were a big thing. She was very good at thinking on her feet - people used to say she should go into politics.
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It's such an overused phrase: 'to be part of the conversation.' But it's true. It is nice to be part of the conversation - just be sure they are talking about you in the right way.
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You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'
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You know what it's like to feel anxious - it's horrible feeling anxious. It's stressful having that feeling, having butterflies in your stomach, even for a day, and you don't sleep at night.
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I think people like to be scared. I think people like tension and suspense in a movie.
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It's sad that children don't spend enough time looking around and being amazed by what's in the real world.
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I had no ambition to go to America and be in a TV show. It's not like I've rejected something or decided that I've found something better. Your life just takes you off in strange and different directions.
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I'm always forming bands.
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I'm very lucky.
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A lot of these American actors have this - in my view - misplaced view that they have to look like Action Man. The trouble is, they all run the risk of being interchangeable.
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My wife has a horror the children will start talking American if we spend too much time out there.
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There are jobs that come along in your life, if you're lucky enough, that elevate you in a considerable way. And 'Homeland' was definitely one of those jobs.
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People need revelation, and then they need resolution.