7/26/2023 0 Comments King harvest albumsThere's no right way to do this and you've only got nine songs. “I tried to Desert Island Discs this a bit, so I don't know why I tried to do that again. Of the artists Lewis chose that day, only one of them has made the cut this time – which is of course his beloved Elvis – but he’s taken a similar approach to our conversation. You become very self-conscious, you think ‘How do I present myself?’, because you can create a narrative out of these things.” “I still wake up in a cold sweat over my Desert Island Discs, which were terrible. When I ask about the decision-making process behind his Nine Songs choices, Lewis brings up his appearance on Desert Island Discs in 2014, which he still thinks about almost a decade later. His analysis and love of music makes the conversation more akin to talking to a music geek, rather than a handsome devil of a Hollywood star. Talking with Lewis about the pivotal songs in his life is a delight. And that's very different from standing there as yourself and saying, ‘Listen to my song.’ How does acting differ in terms of telling a story? “With acting, someone else wrote an amazing play with these incredible story arcs, and these wonderful, famous characters that we all know and love, and I give my interpretation of that by sublimating myself into the world of a play and going down the rabbit hole. You're essentially saying, ‘I've written a poem, I put it to a bit of music, and I'm now going to play it to you.’ The difference is you're telling it as yourself. It's the thing of musically, there’s got to be sound, as well as communicating a story. “Being onstage is quite easy for me, I feel comfortable up there and it’s lovely to be in front of an audience. I ask him how it’s different to acting, and suggest that songwriting, performing in plays and films are essentially all different ways of being a storyteller. “I never felt I had a particular gift for writing songs, but I suddenly found it easy and enjoyable the form of a song as a way of communicating.” “It's a really fun thing to make a collection of songs and turn them into a record” he tells me. Lewis has kept himself busy since and is gearing up to play the Black Deer Festival and London’s Union Chapel, followed by a tour in September. “I want Daddy to have girlfriends, lots of them, you must all love again, love isn’t possessive, but you know, Damian, try at least to get through the funeral without snogging someone.” Lewis wrote a beautiful eulogy about her, that included McCrory’s wishes for their family’s future. When we meet, Lewis is wonderfully chatty and totally at ease, perhaps in spite of the heartbreak of the passing of his wife, the inimitable Helen McCrory, in 2021. Lewis’s songs are beautifully written and performed, drawn from a combination of his background of busking around Europe in his early twenties and stories from his life since. Fast forward to today and his acting career couldn’t be more different to his hero, rather than the missteps of The King of Rock and Roll’s film roles, Lewis’s body of work on screen and stage can only be described as illustrious.įollowing his breakthrough as Major Richard Winters in Band of Brothers, he’s shapeshifted through a range of characters, from Homeland’s Nicholas Brody to a delightfully devious Henry VIII in Wolf Hall, bringing an old-school charisma each part, which came full circle with his take on Steve McQueen in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.īut music always competed with acting as Lewis’s artistic calling – he’s also an accomplished footballer, regularly appearing for England in Soccer Aid, where he was famously nutmegged by Zinedine Zidane in 2010 – and now he’s finally ready to release his own songs with his debut album Mission Creep.Īn artist stepping out of their natural milieu doesn’t always work – if you’ve not seen Mick Jagger in the 1970 version of Ned Kelly, don’t worry, you’re not alone, even Jagger didn’t sit through it – but Mission Creep is anything but the work of a dilettante. Whilst his friends were exploring the worlds of Goth and Post-Punk, the young Lewis spent hours perfecting the Presley quiff and developing a lifelong love of ‘50s music.
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