the trail of counter-terrorism. damian lewis came on things to his role in another acclaimed project, "band of brothers and " we are glad to you have joined us. a conversation with damian lewis, coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: damian lewis is an actor

who first gained notoriety in his role on the hbo miniseries "band of brothers." he now stars in the critically acclaimed "homeland." it is back on september, on showtime for its second season. here is a scene from "homeland." >> i would consider it an honor to work with a man who has bought with the war on terror. he understands the enemy. what to do you think? >> interesting. yeah. i am interested. >> good to hear. >> i would need to talk to my wife first. is that a problem? >> to be honest, it could be. we need her on board. she is half the story. or hero returns home to his

beautiful, loving wife. i am sure you'll be able to convince her. tavis: last night i am flying back to los angeles and i am reading the new issue of rolling stone and the publisher has an interview with president obama. i think his energy missed the mark. there are some questions he should ask of the president. but i gleaned from the article that the president says his favorite tv show is a "homeland." >> that mr.. he spoke about me? no. tavis: high you into the state dinner. he said, i love "homeland." >> i think it was maureen dowd who wrote that in a new york times op-ed. they said she was not supposed to. she slipped it into your article. from that moment, it became

quite that chapter that the president was watching our show. i asked him about it because i was sitting at the same table as him at a white house dinner, the state dinner for david cameron. i said, when you get time to watch tv? you are supposed to be running the free world. [laughter] he said, michele, saturday afternoons, she takes the kids to play tennis. i do some work at home and sometimes i do not do so much work and i switch on the tv. he does not watch it with the girls. tavis: presidents need entertainment, too. was that your first state dinner? >> yeah. [laughter] i think it was my last as well.

tavis: what did you think of the way we do dinners? >> it was unbelievable. my wife and i looked at our table and as a 20. i said we will be by the toilet. it is ok. the revolving door will hit us on the head. people coming out of the kitchen. but we sat down and it was, it was like a social occasion. it was very informal, apart from the fact that it was ostensibly formal. we were in black tie. once you were sat down, the tables were mixed and i had mr. warren buffett on my left and the president told an entertaining story about giving him one of his ties when mr. buffett had a meeting because the tie was a bit tattered and torn. he gave him one of his on. when you come to have a meeting

with the president, you need to have a proper tie on. it was very jovial and relaxed and anecdotal. nothing of any sort of national interest was going to be discussed in front of me. it is set up that way. his charisma is unbelievable. tavis: how did you keep your head? >> it is the first time, people say they pinched themselves. no one pinches themselves. i pinched myself under the table, literally. just as the president came to sit down. i was already next to mr. buffett. my wife was opposite next to the vice chief of the armed forces. i pinched my thighs. i had bruises. tavis: are you at all apolitical person? >> yes, as much as i live in a

democracy and i take an interest in wanting the right people leading the country. but, you know, you reach a certain level in what you do when you get lobbied by whichever party is in power. you get invited to dinners and you have to be careful. i have been careful not to, now my callers to the mass to much. -- nail my colors to the mast too much. tavis: a want to talk about "band of brothers" and how that expose you to this crowd. what do you make of that series, the work itself, and what it did for your career? >> well, he was a needle in a

haystack piece of casting. they looked everywhere, austria, london, and i predict it emerged that i was going to be played this leader of men, this heroic national treasure. a lot of people did not know about him unless you were a history buff. it really brought some public attention, the achievements of the company and a major richard leders to lead this -- -who these men. it was the first time plan american some many people are shocked when they would meet me and i would have an english accent. that was gratifying and it was just a, we have reunions every year.

we feel like we went to war in some way ourselves coming in the trenches for nine months filming this thing and recreating the story. we became friendly with the veterans that were still alive. there has been an unusually close bond between them and asked and between the actors that portrayed their story. i do not want to give the impression it was anything like war. it was not. but it was a tough shoot and it was an enjoyable shoot. and it did not have an auspicious start. the second episode came out in the week of 9/11. it is a very gritty, real depiction of war, "band of brothers," and people did not want to see that what was happening in their backyard in this country.

they had to work hard to generate an enthusiasm for it after that. worse they did that i am proud to be a part of it. tavis: if you're going to have a role where you are planning an american, and this is the first time you have done this, you obviously picked the right road. -- role. what has been the personal takeaway for you? the personal, from having an opportunity to pay that kind of american, even though you are not. >> it is a history program. it is a social document. these things actually happened. people around me, friends of mine who were skeptical that i would tell an american story were worried about the potential for revisionism and the subject

might have their part played up in a disproportionate weight to what happened. -- way to what happened. dick winters was concerned that what happened. he did not want any sensational retelling. it is sensational enough. he wanted it portrayed as honestly as possible. it's all happened he was doing business with tom hanks and steven spielberg and tom in particular resisted any temptation to make it hollywood stupid. it is not that. it has a realistic quality to it and a documentary quality that i think people respond to. in terms of my personal involvement, i was just, i was

aware and that i was a bright being asked to play this role lender might be a little bit of resentment toward me from the other actors. i remember a conversation with donnie walsh barrett in our first night -- wahlberg in our first night, he said, i was in this block any shouted through the night in the darkness, he said, and don't worry about anything, whatever you are feeling, we respect you for the fact that you landed this role. if you landed this role, we are going to assume you're not a doofus. tavis: no pressure. >> time will tell. [laughter] we figure you have some smarts about 2 so you have our respect. go and do your thing. i was aware of a possible

resentment. tavis: to your point, for those who do not know you're acting, gimme the thumbnail sketch of damian lewis before we get to know him in "band of brothers." >> i grew up in london, abbey road, a few hundred meters down from the crossing. i used to sing near my studios and then a guy would come along and painted. it looked before three months. i used a spray can. else, is somewhere under the railway bridges and london. i had a private education, private schooling, boarding school. i did not go to university,

where it would have been expected of me to go. i went straight to drama school. our schools are more like a conservatory, juilliard something. they are rare here and at home there are more of them. i did the role in shakespeare and a performed on broadway in ralph finnes' hammett. i have played hamlet myself and romeo in i did that for seven or eight years and then "band of brothers" happened when i was 29 years old. as i say, they did not know me from adam and that transformed things for me and then i was mixing tv and film roles and it has been like that ever since. i have worked with extraordinary people like morgan freeman,

robert redford, larry kasdan, steven spielberg, i have been very lucky to. tavis: i am not casting aspersions, you went from morgan freeman and j.lo. something does not sit in that mix. >> something about the sweatpants. tavis: i love you, j.lo, but i digress on that. speaking on your upper crust upbringing, what did your parents make of your decision to not go where you expected to go? >> i had kind of stopped working already a school and i looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights whenever an exam paper was put in front of me because i was a day dreamer and i was playing sports and my mom said to me, i do not go to university and get a crappy degree and then get a job you do

not want to do. if you want to go for this, we will support you. you have to get in first. it is hard to get into these conservatories. i did not it into a few of them and i got into a couple of them. so they supported me. i think my mom, because it was in london, she said, i do not go and pay rent in some horrible flood. you can stay at home. [laughter] she had me at home for three more years. i fell for that. tavis: 36, you tell me, whether or not peter is your first love or are you a movie guide? -- movie guy? >> i was brought up being taken to the theater by my dad. my dad lived in chicago when he

was a single man. tavis: wow, chicago in the 1960's. >> he had an interesting time. i do not want to overstated because yes, i am british, i grew up in britain, but i have this weird connection in different ways to remind and living here for five years, my god father being an american, my mother's family moved to connecticut in the 1970's. we used to come and visit all the time. yada, yada, yada, but i grew up going to the theatre and my role models or british theater actors, the obvious ones, olivier, do good, and then people in the generation above

me who we i used to go and watch when i was a student with my friends. i learned on the set. i imagine, i went up for a lot of camera interviews, filmed auditions before i got one and the camera was always an imposition. i do not know, the camera, the close-up and this thing is going toward you, he what is that? you did not know where to look and i looked at the lands. you have to learn. i was not at home with that at all. now i love it and i became a student of film. i wanted to learn its language. it is infinitely interesting. i still feel i am learning. tavis: i get the sense that you loved "homeland." why? >> because it is very rare to

read a script and then to have the script delivered to you 11 or 12 more times over the course of a season where this holy trinity of character, a story, and theme runs as densely through each hour as it does in "homeland." that is a rarity. you have the resources here to do that. when you do it, you do it better than anywhere else. the waste is on an industrial scale but at the same time you have so much money into developing things, there is a lot of crap, but there is a lot of crap in england, too. but the stuff, the cream that sits on the top, it is not equal to anywhere else in the world. i feel extremely lucky and i am biased, of course, but i feel "homeland" is a nice letter of

cream. -- layer of cream. i am so lucky to be a part of it. it is a grown-up show, full of ambiguity, nuance, multiple truths. it is very like life. it does not proselytize. it is not going to dress it up for you and give the conclusions. that is a sophisticated show and it shows what an audience will respond to if you are brave enough to give it to them. tavis: tell me about your character. >> he is a u.s. marine sergeant who is not already in the army when 9/11 occurs. he signs up out of a sense of duty and with in six months of being a broad is taken hostage. he is in iraq and spends the

next eight years in captivity. the assumption is that the first few years of that time, he is tortured, physically and mentally, and then there is some kind of transition where he becomes a prisoner under house arrest and he becomes involved in this a war lord's family and he becomes a tutor to his son and he becomes a muslim. he returns, he is found, and returned to the u.s. as a hero and everyone believes this to be true, apart from this brilliant but damaged cia agent who thinks she has word he might be

something else and that he might be a clear and present danger to homeland's security. ed is the premise for the show. we discover of the next 12 hours who is right. in some measure, we discover that, and season to will continuum the intrigue. tavis: i do not know where the series is going to go but i thought the creators where brave to have a hero, an american hero, who is also a muslim. that is so oxymoron it for so many americans that an american hero could be a practitioner of the muslim faith. it is very bold. >> i agree. it is a subversive. i had a conversation where i

said, i love your pilot and i will do this, but, if i felt there were any lazy or easy parallels between islam and violence, i would find it hard to commit to this project. i do not want to play the character. that would pandered to and prejudice and i do not and that is helpful or healthy. i suggested, we collaborated on this idea that, what if his need for allah, a religious sustenance, was a good thing in his life, it would not lead him to violence or radicalize him in turn him into a jihadist but that would be something personal and nurturing for him. we all agreed that would be even more subversive, and that a u.s. marine, who is as great a

symbolize you can think of as a defender of our freedom and who goes to fight on our behalf, this man who is so indoctrinated, if you like, in the system through his military training, would be turned and find the good in islam and work that out for himself, that would be remarkable. they then had the difficult task, if we want this guy to act in some way, some devastating and possibly violent way, what are his motives? if we decide he has not successfully been turned. does he have other reasons for acting? i think they try very hard to

provide those reasons and i think it is another reason why the show is working on many levels and what people respond to it. tavis: people are responding, my time is up but i am a huge james bond fan and i keep up with all things bonds, he is a james bond can be blond, and he could also be a red head. i keep reading if there's going to be another change, you are on the short list. i ask, if ever offered to play james bond, would you accept? >> cannot believe you asked me. that as the six million-dollar question. if you knew how many times i have played a james bond in my mirror at home. if only you knew. [laughter] tavis: i think you can pull it off.

it is an honor to meet you. good to have you on the program. "homeland" starring damian lewis. you can download are new application. see you next time. until then, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation. that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> be more. pbs.

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