Damian Watcyn Lewis (born 11 February 1971) is a British/Welsh actor. He rose to prominence portraying U.S. Army Major Richard Winters in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Lewis won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of U.S. Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody in the Showtime series Homeland, and received nominations for his performance as Henry VIII of England in Wolf Hall. He portrayed Bobby Axelrod in the Showtime series Billions in six out of seven seasons, and appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) as actor Steve McQueen.
Lewis was born on 11 February 1971 at St John’s Wood, London, the eldest son of Charlotte Mary (née Bowater) and John “J.” Watcyn Lewis, a City insurance broker with Lloyd’s. His paternal grandparents were Welsh, and he says he considers himself “London Welsh”. His maternal grandfather was Lt-Col. Sir Ian Bowater, Lord Mayor of London, and his great-great-grandfather was the eminent naval shipbuilder and philanthropist Sir Alfred Yarrow, 1st Baronet (see Yarrow Shipbuilders), who was of partial Sephardic Jewish descent. His brother is writer, producer, and director, Gareth Lewis. Lewis has said that he “went to English boarding schools and grew up around people very much like [his character] Soames and in a milieu very much like the Forsytes'”.