Damian Lewis: Being sent to boarding school is a 'very violent' experience which 'defines you emotionally for life'

The Eton-educated actor recounts the experience of being sent away from home at a young age

The son of a city broker, Lewis was born in St John’s Wood in London and had an affluent upbringing (Reuters)

Damian Lewis, who was educated at Eton, has said going to boarding school is an experience which “defines you emotionally for the rest of your life”.

The 45-year-old actor, who is best known for his roles in Homeland and Band of Brothers, said being sent away to school was a “very violent experience”.

Lewis was born in St John’s Wood in London and is the son of a city broker. The actor, who has two children with fellow actor Helen McCrory, has said he would not send his own children to boarding school at such a young age.

“Not at eight,” he told The Sunday Times. “I went at eight and I think that’s very hard. You go through something which, at that age, defines you and your ability to cope. There’s a sudden lack of intimacy with a parent, and your ability to get through that defines you emotionally for the rest of your life."

“It’s a very violent experience in those first few weeks,” he continued. “It’s just, boom! And you deal with it. You snap into something else, you get on and then you go and run the empire. While it’s all very positive in terms of managing and negotiating life, it also does things that I don’t like when I see them in me.”

Lewis also touched upon Jon Ronson’s bestselling book The Psychopath Test which explores the idea that many governmental and corporate leaders are psychopaths.

“Jon Ronson deals with it very entertainingly in his book on psychopaths,” Lewis explained. “Are we governed and ruled by sociopaths who have been through that experience? By people who compartmentalise their emotional life so successfully that they can go straight to the top?”

An online petition was launched in January in protest against the decision to invite Lewis to launch Acland Burghley's, a comprehensive school in North London, 50th anniversary celebrations.

The petition was started by a number of alumni of the school and they said the former Etonian did not “represent the real Burghley values” and should not be part of such an event.

“Damian Lewis was educated at Eton, a school that, more than any other, represents the reproduction of privilege and inequality in the UK,” wrote City University sociology lecturer Rachel Cohen, who was at the school in the 1980s.

But Lewis said the protest had “missed the point of the occasion”.

“On the day, I was surrounded by friends who had been in my kitchen endlessly over the past 10 years, going on play dates with my kids, who were at the school. So it was a misjudgment.”