Throng

A bizarre set of circumstances binds four people together in a situation that takes friendly neighbours to the extreme in 3’s hit police drama series Life, screening Monday, February 11th at 8:30pm on 3.
Life features a lead character, Charlie Crews, who, despite having been wrongfully imprisoned for more than a decade, has managed to go back to the world with much joy and hope.

Apparently, it was this unexpected optimism that drew actor Damian Lewis to the role.
“I thought it was an interesting point to start out from… having such a dark, bleak back story… approaching life with such optimism and joy, a sense of every moment being lived intensely and fully,” Lewis told Boston Now.

“I enjoyed the contradiction there, I enjoyed that he had found an antidote to his experience. He could be bitter, he could be vengeful, but he's not, he chooses to be open and enthusiastic.”

Lewis also said that while the darkness of Charlie's story is an important aspect to explore as well, ultimately, what makes him heroic is his conscious decision to live life with a positive outlook.

“He wants to get the best from life, he wants to see the best in people, and in some way that gives him a child-like quality, sometimes a naivety,” Lewis said.

Getting the opportunity to play Charlie on the hit series wasn't as hard as fans may think. Lewis said that he was at his London home with his wife and newborn baby at the time he received the fateful phone call from the producers of the show.

“My wife and I were just kind of fantasising about moving out of London and then I got a phone call from Life’s producers saying, ‘We'd love you to be in this show, here's the script,'” Lewis recalled. “I read it and thought it was fantastic ... It was never my intention to go and do network TV in particular but I thought it was a great show.”

For Damian Lewis, the greatness of the show - and another drawing factor, for that matter - is that it has managed to set itself apart from other procedural dramas on television.

“This has an emotional life a lot of shows don't have and it also has, apart from this conspiracy thriller theme, it has something "other", something more poetic…” he explains.

So tune in to Life, screening Monday, February 11th at 8:30pm on 3, and find out whether Charlie is one step closer to discovering the people responsible for the conspiracy which lead to him being wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years.

Monday, February 11th 8:30pm