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Damian Lewis' life balance struggle

Jan 8, 2013, 4:01 GMT

Damian Lewis

Damian Lewis 'wrestles' with balancing his career and family life.

The British actor spends five months a year in North Carolina, America, shooting 'Homeland' and admits it is a wrench spending such lengthy periods away from the London home he shares with wife Helen McCrory and their children Manon, six, and Gulliver, five.

He said: 'I was talking to Gully about something completely different and suddenly, without even looking at me, he said, 'D'you know Dad? When you're away, sometimes I look out of my bedroom window at night and I call your name and I cry.'

'I wrestle with this. I wrestle with it. Children like you being around, you see. I don't think there is any substitute for doing it well and just doing it right.

'And doing it right is just being there. And being good at it when you're there. No one's perfect, God knows, but being there is a good start.'

Damian, 41, admits he and Helen, 44, have discussed moving permanently to America, but they are too committed to their life in London, and the actor prefers having somewhere to escape to when his working time is over.

He told Britain's Vogue magazine: 'As much as we may look like power-hungry, mad people, we are very committed, first and foremost, to living out life.

'And if you're going to live your life, where do you want to live it? LA is interesting but it's not one of the great places. It's an inferior city to London.

'And if I'm going to be five months of the year in North Carolina, then where do I want to be when I'm not there. The answer, very much, is London.'