One hair ruined my army career; INTERVIEW: Jonathan Guy Lewis.
Authencity has always been an important part of ITV drama Soldier, Soldier, but producers really scored a hit when they hired Jonathan Guy Lewis to play tough sergeant Chris McCleod.Jonathan had experience as a soldier and was set to train as an officer at Sandhurst before illness forced him to quit the army.
"I'd been in the army cadets at school so when I left I decided to join up and became an army scholar, which meant the army funded me through the sixth form and university," he says.
"During holidays I was groomed as a future officer and I'd go on manoeuvres. On one occasion I went on a gunnery course in Wiltshire.
"At three in the morning, I was sitting knee deep in mud with the wind howling, the rain pouring and thunderflashes going off around me. It was complete chaos but a fantastic experience."
After eventually deciding to join the Coldstream Guards, disaster stuck.
"Just as I was about to go to Sandhurst I developed an in-growing hair at the base of my spine. It needed to be dug out, which involves a painful operation," he says. "It takes quite a time to heal and then it recurred and I spent a year on sick leave."
But while in hospital Jonathan, 32, lost his enthusiasm for the army, partly because of other injured soldiers he met there. "I didn't feel these soldiers were being looked after properly by the army, which made me question why I wanted to do it," he says.
He then discovered acting and found it a great relief to be given the option to leave the army at his final medical.
Jonathan, married to actress Miranda Foster and with a year-old son Abraham, used his hospital experience to write a play about army life called Our Boys, which later won a Writers' Guild award.
His army days helped, too, when playing Chris McCleod, who is based on a tough sergeant Jonathan once knew.
In tonight's Soldier, Soldier (ITV, 9pm) McCleod is under pressure to lend money to a colleague who saved his life in Bosnia but who has since been sidelined into a desk job.
STEVE CLARK
 Printer friendly
 Cite/link
 Email
 Feedback
| |
| Title Annotation: | Features |
|---|---|
| Author: | Clark, Steve |
| Publication: | The Mirror (London, England) |
| Date: | Oct 8, 1996 |
| Words: | 365 |
| Previous Article: | Daz-zling display by our Gazza; TV REVIEW. |
| Next Article: | Alf's Pole axed axed; Dateline: October 17, 1973 Venue: Wembley Event: World Cup. |