Matthew-Lewis.com

Some exciting news for Matthew fans in the USA today.  The first season of Bluestone 42 is available to watch on Hulu Plus.  Hulu Plus costs $7.99 a month but you get to watch numerous TV shows and movies for free, just like Netflix. Unfortunately, Matthew was not in the first season, but we expect they will be adding Season 2 soon enough, so you’ll want to catch up on the story before that happens.

Laughing in the face Danger. Follow the adventures of a team of soldiers who risk their lives diffusing hidden bombs. Who says they can’t have a little fun along the way?

You can also watch all 5 episodes of The Syndicate (Season 1) on Hulu, which Matthew starred in back in 2012. With this show anyone can watch, you don’t need to have Hulu Plus.  For those who have forgotten the plot of that show:

Threatened by the prospect of closure and redundancy, five employees of a local ‘Right Buy U’ are shocked to learn they have hit the jackpot. As wild celebrations and spending sprees ensue, reality quickly sinks in when new troubles surface for the winners. Joanna Page is single mother Leanne who worries how the win will affect her daughter, while Timothy Spall plays manager Bob, who is plagued with health problems that even money can’t solve..

Matt Lewis discusses his newest role, as Gordon House aka Tower Block, in BBC Three’s Bluestone 42 in a new interview with Gloucestershire Echo.  The show begins airing on February 27th, but Matthew has already appeared in the shows’ Christmas Special which aired last year. In the interview he discusses the show, Harry Potter, theatre and more – read the full interview here!

Of course the interview brings up the ever-present fact that people are amazed at how the actor has grown up:

Despite starring in all eight Harry Potter films as shy and clumsy Neville Longbottom, he’s getting more of a reaction on the street now, almost three years after the final movie was released.”The thing my friends and family, and myself, can’t seem to fathom is the fact that it’s actually got worse,” says Lewis, who’s calling in from sunny South Africa where he’s filming his latest project. “It’s not a bad thing, but more people recognise me now than they ever did when I was making the films.”

They next go on to discuss the new series and his character:

The series follows a fictional bomb disposal detachment in Afghanistan and was a critical success when it first aired in early 2013.

“I watched the first series and remember thinking that I’d love to be part of a show like that. It’s a comedy and aims to make people laugh but it’s not trivialised,” says Lewis, who made his first appearance in the Christmas special and cements his character in the new six-part series. Cheeky chappy Gordon, nicknamed Tower Block, was brought in to replace Corporal Millsy (Gary Carr) as number two to Captain Medhurst (Oliver Chris).

“He’s the best of the best and came top in all his classes, but when he arrived in Afghanistan he was very green and thought he knew a lot more than he actually did,” explains Lewis, who admits his alter-ego “had a bit of a chip on his shoulder” at first.

“He didn’t get on with Medhurst initially, there was a bit of friction between them. Gordon’s a lad and loves getting stuck in with the banter – especially giving Medhurst stick for being a posh public schoolboy, but then he did a lot of growing up in that half-hour special.”

[…]

“On Bluestone 42, you’re doing different stuff every day. We’re blowing stuff up, playing around with rifles and it’s beautiful sunshine, so if I ever complain about a job like this then someone kill me immediately!”

Of his fellow castmates, he says:

“I arrived at the read-through, and obviously it’s quite daunting joining a show, but everyone was so fantastic taking me under their wing, I felt part of the team early on.” And there’s been plenty of time for fun in the sunny location, which he describes as “stunning”. “We’re laughing and joking on set because we’re making a comedy, but when we’re not working everyone’s spending time together and it’s been great.”

In the first week, he and four others entered a local 10k run in South Africa. “We all did pretty well,” says Lewis, who completed the Great North Run last September and describes himself as “pretty sporty”. But he’s far from holier than thou, he insists.

“There are a fair few bars in the town we’ve been staying in. We’ve tried to drink like squaddies and done a pretty good job of it – but of course been very professional on school nights,” he adds, laughing.

They also made sure to talk about his hometown of Leeds, which he is very proud of:

“Yeah I’m still up there,” he says. “All my friends are there and they’re the ones who keep me grounded. When you’re making movies like Potter, you can lose yourself in the glamour of making a big Hollywood film. To come away from that and be normal and go to the pub and watch football, that’s what I really enjoy.”

We also can’t forget the fact that Matt has two brothers also in the industry:

“Anthony, my older brother [who’s appeared in shows like A Touch Of Frost and Emmerdale], started when he was eight and I was two, so my mother chaperoned him and I got taken along. So I kind of grew up on television and film sets,” he explains, adding that he decided “at an early age” that he wanted to act.

There’s a third sibling, Chris, the eldest, who’s also in the industry – behind the camera. “He’s always been much more technically minded so he became a cameraman, and now he’s an editor and works on The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent,” says Lewis, who’s not sure why the three of them have wound up in showbiz territory. Their mother’s a magistrate, their father works in computers “and if you put a video camera in my parents’ faces they don’t like it”, he notes.

“My uncle did a family tree and way, way back we had a clown in the family, but that’s about as close as we could get to the entertainment industry.”

In a new interview with the Yorkshire Evening Post, Matt talks about his career post-potter and The Rise, also known as Wasteland which is out in the UK beginning tomorrow. The interview began with Matthew talking about his first post-Potter role in the West End play Verdict:

“I guess I wanted to prove that I could do something after Potter,” he explains. “When you come out of a film like that you worry if you are going to work again. You have to shake that off and get the monkey off your back. I had never done theatre before and coming out of a big film, I wanted to go back to basics and see how it goes. I was largely terrible. We didn’t have a lot of rehearsal time and I’d done nothing like it before, so we had some bad reviews. But it was good for me. I picked up the basics and by the end I figured out what theatre was about. Jumping in the deep end like that was a stupid thing to do but I really enjoyed it. I’m very appreciative that they gave me that opportunity. Even though it was difficult at first I knew I had to knuckle down and I came out of that with a renewed confidence.”

On why he chose to accept the role of Dodd: “When I was approached with the script I thought it was brilliant. It is hard to explain the intelligence of it without giving away the ending. I really loved it. It was clever and different and very much something I wanted to be a part of.”

Of his character Dodd in The Rise: “The character of Dodd was really fun for me to play. He is the biggest of all of his mates and very loyal. He’s on the front line but isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. It was so different to Neville. Neville isn’t something I wanted to dwell on and I’m moving away from it now. But at the same time I’m not going to begrudge it because that is what made me and it’s where I came from. There are opportunities that I’ve got now that I wouldn’t have got without it. I wouldn’t ever shy away from talking about it.”

On being able to work in his hometown of Leeds: “Working in Leeds is brilliant for me. I am not a keen traveller in any way. I’ve been around the world with my job and been to many wonderful places but I always want to come home. So for me, to be able to do a job that I love in the city that I love really is a dream come true.”

More may be read in the full interview.

At the Wasteland film premiere FlicksandtheCity interviewed Matthew Lewis and talked with him about filming in Leeds, Wasteland and more!

This afternoon Matthew Lewis was a guest on One on One with Liz Green where he discussed getting into acting, Harry Potter, watching himself act, friendships, living in Leeds and much more.  He also chooses some songs that they play during the hour.  The audio is now available on the BBC iPlayer, Matthew’s segment starts at 3:10.  If anyone would like to write a transcript for us, please do and send it in to webmiss[at]magical-menagerie[dot]com

Of note in the interview he mentions that he starts rehearsals for his new play, Our Boys, next week.  The play will run from October 3rd, with previews starting September 26th. He also teases something, possibly related to Wasteland, but says it’s a secret and he can’t share. He did say a trailer should be coming out soon, with the movie hopefully releasing by the end of this year.

He also promotes the song Our Time, by Chris Stocks, that is being sold to raise money for charity.  You can purchase the song on iTunes with all proceeds after iTunes commission to CANCER RESEARCH UK. There is also an accompanying video that you can watch on YouTube. The video was directed by his brother Anthony Lewis with cinematography by Chris Lewis and starring Bill Ward, Laura Carter & Sam Cunningham.