(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Damian Lewis has compared his teenage self to a hamster on a wheel.

The 40-year-old British star is a successful actor, and is happily married to fellow thespian Helen McCrory, although he admits he wasnt as suave when he was younger. Damian cringes when he remembers the way he behaved during his school days, and certainly doesnt remember being a hit with the opposite sex.

God no!" he laughed, when asked if he was confident with ladies as a teen.

My face expanded in about 13 different directions when I was about 16. I looked quite odd and I also had red hair, of course. I relied on making girls laugh. Perhaps I appeared confident, but I was like a hamster on a wheel, endlessly scampering round and round to stay on the same spot.

Damian graduated from Britains prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama back in 1993, and he says he wouldnt like to hear what his former classmates have to say about him now. The actor comes from a wealthy background, and was educated at Eton College, the same establishment as Britains Prince William and Harry. He recalls going to drama school as providing a nice change from his privileged surroundings.

If you were to ask anyone who was there with me [he was at Guildhall] theyd probably say I was boorishly confident. Certainly I always spoke too much when in retrospect I should just have shut up and listened. But in a lot of respects being there did me a lot of good. It wasnt cool to be posh quite the reverse - and for the first time in my life, I was in a minority, he told telegraph.co.uk. (C) Cover Media