British actor Damian Lewis, whom we remember from “Homeland,” “Band of Brothers” and “Billions,” reigns again as the imperious King Henry VIII in the second series of “Wolf Hall” on PBS.

Lewis proves vibrant as the young Henry who has just rid himself of his second wife by beheading her and has his wandering eye on the next.

While viewers know him as an award-winning actor for his television performances, it was a Shakespeare comedy that earned him his first prize at the tender age of 12.

“I was given the acting prize for my Bottom from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ and we used to do Gilbert and Sullivan musicals every year,” he recalls.

“I’d been in five different Gilbert and Sullivan musicals by the age of 13, including ‘Pirates of Penzance.’ I continued acting in school without it becoming my life — I was also very active in other things, sports, too.”

He attended two boarding schools from the age of 8 to 18. “I went through a classical education, you would call it,” he shrugs, “based on an ancient classical Greek model where the physical, the spiritual and the intellectual were all brought together which — as the ancient Greeks believed — were equally important.”

But at 16, he and a group of friends shrugged off that rigid Greek model and presented their own play, scrounging rent money for the venue, costumes and props.”The school encouraged you to set up your own little business,” he remembers.

“So, at that age, it meant mostly going to uncles and aunts saying, ‘Can you bum me a 50?’ I was happier than I ever had been and more fulfilled when I was doing that. That’s when I realized, ‘I’m not going to sweat myself silly trying to get into Oxford or Cambridge.’ I was a daydreamer at that point. I was much more interested theater and playing sports.”

His family tolerated his daydreaming. “My parents could see I’d stopped working at the age of 16. I was sort of coasting along. I was more interested in playing the guitar and putting on plays. My mom just said, ‘There’s absolutely no point in going to university, getting a crappy degree, chasing girls, and doing theater — coming out and saying, “What now?” if you want to try a theater school.’”

He did want to try out for drama school. “I got into a couple of the theater schools and just decided I’m going to DO it. I’m going to skip university and get on with it.

“They said the first week we got there, ‘Don’t think of this as your first week of being a student actor, think of this as your first week of being a professional actor because this where it starts. We are training you now to get into the profession ... you’re here because you really care about it. You really want to be here, and we believe you can go all the way.’”

So much for assurances. After two years of toiling with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Lewis began to doubt his decision to devote his life to theater.

“I started to see there was this whole other industry out there with infinite possibilities and started becoming intrigued by being on set,” he says.

“The cameras and the mechanics of the industry, the industrial nature of putting a film together with the machinery and lights, and it’s very mechanized, and I thought that was fascinating and really desperately wanted to get into some good TV shows.”

He auditioned for three different TV projects and was rejected for all three.

“And I thought, ‘Maybe I’m just going to be one of these Ian McKellen types, Antony Sher types.’ I thought, ‘Maybe I’m a bit too big and beefy for the camera, and maybe it’ll just take me 20 to 30 years of working in theater and getting a reputation before I finally do some camera work.’ Then suddenly I got a job in this thing called ‘Warriors’ and it won the BAFTA, and I sent flowers to my agent. I was so happy. I’d thought maybe it’s the theater for me, (TV) was another world. And look where we are now. “

It was really his performance as the American Maj. Richard Winters in “Band of Brothers” that captured Hollywood’s attention. “I think it was expected of me to be in L.A. and make movies,” he recalls.

“I made one movie called ‘Dreamcatcher’ and it did not go well particularly, and I think I was a bit scared off by the experience, and I just wanted to make sure I was going to follow good writing — whatever it was in — whether it was film, TV or theater, and try and focus on that.”