Damian Lewis has told of his pride at raising over £1.5million pounds for the NHS with his late wife Helen McCrory in the months before her death.
The couple also helped provide thousands of meals for doctors and nurses on the frontline during the pandemic despite Helen secretly battling cancer.
Peaky Blinders star Helen, who played the series’ matriarch Polly Gray, succumbed to the disease in April aged just 52.
Speaking on the new Out to Lunch podcast, recorded six weeks before his wife’s death, Lewis described how proud he was of the work they did supporting the NHS over the past year.
The couple had an idea to provide meals to healthcare staff and made contact with John Vincent, CEO of high street food chain Leon.
Eventually, with the support of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, they launched the FeedNHS campaign.
Lewis, 50, said: “We raised over one and a half million pounds and by the end of it were feeding 40,000 meals a day to a hundred different hospitals across the UK.
“It had started just with a conversation with a pal and he said ‘look we’re good at looking after patients but we are crap at looking after our own staff, can you think of anyway we can feed them?’”
“I am very, very glad we did it and I am full of admiration for people who give their time working in the charity sector.”
Homeland star Lewis, 50, said that at the height of the campaign they were serving 40,000 meals a day to a hundred different hospitals across the UK.
He added: “I knew one of the founders of Leon and I knew Leon was popular with people and Helen and myself became friendly with CEO John Vincent.
“He’s great friends with Matt Lucas so us four sort of clubbed together to try to raise money; that’s what we did and I’m very proud actually. It was hard work.”
The actor married McCrory in 2007 and they have two children, 14-year-old Manon, and 13-year-old Gulliver.
The family had kept the actress’s cancer battle under wraps.
In a poignant message at the time of her death, he said: “I’m heartbroken to announce that after a heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family.”
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