Memories From The Set: Grey Damon

Damon didn't have much to say as a Peach Pit waiter in Season 1. Still, "When you get small roles like that, it can sometimes be the worst, because it can go two ways," he says. "You can either not study much, beause it's not that big a line, and then you'll f—k your line up. Or you'll overstudy, and it just doesn't come out." He laughs. "I don't know if this is a problem for everyone."

"Kitch Maynard? You know, he's just a dumb kid who thinks he's all that," Damon says of his part as Bon Temps high school quarterback on the HBO vampire drama. "He was so fun. He was the first role that really allowed me to free myself up a bit and understand that it's OK to go a little off the rails, experiment and have fun." And, like a long swallow of Tru Blood when you're feeling parched, Damon credits the series for having a refreshing affect on his career. "I got to grow in a way that I felt helped me jump a few levels, if you will, jump forward a bit more than I had been slowly progressing."

Damon stayed on the gridiron for his next role: East Dillon wide receiver Hastings Ruckle. Don't tell Coach Taylor, but "I'm sports-lexic," the actor says, laughing. "I played football when I was in middle school. This is a really embarrassing story: A buddy recently sent me a message congratulating me on Aquarius and stuff. He was like, 'I remember when we were playing football and you were running around that field like a lost kid.' He's so right." Thank goodness for stunt doubles... even if they inspire a bit of insecurity. "The guy who would run for me and do those stunts and stuff, he was in way better shape than me," Damon says, laughing. "And so I'm hitting the gym every day trying to look more like my stunt double. It's ironic, in that he's supposed to look like me!"

The ABC Family fantasy drama about a teen girl with feline superpowers "had a lot more depth than people realized," Damon says. And though his character, Chloe's romantic interest Brian Rezza, seemed to perish in the series finale, Damon says a script he got his hands on later told a different story. "My character survives," he recalls of the never-produced episode. "[Chloe] contemplates their love and I guess breaks the curse of her not being able to kiss human boys."

The short-lived CW supernatural series  — on which he played voodoo "quack" Lee LaBeque — was yet another young adult drama for Damon, who says the experiences "helped me grow a lot... Whether you think they're good or not, they're pretty original ideas and they've got cool concepts. You have to appreciate the fandom, the people who do love it, and try to do good work for them."

Remember the horrible frat boy in the season premiere who drugged Madison, participated in her gang-rape and then got sexed to death by Zoe? Yep, it was Damon, who often gets cast as arrogant d-bags. "I think I just have one of those faces, like a very punchable face," he says, laughing. Given series creator Ryan Murphy's penchant for bringing back actors he's employed in the past, Damon says he'd gladly return to the AHS-verse. However, "I don't think anybody wants my character back," he says. "I don't want that character back."

"We did a lot of dancing" on the set of the CW drama about an alien boy and a human girl who fall in love, Damon remembers. "Titus [Makin Jr.], Malese [Jow] and I would dance a lot." When his musically gifted co-stars performed a cover of Lorde's "Royals," it "totally turned me into a fan, because they have these amazing voices... It was incredible."

Prepping for Damon's part as Brian Shafe, cop and counterculture infiltrator in NBC's drama about murderer Charles Manson, meant losing sleep. "I had to stop myself from researching the Manson [family], because when I was immersing myself in this world... I was having nightmares about Vietnam and Manson. I had to pull it back a little bit." Eventually, Damon stopped reading up on the gruesome killings when he realized that if Shafe didn't know what he was up against, his portrayer shouldn't, either. "I wanted Shafe to be clueless and not have any preconceived notion about who [Manson] was."