The British actor of FX’s crime drama has become a breakout star for playing cocaine kingpin Franklin Saint. If only his idol Denzel Washington knew who he was.
One afternoon in 2015, at a hotel in L.A., Damson Idris’ phone rang as he was taking a dip in the pool. To answer, the British actor — who had flown to Hollywood to try to win the lead role in John Singleton’s FX crime drama Snowfall — inched his way through the deep end, holding tight to the edge because he was (and is) unable to swim.
“I got to my phone and I’m hanging on the side,” Idris recalls, sitting down to talk after a photo shoot in West Los Angeles. “And John Singleton is like, ‘Can you hear me? You got the part, man!'”
In shock and celebration, the then-23-year-old — who’d been in the Snowfall audition room eight times for the role and funded his trips to the States by working in a sneaker store — launched himself backward, landing in the middle of the pool. “This little kid was like, ‘Daddy! That man’s drowning!'” he says, laughing.
