Damon Herriman

The Boy Who Refused to Stop Acting

Damon Herriman started working before being old enough to drive. By 1976, he was already in front of the cameras in Australia filming chocolate bar commercials. Shortly after, he landed a recurring role on the series The Sullivans, and that defined his childhood. He wasn't the typical child actor who fades away as he grows up (because he chose to stay and learn the craft from the ground up).

He spent years taking one supporting role after another in his home country. But the American market is a different beast, and Herriman took a while to find the exact niche for his slight build and sharp gaze. In 2010, his luck changed when he landed the role of Dewey Crowe in Justified.

What was meant to be a one-episode guest spot ended up stretching across five seasons. He played a small-time, racist, pathetic crook, but gave him a humanity that wasn't in the original script. That role gave him the name he needed in Hollywood.

And the phone didn't stop ringing.

The man who played Manson twice

One statistic defines his career better than any praise. In 2019, Herriman played Charles Manson in two top-tier productions almost at the same time. Quentin Tarantino cast him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and David Fincher did the same for the second season of Mindhunter.

No one else has pulled off anything similar.

In Tarantino's film, he played a younger, more erratic Manson, while with Fincher he explored an aged, imprisoned version. He worked on the accents and mannerisms obsessively so that the two versions would feel distinct. He made viewers forget he was the same actor on two different sets.

Herriman isn't after top billing. He prefers characters who live on the margins of the story. In 2018, he took part in The Nightingale, a brutal story about the colonization of Tasmania in which he played a despicable soldier. It was a physically and psychologically exhausting shoot that brought him back to his Australian roots.

A Haven in Auteur Television

Despite his forays into big-budget films, he prefers the freedom of miniseries. In 2022, he joined the cast of The Tourist alongside Jamie Dornan. They shot in the Australian desert under extreme weather conditions, with a script that demanded a very specific dark comedy tone.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2023, he once again showed his range for period characters in The Artful Dodger. He played Captain Gaines with a military stiffness that contrasted with his earlier work. That same year, he appeared in The Bikeriders by Jeff Nichols, sharing scenes with Tom Hardy and Austin Butler.

Herriman avoids red carpets whenever he can. He splits his time between Sydney and Los Angeles but keeps a low profile, which lets him remain a face unknown to the general public. In 2024, he wrapped up his involvement in several independent projects that favor shooting on natural locations over green screens. In the series about Dickens's pickpocket, he filmed a total of eight episodes under the direction of Corrie Chen.