Damon Runyan

Basketball as a Starting Point

Damon Runyan wasn't looking for cameras when basketball was his life.

In Toronto during the nineties, his absolute priority was the court, not scripts. But a knee injury cut short his athletic ambitions and pushed him toward theater almost by accident. It was a forced transition that ended up defining his professional identity for the following decades.

The Canadian industry embraced him as one of its most reliable faces.

His first steps consisted of brief roles in procedural series, where he learned the mechanics of the set. In 2005, he landed a spot in the cast of Cheaper by the Dozen 2, which gave him the visibility he needed to break into American television. There was no big fanfare at the start, but his strong work ethic was clear.

Betting on Gritty Realism

Playing Charles Falco in Gangland Undercover marked a big shift in 2015. Portraying a real informant required a level of physical restraint that few expected from a supporting actor at that point. The series drew massive audiences in international markets thanks to its raw visual style and his central performance.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2017, he was fitted with prosthetics to play a Klingon in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. Almost no one recognized him beneath the latex and heavy makeup. That allowed him to keep working on other projects without being typecast by his usual look. Runyan sees the craft as a sum of invisible pieces that don't always require showing his face.

During that period he alternated genre productions with fast-paced television dramas. He amassed more than fifty credits before turning forty.

The leap to global streaming platforms

In 2023, he joined The Night Agent playing a character with a significant role in the Netflix conspiracy plot. That same year he also shot the series Plan B, where he explored more restrained dramatic registers. His work pace stayed steady, and he avoided long breaks between projects.

But his career isn't limited to being in front of the camera. In 2012, he wrote and directed the short film The Boy, which made the rounds at specialty festivals across North America. This creative side gave him a better understanding of how a film set works from the other side of the monitor.

In 2024, he joined the cast of The Way Home for its second season. Filming took place mainly on location in Ontario.