Recently, I had the opportunity to join a conference call with former Friday Night Lights star Gaius Charles, who is currently guest starring as new Hawks prospect Daemon Razor on Necessary Roughness (and who is about to join the cast of Grey’s Anatomy in a recurring role). Find out what Gaius has to say about the (inevitable!) comparisons between Daemon and Smash Williams, about what Daemon’s relationship with TK will be like, and about what kind of preparation was necessary for the role. There are mild spoilers below.
On how Daemon is different than Smash Williams: The character is very, very different from Smash. Seems like the opposite sort of. Because Smash has this little bit of cockiness going on about him. And Daemon instead looks like at least from what we have seen so far looks like he is a very humble guy who doesn’t, you know, think he deserves what’s coming to him.
And so you know I was just really, really happy to be able to play Daemon and show another side to what I can do as an actor.
On how working on Necessary Roughness is completely different despite sharing a football setting with Friday Night Lights: One thing that actually really helped me that differentiation in my mind was just realizing that this is a totally different show. Totally different style. Totally different genre. Totally different shooting style … I really saw a completely new character and completely new story.
On how easy it was getting back into football gear: The learning curve was much shorter … In terms of just feeling comfortable in the pads. Feeling comfortable on the field.
I had the experience just kind of get past some of the challenges that I think some actors maybe fleeing from New York or L.A. to do something that, you know, they haven’t really worked in those kind of conditions. They haven’t had to you know get on the show and put on the pads and really get in the physical space of their character, you know. That was not a challenge for me.
On playing opposite a Smash Williams type character in TK: I actually thought it was really smart writing in the sense that okay we have this larger than life, you know, wide receiver. And … saying – now let’s put him up against this, you know, very humble, you know, complicated character and see what happens.
It was really interesting too because having played Smash and now looking at TK there was a thing in my mind where I had to be like, okay — remember you are Daemon.
On how Daemon and TK will get along: It’s easy to see how the rivalry between these two wide receivers. What ends up happening is you get more of sort of a friendship that develops and almost a brotherhood develops. And in a sense that’s grounded in reality because, you know, I am entering this new fraternity that is the New York Hawks and TK is my guide.
On TK’s PTSD: Sometimes when you help somebody else like TK is helping or mentoring or leading Daemon you benefit from that. So in a sense I think the relationship might also be healing for TK.
On shooting Daemon and TK’s first scene together: The race was cool because it was like I said our first initial sort of meeting on screen. And, you know, just setting off that rivalry and that relationship was a lot of fun.
On doing research into impostor syndrome for the role: The symptoms are common in the sense that high achievers, at times, struggle with their own gifts, you know. And so from my research, you know, they talked about therapists and psychologists going up to places like Harvard and going up to Cambridge and talking to these, you know, super gifted folks … And then explaining this thing called impostor syndrome and what not. And, you know, basically the room falling silent because these people had at some point struggled with it. Because you are so good at what you do, you know, you sometimes doubt yourself.
All the time I talked to actors in the past who have said, you know, they struggle with believing themselves. And I don’t think — I think sometimes the whole impostor syndrome is kind of a big diagnosis to get your head around.
On enjoying doing the research for the role: The research to me is probably one of the most fun aspects of acting because when you have the research down you have a framework to rely on. And then you can really kind of take risks and go places because you grounded all of your research and your understanding of who the character is in a reality that gives you the flexibility to kind of play.
On feeling comfortable on set: I was very fortunate coming on because Kevin Dowling who is an executive producer actually directed my episode. So, I didn’t have to, you know, kind of learn the set and learn the new director. I just kind of had to join in to that family and that rhythm that is the production. So, that was great.
Gaius Charles’ next episode of Necessary Roughness, entitled “What’s Eating You?”, airs tonight on USA at 10pm Eastern.
Clacked by Christina Furtado 
on Jul 18, 2012 @ 11:14 EST5EDT
