Meet Finn Wittrock
Damon, Bailey’s bad-boy baby daddy, is played to sullen perfection by Finn Wittrock; we spoke to the actor about adjusting to the fast-paced schedule of daytime, and just how bad Damon really is. 
Soap Opera Weekly: Tell us a little about your background.
Finn Wittrock: I went to high school at the L.A. County High School for the Arts, but I’m actually from Massachusetts. I was born in the Berkshires, Lenox, in western Mass. In L.A. I did some guest star [roles], and I did the Disney Channel movie HALLOWEENTOWN HIGH. [Then] I went to school at Julliard, in New York.
Weekly: Did you always want to act?
Wittrock: My dad introduced me to acting, at Shakespeare & Company [a theater based in Lenox]. He was an actor, too. I always was around actors and had a love for it, but I think I really decided that I wanted to [act] when I was in, about, fifth grade. I went back there for the summer, and my friends and I put on our own “Scenes from Shakespeare” show, and that kind of solidifed it.
Weekly: What would you be doing if you weren’t acting?
Wittrock: I was thinking about that recently…I’d be an investigative journalist.
Weekly: How did the role on AMC come about?
Wittrock: I auditioned for it a while ago, and they were kind enough to bring me out to L.A., also. They were trying to [come up with] a past for Bailey (Sofia Black-D’Elia), who’d been on a month before my character was introduced. They were looking for a bad boy.
Weekly: Was it easy to step into an established daytime cast?
Wittrock: I thought it might be a little daunting at first, because everybody [there had] been together for so long, and it’s such a tight machine [and] a very fast-paced [working] environment. But everyone was so incredibly welcoming after I came on, and everyone had been in my shoes before. And they really helped me along, [everyone] from the cast to the directors — because it takes a little while to get into the pace of shooting a soap. They made me feel like one of the family, like I belonged there in Pine Valley [laughs].
Weekly: Was there anyone you were most excited about meeting once you got to the set?
Wittrock: Well, I was told by many friends to get Susan Lucci‘s (Erica) autograph [laughs]. I was very excited to meet her. And it’s really been an honor to get to know Michael Knight (Tad) — he’s a really funny guy and has also been very supportive.
Weekly: What do you remember about your first days on the job?
Wittrock: [laughs] It’s kind of a blur, because of the pace. I remember having to put in the contacts [lenses] for the Halloween character I was playing — the guy from Twilight, Robert [Pattinson, Edward]. I’d never put in contacts before, and it was, like, three-person surgery to get these color contacts in, because I kept blinking them out. There [were] two ladies from makeup holding my eye open as another fit it into my eye socket. So, that sticks out! Once we got them in, it was hugely successful.
Weekly: Have you or the writers constructed any background for Damon, other than being Stuarat’s dad?
Wittrock: Not yet. My own imagintion says he came from a family that’s a bit separated, that he wasn’t very close to…dysfunctional. He doesn’t have a role model for how to be a father.
Weekly: Do you enjoy working with the baby?
Wittrock: Oh, yeah. They’re twins [playing Stuart]. And they’re both, like, babies from heaven. Never cried or anything, and they’re the cutest things. I got really attached very quickly to them.
Weekly: Does Damon really want to be a father to Stuart, or is he just following what he thinks is a money trail?
Wittrock: At first, when he saw what he could [maybe] get out of it, that’s what his instinct was. But then, as he got to know the baby and Bailey better, he was honestly won over by them and really wanted to take care of them.
Weekly: How does he feel about Liza?
Wittrock: Damon is always very mistrustful of Liza, because we both want the same thing [Stuart]. He definitely is very skeptical of anything she has to say.
Weekly: What would you wish would happen to Damon in 2010?
Wittrock: I hope that Damon encounters his past, so we find out where he came from.
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