If you have watchedSnowfall, you should know Franklin Saint. And if you have not, then you must have heard, whether from Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube or even WhatsApp, “I built this sh1t brick by brick…” Now, we are on the right track.

The actor who played Franklin Saint is Damson Idris.

When Damson Idris auditioned for Snowfall through video from London, he was an unknown actor taking a shot at embodying one of television's most complex antiheroes. Six years later, after the show's conclusion in 2023, he had delivered what critics called one of modern television's most compelling character evolutions.

The transformation from a young British actor to the ruthless drug kingpin Franklin Saint was not just good acting, it was a masterclass in inhabiting someone else's soul while channeling the hunger of his own journey.

From Peckham to the Stage

Born Adamson Alade-Bo Idris in Peckham, South East London, to a Nigerian family of Yoruba descent, Damson was the youngest of six children raised primarily by his entrepreneur mother, Philippa, in a single-parent household. While his older siblings pursued conventional paths in law, business, and IT, young Damson dreamed of athletic glory.

He played football and rugby, even shaking Queen Elizabeth II's hand in 2002 when his team participated in her Golden Jubilee.

But sports dreams, like many dreams born in working-class neighborhoods, face harsh realities. A knee injury and the ultra-competitive nature of professional athletics forced Idris to reconsider. It was his sister who intervened, convincing him to study theater, film, and television at Brunel University London instead of sports science. That pivot changed everything.

At Brunel, Idris met actress Cathy Tyson, who encouraged him to audition for Ade Solanke's play,Pandora's Box. He landed the role, secured an agent, and began his climb. After performing at the Royal National Theatre and training at the Identity School of Acting alongside future stars like John Boyega and Letitia Wright, Idris cut his teeth on British television with small roles in Miranda,Doctors, and Casualty.

Then came the call that would define his career.

Landing Franklin Saint

John Singleton wanted to ensure Idris had mastery of the accent before casting him as Franklin Saint in Snowfall. The late director, known for his uncompromising vision of Black Los Angeles, needed someone who could authentically portray a South Central teenager who transforms into a crack cocaine kingpin during the 1980s epidemic. To practice his American accent, Idris worked with rapper WC, who tutored him on mannerisms specific to South Central Los Angeles.

What Idris brought to Franklin wasn't just technical skill, it was personal resonance. Growing up in Peckham, he had witnessed the same ambition, the same desperation to escape poverty's grip.

He told The Guardian that he connected to Franklin's eagerness to improve his circumstances while being constrained by systemic barriers. That authenticity translated on screen, earning him reviews that described his performance as captivating.

The Vulnerability of Power

But playing Franklin Saint demanded more than accent work and character study. Over six seasons, Idris portrayed a character who begins as a smart, ambitious teenager and devolves into an isolated, paranoid shell of himself, destroyed by his own choices and the government's complicity in flooding his community with drugs. The role required Idris to lose pieces of himself in the character's darkness.

Idris has spoken candidly about the spiritual and psychological toll. Unlike traditional gangster archetypes who are charismatic leaders from the start, Franklin was designed to be flawed and vulnerable. He makes mistakes, gets beaten up, seeks help from others. As the series progressed and Franklin gained power, he simultaneously lost his humanity, exactly what the drug game does to people.

His approach was methodical. He studied every major crime figure but intentionally went in the opposite direction, creating someone audiences could see themselves in rather than simply admire or fear.

This vulnerability made Franklin's descent all the more tragic. By the series finale, viewers watched a character who had lost everything from his family and his fortune down to his soul, reduced to a homeless man haunted by what could have been.

The portrayal earned him an NAACP Image Award and widespread praise. More importantly, it announced Damson Idris as a major talent capable of carrying prestige television on his shoulders.

Beyond Snowfall

After he starred in Snowfall, Idris carefully selected projects that showcase his range. He starred in Farming, a semi-autobiographical film about the Nigerian fostering practice, earning Best Actor at the Edinburgh Film Festival. He appeared in Netflix's Outside the Wire and had memorable turns in Black Mirror and Donald Glover's Swarm.

Most notably, he stars opposite Brad Pitt in Apple's 2025 blockbuster F1, playing Formula One driver Joshua Pearce.

The F1 experience represented another kind of transformation. Idris described his first day on set as life-changing, sitting in a real Formula One car with Brad Pitt on one side and Javier Bardem on the other. The physical demands, being strapped in a sweltering car for extended periods, losing significant weight, almost equaled the emotional demands of becoming Franklin Saint.

Looking ahead, Idris will portray jazz legend Miles Davis in Miles & Juliette and take on the role of Prince Inan in the adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone. Each role represents another opportunity to disappear into someone else's skin, to find the humanity in complex figures.

Beyond acting, Idris has emerged as a cultural force. He is a Prada brand ambassador, founded the jewelry brand DIDRIS, and partners with Bono's RED organization as a REDICATOR, raising awareness and funds for health initiatives.

The Cost of Transformation

At just 33 years old, Damson Idris had already achieved what many actors spend lifetimes chasing: a defining role that will be studied and discussed for years to come. But Franklin Saint, for all his impact, is just the beginning. What Idris demonstrated over six seasons of Snowfall is an ability to fully inhabit another person's consciousness while bringing his own depth, vulnerability, and understanding of ambition born from struggle.

The art of becoming Franklin Saint was not just about mastering an accent or portraying a drug dealer. It was about understanding how circumstance, choice, and systemic failure can corrupt dreams, how the pursuit of something better can lead to losing yourself entirely.

That Idris could make audiences empathize with such a morally compromised character speaks to his extraordinary gifts.

From Peckham to South Central, from athletic fields to Hollywood sets, Damson Idris has proven that transformation is possible, even if sometimes, like Franklin Saint, the cost of that transformation becomes the story itself.