Snowfall Season 4 Premiere, Damson Idris Interview

20. What’s on your bucket list?

Let me tap into my inner Will Smith, hmm. I really want to go to Nigeria. I’ve been before, but I want to go in my adult life and experience what that is. I really want to go to Jamaica. A lot of my bucket list stuff is traveling. As I approach 30, I’m trying to find as many ways I can’t die so bungee jumping and all of that are not really on my bucket list. I’ll do it for a movie role. I’d rather die in a movie role doing it than in real life. Yeah, for me, mostly about traveling. I want to travel to more places in Africa. On a more humanitarian side, on my bucket [list] I’m looking to align with someone in the charitable sense, just going forward. It’s give-back season.

BuzzFeed: Traveling can be so enriching and fulfilling. When it comes to philanthropy, are there any causes that are dear to your heart?

DI: It’s always about young people for me, you know? I remember what I wanted and what I didn’t have access to when I was a kid; so if I could create that for as many people as possible, that’s kind of where my mind is right now. When I was younger, growing up in London, they used to have so many amazing youth clubs. You could go play pool, table tennis, play sports, but now it’s all gone. Kids are either on the street, on the corner, or at home playing Call of Duty. It would be good to start up some of those initiatives again.

21. That’s beautiful and definitely needed! Despite your UK roots, you’ve been working in the United States for years now. What’s the weirdest or most surprising thing you’ve learned about American culture? Go easy on us [laughs].

That women are like men, like the women will hit on you. That was very surprising to me when I first got to America. I was like, “Oh my God!” One girl was like, “Oh baby, you from London? You could get it.” Like right to me! I was like, “Oh my god, we just met. You gonna buy me a drink first [laughs]?” Let’s see, what else… Your food portions are enormous. Your houses are a lot more spacious too.

I guess the different dialects were surprising to me. When I was in London, before I came to America, I thought there was just an LA accent, a New York accent, and a Southern accent. It was those three. But then when I got here, it was like, [Damson says this line in his best New Orleans accent] “Aye baby, you heard me?” There’s a New Orleans one, DC, Chicago. There were so many different dialects that I was introduced to, and it just made me realize that there are so many intricacies to American culture. That was beautiful to acknowledge.