Trivia / Damages

• All-Star Cast: The closest a TV show has ever come to this: Glenn Close (how many other series can you name that have five time Oscar nominee for their star?), William Hurt, Martin Short, Marcia Gay Harden, Campbell Scott, Lily Tomlin, John Goodman and Ted Danson have all had regular roles on the series and there's not another show on TV with that kind of roster outside of its one-off guest cast list.
• Career Resurrection: For Ted Danson. While he hadn't completely gone away after Cheers he had sort of fallen into has been territory with parts in unsuccessful films, a failed sitcom (Ink), a fairly mediocre one (Becker) and cameos as himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm. However, when the first season of Damages made it onto the air, critics couldn't stop talking about his surprisingly strong dramatic performance as Arthur Frobisher which gained Danson his first Emmy nomination in 15 years (including two more for his guest appearances in the subsequent seasons).
  • This renewed exposure also helped gain him a supporting role in the HBO sitcom Bored to Death and in the fall of 2011 he took the lead role on CSI, and currently, The Good Place.
• Channel Hop: Canceled by FX after three seasons, then picked up by DirecTV's Audience network for two more seasons.
• Directed by Cast Member: Tate Donovan (Tom Shayes) directed 3 episodes.
• Fake American: Ellen is played by the Australian Rose Byrne, while Katie is played by British actress Anastasia Griffith.
• Stunt Casting: Damages often casts film actors who would otherwise never do TV (i.e. William Hurt, John Goodman, Campbell Scott etc.) in supporting roles and they often give incredibly strong and memorable performances.
• Troubled Production: Season two, full stop. William Hurt's role in the season was dramatically scaled back due to problems behind the scenes (Hurt had problems coping with the production style of the series, where the actors were kept in the dark regarding their character's storylines and only given segments of the script before filming). To fill in the gap, actor John Doman was brought on to play the evil corporate executive who Patty was trying to bring down as the new main villain character, while Marcia Gay Harden had her role expanded as Patty's foil during the season.
• What Could Have Been: Daniel Purcell and Wes Krulik were originally going to be a single character, intended to create a love triangle between Ellen and Patty. It was realized very early into production of the second season what an awful idea this would have been, as one of the show's greatest strengths was that its leads were smart, career-driven women whose conflict wasn't over a man.