Date of Birth

19 October 1976, Savannah, Georgia, USA

Height

5′ 10″ (1.78 m)

Desmond was born in Savannah, Georgia, but moved to his parents’ native Bronx, New York at age 3, where he attended Catholic schools. Desmond found trouble in and out of school throughout his formative years. After high school, he took jobs as a laborer, a landscaper, a cold caller at a brokerage firm, and finally a bartender in Manhattan, where a co-worker invited him to attend an acting class. That changed the course of his life.
Over the years, Desmond has appeared in dramas and comedies alike, including LIFE IS HOT IN CRACKTOWN with Shannyn Sossamon and Brandon Routh, WRONG TURN with Eliza Dushku and Emmanuelle Chriqui, GHOST SHIP with Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies and Emily Browning, WE WERE SOLDIERS with Mel Gibson and Greg Kinnear, THREE WAY with Dominic Purcell and Joy Bryant, and RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS with Drew Barrymore and Steve Zahn.
He is well-known for his television roles as Joey Quinn on DEXTER, Troy in RESCUE ME, Jack Bass in GOSSIP GIRL, Wylie Blake in SONS & DAUGHTERS, and Detective Dexter McCarron in L.A. DRAGNET.
Additional film and television credits include TiMER, FORT PIT, LIFE MAKES SENSE IF YOU’RE FAMOUS, MY FIRST MISTER, NOT SINCE YOU, and LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.

Trivia

Was named one of E! Online’s Sizzlin’ 16 in 2002

Personal Quotes

“I could have taken a bigger role in a smaller movie, but for me it’s never about the size of the role. I figured I could really learn something.” – On being cast in We Were Soldiers (2002) opposite Mel Gibson.

MOVIE TRIVIA

• “I listened to the commentary for Love Object. Apparently Desmond is the world’s biggest klutz. He fell repeatedly, he knocked Melissa down, smacked her head on a metal bar, and hit the actor playing the neighbor with the wooden handle of the rubber hammer. He said the actor wouldn’t even be in the same room with him for the power tool murder. They had to shoot each of them separately with a stand in holding to tools. Also in Wrong Turn, he hurt his ankle really badly running or something. Dude is cute, but completely accident prone. It makes him lovable.”
• In Love Object Melissa Sagemiller and Desmond Harrington performed most of their own stunts
• In the scene [Wrong Turn] when the four are running from the cabin after awaking the mountain men, Desmond Harrington broke his right ankle after landing on the opposite side of a log. This made it very difficult to shoot some of the scenes after his left leg is “shot” and he has to limp on his right leg.
• In Wrong Turn, Several of the cast and crew were covered in poison ivy throughout the filming of the movie, this was due to the chairs being placed in what was first thought to be a group of weeds only later to be discovered as a batch of poison oak.
• “One of my best friends’ mother is a nurse and she wanted me to take antibiotics, but I’m against them. I called up my friend’s mom and she’s like OK, yeah, this is what you’re going to do, get whole garlic cloves and—how to I put this delicately—and put them up there, ok? It’s a natural anti-bacterial, it will kill anything, and I’m like, that’s gross, but I’ll do that, and I did.

  Sometimes I’m not bright and I’ll state that right now. Over the course of three days I kept doing what she told me to do. After three days, I’m in my trailer with [fellow TiMER actors] Michelle [Borth], John [Patrick Amedori], and Desmond [Harrington] and we’re all hanging out in my trailer over dinner. Suddenly, I’m like, I don’t feel well and I feel sick. Something’s not right.

  And I called my friend’s mom quickly, and she was like, “Emma, hold up, you have to take the garlic cloves out, that’s what you did, right?” and I was like, “I don’t know, I thought they were going to dissolve! I’ve never done that before!”

  And she asked, “How many do you have up there?” and I said, “Eight or nine!”

  Jac came in and I told her about this and she was peeing herself. So we had to send transpo [the guys who work for the transportation department] out to get a turkey baster and they said, “We don’t really want to know what this is for, do we?” So they brought back a turkey baster and brought it back into the bathroom. The sheer force of the turkey baster brought it back out. It’s the most unpleasant aroma. I reeked of garlic horribly and had to go back to work and Michelle, John, and Desmond all decided to chew whole cloves of garlic. It was pretty bad, and now I’ll never live it down!” Emma Caulfield