Every Actor Who Has Played Damien In The Omen Movies (2024)

Over the years of production of The Omen movies, several actors have stepped in to play the role of Damien. As the main character in the films, Damien is an unassuming young child who turns out to be the Antichrist. From there, he wreaks havoc on the characters around him as the spirit of Satan comes out, with Damien killing all those who oppose him and for his gain. As the series continues, audiences witness Damien grow up into a genuinely evil man in The Omen series.

Damien is not featured in the most recent installment in the series, 2024's The First Omen. This exclusion is by nature of The First Omen being a prequel to the main series, showing events that lead up to the 1976 film. Even though the character is absent from the most recent installment, Damien is still the most critical element of the majority of The Omen series, and over the years, his role has been inhabited by many main actors.

Noel O’Connell

Infant Damien In 1976’s The Omen

The very first iteration of Damien is played by Noel O’Connell in The Omen. O’Connell plays the baby version of Damien who is brought home by Robert and Katherine at the beginning of the movie. As an infant, O’Connell doesn't have to do any acting, but nonetheless, his presence is still pivotal. The Thorn couple is grieving the loss of their stillborn child and uses baby Damien as a point of hope in their grief.

Damien was not the only role that O’Connell played in his infancy. In the same year, the actor played Young Tommy in six episodes of When the Boat Comes In. He then appeared as a character named Job Tray in Exploits at West Poley in 1985, but did not go on to have an acting career into adulthood.

Harvey Spencer Stephens

Child Damien in 1976’s The Omen

Throughout the majority of the first film, it is Stephens who takes on the role of Damien. The child actor delivers a franchise-critical performance, as he provides the series introduction to the demonic child at the film’s core. In The Omen, Damien is unaware that he is the son of Satan, so the audience must watch this child go on a journey of ignorance to sad*st tendencies as he destroys his family members. The 1976 film was the only movie to feature Stephens on screen, but the 1991 sequel Omen IV: The Awakening later featured him in archival material.

Cast at five years old, The Omen was Stephens’ first on-screen performance. As in the case of O’Connell, he did not go on to have an acting career as an adult. In 2006, he made a cameo appearance in The Omen remake as Tabloid Reporter #3, but he has not appeared in any films since.

Jonathan Scott-Taylor

Teenage Damien in Damien: The Omen II

Though the follow-up to The Omen was released in theaters only two years after the original film, the next feature time jumps several years. Damien: The Omen II kicks off as the character is about to turn thirteen, and finally learns about his Satanic destiny. Playing this newly-minted teenage Damien is Jonathan Scott-Taylor, who was 16 years old at the time of the film’s release.

Scott-Taylor got his start in acting a few years before The Omen sequel, playing a character named Andrew in an episode of Ten from the Twenties. After Damien: The Omen II, the young actor went on to play small roles in a couple of other TV series, including The Mill on the Floss, Tales of the Unexpected, and Saturday Night Thriller. His last on-screen role was in 1988 when he played a character named Berry in two episodes of a TV miniseries called Troubles.

Sam Neill

Adult Damien in The Omen III: The Final Conflict

By the time the third (but, contrary to the title, not final) installment of The Omen was released in 1981, Damien’s child days were long gone. After the events of Omen II, Damien has now descended into being the Antichrist in his adult years. Sam Neill is by far the biggest and best-known actor to play Damien in any film in the franchise. He was the first adult to play the character, portraying the part at the age of 34.

Though Neill had not yet played his career-defining role in Jurassic Park when he was in The Omen III, he was already a working actor by the time he was in the horror film. A couple of years before, he played a lead role in the Australian film My Brilliant Career, as well as a few smaller roles. Now 76 years old, Neill is still a working actor whose recent projects include roles in The Twelve, Apples Never Fall, and Bring Him to Me.

Tomas Wooler

Infant Damien in 2006’s The Omen Reboot

Thirty years after the original release of The Omen, John Moore directed a poorly received remake of the iconic film. Rather than continue The Omen franchise, the film was a direct remake that starred Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles as Robert and Katherine Thorn. Like the 1976 version, Damien begins as a newborn baby whom the couple adopts. He then grows into infancy, where he is played by Tomas Wooler, playing the role previously occupied by O’Connell in the original film.

The Omen was, of course, Wooler's first role, and the child actor did not go on to be in any other films following his appearance in the horror film. This continues the trend of Damien child actors cutting their careers off after appearing in The Omen, as many of the actors did not go on to act in films in their adulthood.

Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick

Child Damien in 2006's The Omen Reboot

In the final movie with Damien, the child version is played by Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick. Given Stephens’ crucial performance in the role in the original film, finding a child actor to play the antichrist role was critical. The Omen remake team decided to choose a child that looked relatively similar to Stephens, giving Damien a likeness to what the child actor looked like in the original film.

Davey-Fitzpatrick was only seven years old when The Omen was released, putting him around six years old during filming and five or six at the time of casting. Unlike many other Damien stars, the child actor went on to have several roles after his appearance in The Omen. In 2012, he played a character in Wes Anderson’s masterful Moonrise Kingdom, followed by an appearance in Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight in 2013. Now 25 years old, it seems Davey-Fitzpatrick’s career has slowed down in recent years, as he has not had an on-screen role since 2020.

The Omen (2006)

R

Horror

Supernatural

Thriller

Director

John Moore

Release Date

June 6, 2006

Studio(s)

20th Century Fox , 11:11 Mediaworks , Dune Entertainment

Distributor(s)

20th Century Fox

Writers

David Seltzer

Cast

Julia Stiles , Mia Farrow , Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick , David Thewlis , Pete Postlethwaite , Michael Gambon , giovanni lombardo radice , Pedja Bjelac

Runtime

110 Minutes

Budget

$25 Million

Main Genre

Horror