Cast of 'The Secret Life Of The American Teenager'

Daren Kagasoff | Biography 2021

Cast of the Upcoming Korean War Drama Movie, 'Devotion'

• By Puja Bhetwal
• Update : July 23, 2021

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Daren Kagasoff is an American actor best known as Ricky Underwood in the series The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Who is Daren Kagasoff?

Daren came to the limelight after appearing in the 2008 series The Secret Life of the American teenager, which aired for five years. In 2013, Daren Kagasoff was cast in Ouija, a horror thriller movie based on the Hasbro board game. His upcoming works include Devotion, a Korean War drama movie in production by Black Label Media. 

Early Age

Daren Kagasoff was born in Los Angeles, California, on 16 September 1987, to a wholesale diamond trader and designer parents. Kagasoff has one older brother Justin, and one younger sister Natalie. He went to Montclair Prep. for high school, where he was a baseball team member. Kagasoff lacked in his grades in high school. He used to hide report cards to escape scolding from his father. “I had terrible grades, so I would keep my report card hidden from my father. My mother was also in on it, knowing how enraged he’d be. I would have most likely attended boot camp. I’m not kidding,” he shared with Seventeen in 2009.

“I’m definitely a rebel at heart! One time in high school, this group of guys egged my car on Halloween. I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend for a party, but instead, I went after them. I knocked some people in the face, but let’s just say it was the first time I got my a** kicked. I had to get 25 stitches under my right eye that night! When I didn’t show up at my girlfriend’s house, she called my mother. My mom was like, ‘Oh,”, Kagasoff further added, referring to his bad boy tendency in high school.

After graduating from high school, Kagasoff enrolled at San Francisco State University in 2005 but discontinued after the first semester as he didn’t like to study. Instead, Kagasoff chose to take acting classes. After six months of training, he started applying for television and movie roles.

‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’

Kagasoff became a well-known and award-winning actor portraying the male protagonist, Ricky Underwood (2008-2013), in the acclaimed ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager. The one-hour drama centered on the relationships between families and friends and how they dealt with unexpected teen pregnancies.

After playing the character for five full seasons for years, Kagasoff grew as an actor. Being on set, in general, helped him mature, and watching other actor’s performances was learning to him. He took his profession very seriously that he didn’t screw around even after he left the set. It was a five-year hard work for him.

His Character

In 2013, Kagasoff, who played bad guy Ricky, hoped that viewers would be satisfied with how all the characters’ stories conclude. He explained, “It’s been five years, and the show has had its ups and downs with relationships and people coming on the show and off the show. Of course, you want the audience to be happy, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to make TV exciting.”

His Audition in 2008

It was his sixth audition, and Kagasoff had never acted before. He went in and read, and he ended up reading for the show’s creator five or six more times. Finally, it came down to the television show creator Brenda Hampton, who gave him the part despite the fact the network wasn’t for him at the time. He added, “I was pretty green. It was a pretty substantial character in the show and I don’t think they necessarily trusted me with the material, but Brenda did. She fought for me and said she wasn’t going to do the show without me, so that’s how I got the job. It was basically because of her.”

For him, the fondest memory was when Brenda Hampton arrived in an Escalade with a dozen roses to tell him he got the job. He was entirely unprepared for her arrival. It had come as a total shock. Another memorable moment was his last episode, which was emotional because everyone knew it was the last time they’d all be together.

‘Ouija’

Daren Kagasoff was cast as Trevor, an attractive boyfriend who was wary about reaching out to their deceased friend, in the 2014 movie Ouija, a horror thriller based on the Hasbro board game. Directed by Stiles White, the movie depicts a group of teenagers playing with an Ouija board when they come into contact with an evil ghost and struggle desperately to close the door they’ve opened before they meet their doom. Released by Universal Pictures, the movie was a worldwide success, grossing more than $100 million out of its budget of just $5 million.

Cast member Olivia Cooke shared that working with Kagasoff during the movie was fun. She said in an interview, “I think we had a bit too much fun and it was a bit too light, at times. Maybe people got a bit pissed off with us because we were so jovial when we’d come offset and be messing around, especially me and Daren [Kagasoff]. But, it was great how quickly we focused and put our heads in the game.”

‘Blue’

TV series Blue aired from 2012 to 2014 revolves around the lead character Blue, a mother with a secret life played by actress Julia Stiles. The titular character harbors dark secrets from her past that she wants to be hidden from her kid. 

In June 2012, Blue debuted on WIGS, one of the first premium original content channels financed by YouTube. Director Rodrigo Garcia and Jon Avnet collaborated for the series. WIGS emphasized that storylines such as Blue with a central female character could be impactful. 

Daren Kagasoff appeared in about two episodes of the series Blue in 2014, namely, ‘Make me Feel Good’ and ‘Call me Francine.’

‘Delirium’

In 2014, Daren played the male lead Alex Sheathes alongside Emma Roberts in Lauren Oliver’s New York Times bestselling trilogy adapted short television movie, Delirium. The pilot, directed by Rodrigo Garcia for FOX never picked as the series, and it was later aired on Hulu.

‘Red Band Society’

TV series The Red Band Society follows a group of youngsters who live together as patients in a pediatric ward and learn to cope with their illnesses, their situations and deal with the people they meet.

Daren Kagasoff played Hunter Cole, a snarky and intelligent bad guy, in the Red Band Society series, which aired from 2014 to 2015.  

Hunter needed a liver transplant in the series owing to liver damage from his leukemia treatments. But, that never stopped him from being the group’s first rebellious member and spreading chaos. 

Kagasoff was present in seven out of the thirteen episodes in that series.

‘Stalker’

Daren Kagasoff made a guest appearance as Eric Bates in the 2014 criminal drama/thriller mashup Stalker. In the episode ‘Pilot,’ he played a college student who gets stalked by his former roommate, played by Mistresses’ actress Erik Stocklin.

The storyline revolves around the series’ protagonists, detectives Beth (Maggie Q) and Jack (Dylan McDermott), looking out for stalkers in Los Angeles.

‘Paradise Picture’

Paradise Picture is a 2015 film that tells the story of a group of ambitious people in 1940s Hollywood.

In the film, Kagasoff played Wyatt Osborne, an assistant in the Paradise Picture studio’s editing department who aspires to be a director. However, when Wyatt finds that the studio’s highest-paid screenwriter is working on a novel instead of the studio’s forthcoming project, he drafts his own script and offers it to Kirby, Paradise Pictures’ head of production.

‘S.W.A.T’

Kagasoff, as Gordon, was featured as a guest in the episode ‘Imposters,’ the fifth episode of the first season of S.W.A.T., which aired on 30 November 2017.

The episode ‘Imposters’ covered a series of home invasions in an upscale neighborhood by S.W.A.T. imposters. S.W.A.T., the team, believed that each of the ransacked families was concealing something. 

‘The Village’

The Village, a 2019 TV series, tells the story of inhabitants in a unique apartment building in Greenwich Village as they form strong bonds with their families, friends, and neighbors.

Daren Kagasoff played Gabe Napolitano, a law student who lived with his grandfather. The character portrayed a tense relationship with his father, a powerful attorney in the series. As the story unfolds, it is known that Gabe may not be studying law for the correct reasons and instead was doing it to appease his father. Viewers get to observe how Gabe’s desires evolved through the course of the episode, as well as how things began to alter.

“Everybody has their own lives that they have to do, but it feels good to help other people at the end of the day. It really does”, Kagasoff told Tvline in 2019 concerning the series’s character who inhabited a fantasy home and were exceedingly compassionate, 

Nominations and Awards

For starring in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Kagasoff won the ‘Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer TV Star: Male’ in 2009. He again got nominated in 2010, 2011, and 2012 for the same series and the award category, but he did not win. He was also a nominee for the 2010 and 2011 ‘Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Breakout Star: Male,’ and the 2012 ‘Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Breakout Star: Male and Drama Actor.’

Upcoming Projects

His upcoming project is Devotion, a Korean War drama movie produced by Black Label Media. The cast includes actors such as Joe Jonas and Spencer Neville, including Daren Kagasoff.

Sony Pictures Canada, with the Twitter handle (SonyPicturesCan), tweeted on 23 May 2021, “Fly guys. (JoeJonas), (DarenKagasoff), (NickHargrove), (Nargrove) and (SpencerNeville) . #DevotionMovie – coming soon to theatres. (DevotionMovie) #Devotion”, which Kagasoff retweeted as a hint to his feature on the movie.”

On 31 May 2021, Kagasoff took the narrative of his appearance to Twitter, “This #MemorialDay, we remember and pay tribute to those who served. We’re honored to tell the story of the Fighting 32’s ✈ï¸Â including real-life heroes Marty Goode, Carol Mohring, and Bill Koenig in #DevotionMovie.”

The project chronicles the story of two U.S. Navy fighter pilots from different worlds, Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) and Tom Hudner (Glen Powell). The movie was based on Adam Makos’ best-selling book ‘Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice.’ According to the published plot, the pilots were assigned to the VF-32 squadron and were pushed to their limits while testing and flying a revolutionary fighter jet type. Later, their bond was challenged when one of them was shot down inside enemy lines. In the movie, Kagasoff plays a teammate who knows Hudner from his childhood.

Net Worth

According to Celebritynetworth, Daren Kagasoff is estimated to be $2 million.

Former Girlfriends

In 2009, Kagasoff spoke to Seventeen Magazine about his high school girlfriend and the lessons he learned while dating her. That two-year romance taught him to “never fall in love in high school because it takes over your brain.” He said he didn’t care about anything else because he was so obsessed with her. It had been excessive.

Later in 2013, he was linked to Jacqueline Wood, and the two were caught kissing in public, but the couple broke up. Wood married Elan Ruspoli in 2018.