David Anders

David Anders is the American actor who portrays Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Whale on ABC's Once Upon a Time.

Biography
David Anders Holt, professionally known as David Anders, was born on March 11, 1981 in Grants Pass, Oregon, to Jeri Furness and Tony Holt. He is the youngest of four children. He has three older siblings; biological brother Arik, adopted brother Jason, and adopted sister Maili.

David began acting as a young boy in school plays in his native southern Oregon, but athletics occupied him until he was a senior in high school. At seventeen, he played Philip the Apostle in a regional theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar. The following year, David won the part of George in his high school's production of Our Town. Directly following that, he went on to portray Freddy Eynsford-Hill in a production of My Fair Lady. After moving to Los Angeles, he took the stage name of David Anders due to another actor already using the name David Holt.

In 2001, he took a role playing a high school senior in the Olsen twins' series So Little Time. Later in 2001, David landed the role of Julian Sark in Alias; originally a guest star and was made a regular, which lasted until 2006. Before his acting debut in Alias, he worked at The Gap and taught tennis. Between 2001 and 2006, while working on Alias, his guest appearances were on television shows such as Charmed, CSI and Grey's Anatomy and he was involved in several plays. In December 2001, he appeared in The Source magazine in an ad for the rapper Canibus doubling as Eminem. In 2002, he played in the independent film The Surge. During 2005, David joined the cast of Beautiful, an Off-Broadway rock musical, as the lead. Beautiful was shown during the New York International Fringe Festival. In the same year, he participated in the film Circadian Rhythm. In 2006, he worked on the horror film Left in Darkness alongside actress Monica Keena.

Busily, David took on many television and movie roles through 2007 and beyond; in the film ELI, the second season of NBC’s hit Heroes as Adam Monroe/Takezo Kensei, a character with the ability to regenerate, two other movies; Into the Blue 2: The Reef and The Revenant, guest starring in the eighth season of 24 and playing John Gilbert, the biological father of Elena, on The Vampire Diaries. He currently stars as Blaine DeBeers on the CW show iZombie along side Rose McIver, who played Tinker Bell on Once Upon a Time.

On stage, he was the lead in the world premiere of Rockne: The Musical, and performed in The Diary of Anne Frank in 2001, which received an award for Best Ensemble at the Back Stage West Garland Awards.

Trivia

 * Auditioned for the role of Prince Charming, but ended up being offered the role of Dr. Whale instead.
 * Has a pomeranian dog, Gus, who is named after Giancarlo Esposito's character from Breaking Bad.
 * In addition to acting alongside Rose McIver on iZombie, he also shares scenes with Once Upon a Time co-star Benjamin Wilkinson (who plays the White Knight and Isaac's boss Hank) on the episode "Patriot Brains", co-star Andre Tricoteux (who plays Argyle and the Massive Brawler) on multiple episodes of Season 2, and guest star Giacomo Baessato in "Are You Ready for Some Zombies?".
 * Acts opposite fellow Once Upon a Time actress Sara Canning on The Vampire Diaries.

Appearances
Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.