Gaius Charles

Gaius Charles (born May 2, 1983) is an American stage, television and film actor best known for playing Brian "Smash" Williams on the NBC sports-drama television series Friday Night Lights. He starred as Dr. Shane Ross on the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy. Charles also had a recurring role on the NBC historical-drama series Aquarius as Black Panther leader Bunchy Carter.

Charles was born on May 2, 1983 in Manhattan, New York, then lived in Queens, and later moved to Teaneck, New Jersey with his family when he was in middle school. Growing up in the childhood home of composer Alan Silvestri, he graduated from Teaneck High School in 2001. He attended Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts, where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama and performed in productions including Candide, The Wild Party and Spunk, the college's first production with an all-black cast. He appeared in Romeo and Juliet as Mercutio at the Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival and also studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, Australia.