• Erika Alexander

  

  My character (manager to ex-husband played by Tracy Morgan), summed up in five words “Bossed, bothered, kinetic, intentional, suicidal.”

  My dream show guest star “Viola Davis”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Run for office and win, even though she didn’t campaign.”

  If I could play any character past or present, it would be … “Inspector Clouseau from The Pink Panther.”

• Denée Benton

  

  My character (Christine Baranski’s ex-secretary turned journalist), summed up in five words “Baddie, tender, punk-rock, persistent, visionary.”

  My dream show guest star “Jeremy O. Harris as William Dorsey Swann, the Black drag queen who threw the first known underground ‘Ball of It All” in D.C. in 1889.” 

  If I could play any character, past or present, it would be … “Elvira Hancock in Scarface. Michelle Pfeiffer’s work is iconic.”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “A working actor is made up of the human, the artist and the business. All three have to be balanced and nourished to sustain a career.”

• Jamie Campbell Bower

  

  My character (the series’ alpha baddie), summed up in five words “Lost boy finds dark power.”

  My dream show guest star “Robert Englund. Freddy Krueger was a huge reference for [Stranger Things creators] Matt and Ross Duffer, and I felt like season five leaned further into A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors territory, which was awesome.”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Henry is reclusive, intelligent and observant. If someone truly knew him — which many don’t — they would probably say he’d be an astroscientist, physicist or a zoologist.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “In the final episode, Henry is confronted by a memory of his early trauma that turned him into what he later became. It was heavy.”

• Taylor Dearden

  

  My character (ER doc, possibly on the spectrum), summed up in five words “Enthusiastic, sincere, sweet, an advocate and spicy.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Mel was going through a tough time and had to have a big [emotional] reaction, and Gerran Howell and Isa Briones were improving super hilarious roommate stuff back and forth, and at one point we all broke.”

• Paul W. Downs

  

  My character (Deborah Vance’s and Ava Daniels’ manager), summed up in five words or so “The character everyone has a crush on and the glue that holds it all together.”

  My dream show guest star “Joanna Lumley”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “When Jimmy and Kayla [Meg Stalter] get bedbugs and wear outfits from a tween girl’s clothing store. There was a lot of breaking that day in sugar floatie flip-flops and Juicy Couture sweats four sizes too small.”

  If I could play any character, past or present, it would be … “Michael Bluth from Arrested Development, or young Frankenstein.”

  If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be … “An astrophysicist or underwear model.”

• Beau Garrett

  

  My dream show to guest star on “The White Lotus or anything David E. Kelley. If there was ever another In Treatment, that would be my jam.”

  In school, my character (romantically challenged Clyburn daughter) would be voted most likely to … “Get divorced.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Floating in the river. Those damn rocks kept jolting the boat, and I didn’t think I’d stop laughing.”

• Lucy Halliday

  

  My character (undercover Mayday agent), summed up in five words “Snarky, protective, loyal, gutsy, fierce.”

  My dream show guest star “Emma Stone or Cillian Murphy.”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Talk back.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “There were a few that involved being heavily layered up in the hot Toronto sun. They were tough — and dizzying.”

• Allison Janney

  

  My character (shrewd leader of the free world), summed up in five words “Calm, calculating, charming, relentless, right.”

  My dream show guest star  “Bradley Whitford coming on as Grace’s husband was the best!”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Run the student government — and replace the principal by spring.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “The map scene [in season two, when she explains her nefarious decisions protecting the U.S.]. It was like patting your head and rubbing your stomach and speaking a foreign language all at once.”

• Ben Kingsley

  

  My character (a hired actor who played a real terrorist), summed up in five words “Scatterbrained but with great focus.”

  My dream show guest star “Julianne Moore”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Jest.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Hasn’t happened.”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “Learn your lines and don’t bump into the furniture (Sir John Gielgud).”

• Leah Lewis

  

  My dream show guest star “If Dolly Parton ever wants to come onto our show, you have a home.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “When [my character Sarah, a junior associate at the law firm] talks about an AI server named Monulta. The amount of M’s that I said in that scene, I felt my career flying down the drain because I could not get it right.”

  If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be … “Probably a botanist, a writer or an English teacher. The chill things in life.”

• Kyle MacLachlan

  

  My character (villainous Vault 33 Overseer), summed up in five words “Ambitious, pragmatic, brilliant, devoted, curious.”

  My dream show guest star “Cary Grant”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Saying goodbye to Lucy [Ella Purnell].”

• John C. McGinley

  

  My character (sauna-loving college president), summed up in five words “Deeply lonely, but delusionally optimistic.”

  My dream show guest star “Keith David. He’s the best actor on the planet.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Any time Steve Carell and I were in my hothouse: two middle-aged white men, practically naked, having a heart-to-heart conversation.”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “Olympia Dukakis, our master teacher at the NYU grad theater program, urged us to lean in to the verbs because that’s where all the answers are.”

• Charles Melton

  

  My character (uncertified country club physical therapist), summed up in five words “Kind, heartfelt, goofy, earnest, confused.”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Be a great car salesman.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “In episode eight, my character is running down the street, and I pulled my hamstring. I pulled a Tom Cruise; I wanted to run as fast as I could. I got what I thought was a cortisone shot in my hamstring, but it was salmon sperm. My leg was leaking caviar for three weeks. But the skin in that area is perfect.”

  An actor I’d love to play opposite “Ryan Gosling. I love Ryan Gosling. Everything about him.”

• Nick Offerman

  

  My character ( former pro wrestler turned live-in nanny), summed up in five words “Badass, messy, adoring, horny, jacked.”

  My dream show guest star “Alan Rickman, RIP. I’ll throw in Dame Maggie Smith while we’re at it. What I wouldn’t give to countenance her indignation.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “We had a showbiz baby who most vociferously did not want to be in the business but whose mother was insistent she was going to be a star. Poor kid screamed through what was supposed to be a quiet, emotional scene, so we had to hold her face away from the camera and pretend it was silent in the room.”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “From my folks, Cathy and Ric Offerman: Be honest, work hard, mind your manners and treat others with the respect you would want to be treated. I do my best to emulate their example.”

• Tom Pelphrey

  

  My dream show to guest star on “The Sopranos, for sure. I’m a Jersey boy.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “When Robbie [a garbage collector who robs drug houses] dances with his daughter and he knows that probably will be the last time, but he doesn’t want her to know that.”

  If I could play any character, past or present, it would be “Jack Nicholson’s always been my favorite [actor], and for two years, I walked around in a black leather jacket with a black hat on like he wears in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It would be Randall McMurphy.”

• Michael Peña

  

  My character (detective investigating the disappearance of a kid), summed up in five words “Morally ambiguous, but good dad.”

  My dream show guest star “Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “The scenes with my special needs kid, Orlando [Ivanovic]. He is such a sweet kid, so awesome, and I absolutely loved it because you can’t really tell him anything. He’s going to do what he’s going to do, so my job was to bring it back to the scene, and that juggling was just a joy.”

• Chris Perfetti

  

  My character (blundering sixth grade history teacher), summed up in five words
  “I think his students would sum him up as a HuffPo-reading gay Pete Buttigieg — which is redundant and reductive. But if I get to pick five words, it’s probably social puppy dog, Shakespearean, debased clown.”

  My dream show guest star “Laura Dern would play the most dynamic, diabolical Abbott villain we’ve ever had.”

  In school, my character would be voted … “Most dramatic because, first of all, that superlative is sort of queer-coded, but also, c’mon, the boy is a mess.”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “The first play I ever did on Broadway was with Ellen Burstyn and the great Elizabeth Marvel. And one of them, I won’t tell you who, told me to put a Post-it note on my door as I’m leaving the house that says, ‘It’s not going to go that way, babe.’ And I’ve had that Post-it there for nearly a decade now.”

• Judy Reyes

  

  My character (sharp-tongued nurse), summed up in five words “Believe her the first time.”

  My dream show guest star “Viola Davis”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to … “Punch a football player.”

• Timothy Simons

  

  My character (hot rabbi’s goofy big brother), summed up in five words “Strong, weed gummies, Mission Impossible.”

  My dream show guest star “Mandy Patinkin rules!”

  In school, my character would be voted most likely to …  “Run his family company, even though he’s not particularly great at running the company.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “The threesome scene because Jackie Tohn and Justine Lupe are immensely funny, and I’m unprofessional, so I laugh when they do things that are funny.”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “When you first move to Los Angeles, you need to do three things: Get a car that’s not going to break down on the side of the 101, an apartment you like coming home to because you end up spending a lot of time in it, and if you meet anybody truly toxic, just cut them out of your life immediately.”

  If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be … “Your worst employee.”

• Luke Tennie

  

  My character (Jason Segel’s endearing therapy patient), summed up in five words “Gentle, strong, fearful, brave, curious.” 

  My dream show guest star “My wife [María Romero].”

  In school, my character would be voted … “Best smile.” 

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Handing the keys back to Jimmy [when Sean moves out of his pool house in the season three finale].”

  The piece of career advice I carry with me to this day “Get good at everything that requires no talent.”

• Naomi Watts

  

  My character (obviously, the former first lady), summed up in five words or so “Elegant, iconic, intelligent, mischievous, a good sense of humor and worldly.”

  My dream show guest star “I want to work with Sarah Paulson on everything from here on out.” 

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “The dying scene. It’s always a bit strange to have to die. It’s actually the first thing my kids ask me when I’m about to take on a role. But even for you, it’s a strange experience. I’m the dying lady at this point. I’m of the age, guys, let’s face it.”

  If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be … “Lost. I really love my job.”

• Karolina Wydra

  

  My character (invading all-knowing alien), summed up in five words or so “Happy, content, unflappable, spiritual, the highest intelligence in the world. I’m everything.”

  The scene I wasn’t sure I’d get through filming “Episode four, when I get the truth serum. It was summertime in Albuquerque, New Mexico, probably between 100 and 110 [degrees], so it was very hot
  and it was a very intense, emotional scene.”

  If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be … “A therapist. Whenever you prep for a role, you get to really dissect human behavior.”

  This story appeared in the May 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day