Seth Rogen as Matt Remick

Seth Rogen has been nominated for numerous Emmy and Golden Globe awards, including for writing and producing.

As an actor, he’s perhaps best known for his collaborations with director Judd Apatow, such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007), and Funny People (2009). He recently voiced roles in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), which he also co-wrote and produced.

As a producer, he also helped usher The Boys (2019–present) and Invincible (2021–present) to Amazon Prime Video.

Matt Remick, the harried studio exec Rogen plays on The Studio, is nobody’s idea of a hero, but the actor expressed sympathy for the character in a chat with EW.

“I’ve befriended a lot of these kinds of people over the years — I’ve been in their weddings, I go to their birthday parties, and I’ve seen that a lot of them love movies just as much as we do,” he said. “But they are unfortunately at this inflection point of art and commerce, and they’re almost daily put in a position where they have to choose between self-preservation and enabling creative freedom.”

He continued, “There’s many moments in my own life where I’ve been like, ‘Am I making these things worse? Am I making them better? Am I the guy who’s telling people not to do the thing they really want because it’s not logistically feasible or it’s outside the realm of our budgets and timelines?'”

Catherine O’Hara as Patty Leigh

Catherine O’Hara is comedy royalty, having pivoted from the sketch series SCTV (1976–1984) to roles in iconic comedies like After Hours (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), and Home Alone (1990), not to mention the films of Christopher Guest. In 2020, she won her first acting Emmy for her role as Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek (2015–2020).

O’Hara plays Patty Leigh, whose job as Continental Studios head goes to Matt after her unceremonious firing. This complicates their relationship, as Patty was Matt’s mentor.

This character is personal for Rogen, since Patty is based on producer Amy Pascal, who was famously fired from Sony Pictures following an email hack that targeted Rogen’s 2014 comedy The Interview.

“Amy is someone who was a huge mentor to me and Evan. We literally were on the phone with her 48 hours ago, asking her advice on whether or not we should do something,” Rogen told TheWrap.

“We sent her the show as soon as it was finished, so she could watch it. We really came up at Sony under her leadership, and she was someone who taught us a ton about the industry and who was a really inspirational figure to us in a lot of ways. She took huge risks and huge gambles, and she’s essential to me and Evan having the careers and lives that we currently have.”

Ike Barinholtz as Sal Seperstein

After making a splash on MADtv (2002–2007), Ike Barinholtz turned in memorable performances on The Mindy Project (2012–2017), Eastbound & Down (2012), and Suicide Squad (2016).

He wrote, directed, produced, and starred in 2018’s The Oath, and co-created Netflix’s Running Point (2025) alongside Mindy Kaling, Elaine Ko, and David Stassen. Barinholtz is also a game show whiz, having scored big bucks on Celebrity Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, Barinholtz revealed that Rogen wrote the role of Sal Seperstein, a wormy exec, just for him. “I’m always looking for the dynamic of two idiots, one idiot thinking he’s a little smarter than the other idiot,” Rogen said. “That’s what our dynamic is on the show. And maybe off it.”

Chase Sui Wonders as Quinn Hackett

Chase Sui Wonders broke out on HBO’s short-lived Generations (2021) before turning heads in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) and the Apple TV+ series City on Fire (2023). She’ll soon appear opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. in the upcoming I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel.  

Wonders’ Quinn is a key Hollywood archetype: the embattled assistant who’s been promoted to a creative executive. “They really let me be a freak in this show, and that was so liberating, and it empowered me to embrace my inner court jester,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

The actress also spoke about the dramatic undercurrents of any Hollywood-set satire. “I am constantly at odds with the false idols in this business and the ways they can trick you into chasing after something that’s just an empty void,” she said. “Seeing how you can betray yourself to get what you want, or seeing my friends get taken by the smoke and mirrors that is this business, it scares me.”

Kathryn Hahn as Maya

After finding her footing on Crossing Jordan (2001–2007), Kathryn Hahn established her comedy bonafides in films like Anchorman (2004) and Step Brothers (2008). Since then, she’s become a consistent presence in film (Bad Moms, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and TV (Transparent, Mrs. Fletcher). Most recently, she pivoted her role as Agatha Harkness in Marvel’s WandaVision (2021) into her own spinoff, Agatha All Along (2024).

Hahn told EW that her loud, profane, and puffy-vested Maya is a marketing specialist she pieced together from several Hollywood businesswomen she’s met over the years.

“I can’t even say their names, but there are a lot of birds that inspired her, a lot of amazing women in this town that just have a girl at Saks,” she said. “They come from a time in which you had to really fricking act like a dude in order to stay in the game and have this kind of patriarchal, ‘got to keep up with all the guys’ kind of vibe. There’s an amazing quiet desperation in her that I had a lot of empathy for.”

Bryan Cranston as Griffin Mill

Bryan Cranston’s film work is impressive — his turn in 2015’s Trumbo got him an Oscar nomination — but he’ll forever be the King of TV. From Seinfeld‘s Tim Whatley and Malcolm in the Middle‘s Hal to Breaking Bad‘s Walter White, Cranston’s small-screen resume is hall-of-fame-worthy.

His latest role is Griffin Mill, a studio overlord Rogen said was initially written as a “boring, scary suit kind of guy.” Over time, though, the character began to resemble Warner Bros. Discovery president David Zaslav, who famously sought to permanently shelve projects like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme for tax write-offs.

“He’s kinda like a mover and a shaker, and he’s like a fun guy, and he knows his reputation, so he wants to present himself as kind of cool and loose. But the things he’s saying are anything but!” Rogen told EW.

“That dichotomy of being a cool Hollywood guy who is spewing the most commercial, anti-creative words you could possibly be saying at any given moment — that actually rang much more true to our experiences in Hollywood, and made the character much less like a caricature and more like what these guys are actually like.”

He continued, “They’re social, they go to parties, they are friends with billionaires and movie stars, and they’re kind of cool when you first meet them. But at the end of the day, they will f—ing destroy you to make one dollar more than they would if they could.”

Keyla Monterroso Mejia as Petra

Rising actress Keyla Monterroso Mejia has appeared in several notable comedies, including Curb Your Enthusiasm (2021–2024), Abbott Elementary (2022–2023), and the On My Block spinoff Freeridge (2023). In January, she appeared opposite Keke Palmer and SZA in One of Them Days.

On The Studio, she plays Matt’s assistant, Petra. “It was like a masterclass every day,” she told Marie Claire. “Being on set and seeing them work in real time is a huge tool. I’ll see them try a cadence change or physicality in a scene, and then start tweaking and tweaking until it hits. It’s like, Oh my God, I just watched a fucking genius artist workshop a choice. That’s priceless.”

Dewayne Perkins as Tyler

After cutting his teeth in the Chicago comedy scene, Dewayne Perkins scored writing gigs on The Break With Michelle Wolf (2018), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2020–2021), and Peacock’s Saved By the Bell reboot (2020–2022), in which he also co-starred. In 2022, he co-wrote and starred in the buzzy horror comedy The Blackening.

The Studio casts Perkins as Tyler, an acolyte of Maya’s who’s terminally online. “He is just a person who is happy to have a job and wants to keep it,” the actor told Far Out. “That’s something that I related to most. It’s just being a part of a system and knowing your place and trying to retain your place in a system where you feel like a cog in the machine.”