Ellen Pompeo as Kristine Barnett

Ellen Pompeo leads the series as Kristine Barnett, the Indiana mother of three who adopted Natalia in 2010 with her husband, Michael Barnett. She’s also an author, having written the 2013 book, The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism, which chronicles her efforts to help her eldest son Jacob cope with autism.

“I started with the version of Kristine that was at first someone who wanted to help her son,” Pompeo told Vanity Fair. “She threw everything she had heard from experts out the window and decided to take this project on herself. I started from the perspective of a mother’s love and what drives mothers to raise their children, to support their children, to do the almost impossible for their children. And that is something that I could relate to because I have three kids of my own.”

Pompeo is among the most famous TV actresses of all time due to her stint playing Grey’s Anatomy‘s Dr. Meredith Grey since the series’ 2005 premiere. It may come as something of a surprise, then, to find out Good American Family marks the actress’ only other leading role on TV.

Pompeo said she was drawn to the series because she wanted to “show a completely different color” than she had as Meredith Grey. “I just thought taking this on would be a land mine,” she added. “This is a scary thing for me to even entertain because it’s intense stuff, and it deals with children and it deals with children who are neurodivergent and have disabilities. This just seems like really tricky stuff.”

“Tricky” is one word to describe playing Kristine, who’s emerged as a controversial figure. In the years following the adoption, Kristine and Michael began to believe Natalia wasn’t a child, but a dangerous adult playing pretend. The Barnetts would later claim that Natalia was a danger to the family, alleging that she had tried to poison Kristine’s coffee and harm them with clear thumbtacks placed face up on the stairs.

Natalia denied the accusations and later claimed Kristine was abusive to her in The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks. Per Natalia, Kristine’s alleged abusive behavior included hitting her with a belt and using pepper spray as a form of punishment. Kristine denies any such abuse occurred.

Mark Duplass as Michael Barnett

Mark Duplass cut his teeth as a writer, director, and producer of indie films like The Puffy Chair (2005), Cyrus (2010), and Creep (2014), but went on to appear in a vast array of films (Safety Not Guaranteed, Bombshell) and series (The League, The Mindy Project). He scored two Emmy nominations for his turn on Apple TV+’s The Morning Show (2019–present).

Here, the actor plays Michael Barnett, Natalia’s adopted father. Unlike Kristine, Michael has spoken publicly and at length about Natalia, including in several TV interviews and on The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. In 2019, he claimed on Good Morning America that doctors told he and Kristine that Natalia was a “con artist” and a “sociopath.”

“I look at this character and I see someone with mental health issues. I see someone who’s had a pretty tough upbringing and is trying to do their best to get it right for the next generation. I can empathize with both of these things,” Duplass told Entertainment Tonight.

He admitted to Variety that he initially wasn’t interested in doing a “ripped from the headlines” series, but that Good American Family‘s use of multiple, often-contradicting perspectives intrigued him.

“This is not the ripped-from-the-headlines story that I saw in the tabloids and the documentary,” he told ET. “This is way more nuanced.”

Imogen Faith Reid as Natalia Grace

27-year-old Imogen Faith Reid makes her onscreen debut in Good American Family as Natalia Grace, who was born in 2003 in Ukraine before moving to the U.S. in 2008.

It’s an especially difficult role for any actress, but co-showrunner Sarah Sutherland told Variety they knew Reid was the one after watching her audition tape. “I mean, she not only has to play over a wide range of years, she also plays Natalia from two different ages and different people’s perspectives,” she said. “Imogen blew everybody away. As soon as everybody saw her tape, it was clear she was the one.”

Christina Hendricks, Reid’s costar, concurred, saying, “She had her rhythm, she had the character down. So I was nervous when I got to set and just kind of followed her lead. We had immediate chemistry and she made it easy on me.”

Natalia was born with a rare form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. According to PEOPLE, she spent much of her early years in orphanages or unstable homes. She was relinquished by her first adoptive family due to her behavioral issues.

She was adopted by the Barnetts at age 6, though tensions quickly arose between Natalia and the family, leading to allegations of violence, changes to her birth certificate, and ultimately abandonment.

“I really disliked being the girl who was re-aged and lived in her own apartment,” she told PEOPLE. “I didn’t understand why I was alone. I just knew I had this instinct in me to push and survive. All I was told was, ‘You’re 22 now. Whenever somebody asks you what your age is, you say you’re 22 and you tried to murder your family.’ I was taught to lie.”

Natalia gave her side of the story in Investigation Discovery’s The Curious Case of Natalia Grace docuseries, which finds her denying the allegations put forth by the Barnetts while claiming that Kristine was abusive towards her.

Christina Hendricks as Cynthia Mans

In the years since she dazzled as Mad Men‘s Joan Harris, Christina Hendricks has led the U.K. series Tin Star (2017–2019) and NBC’s Good Girls (2018–2021).

On Good American Family, she plays Cynthia Mans, a neighbor of Natalia’s in Lafayette who invited the young girl to live with her family.

“There’s little clues to people’s personalities and how people manipulate, how people gain power,” Hendricks said of the series to ABC’s On the Red Carpet. “I think a lot of this has to do with who has the power and who doesn’t, how you get [power] and who listens to who?”

Aias Dalman as Jacob Barnett

Aias Dalman plays Jacob, the Barnetts’ oldest son. Per Kristine’s book The Spark, Jacob has autism and a genius-level intellect. According to the book’s Amazon synopsis, Jacob “has an IQ higher than Einstein’s, a photographic memory, and he taught himself calculus in two weeks.”

Dalman, an actor with autism, previously appeared in Hallmark’s A World Record Christmas (2023), Lifetime’s Doomsday Mom (2021), and Netflix’s The Recruit (2025).

Ron Nagle as Dr. Phil

After cultivating an audience as a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil McGraw began hosting his own CBS talk show, Dr. Phil (2002–2023), which ran for 21 seasons and more than 3,000 episodes.

Natalia appeared on Dr. Phil in 2019 after her case made national headlines. With tears in her eyes, she denied the claims made against her by the Barnetts.

On Good American Family, McGraw is played by Rob Nagle, a veteran of series like Good Trouble (2023–2024) and NCIS: Los Angeles (2018, 2022).