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Cast & Characters

Elwood, played by Ethan Herisse (with Ethan Cole Sharp as young Elwood, and Daveed Diggs as adult Elwood)  

An idealistic and intellectually gifted Black teenager raised by his grandmother, Hattie, in Tallahassee in the 1960s. At school, he is inspired by the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil disobedience of the Freedom Riders, who rode interstate buses into the segregated South. At the recommendation of his teacher, Mr. Hill, he decides to attend free courses for advanced high school students offered at a nearby HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), but his dreams of college are cut short when he is charged as an accomplice to a crime that he did not commit and is subsequently sentenced to the Nickel Academy reform school. At the Nickel Academy, his strong ideals are put to the test by daily violence and injustice.  

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Turner, played by Brandon Wilson  

A student at Nickel Academy. He befriends Elwood despite their very different personalities. While Elwood believes strongly in justice and sticks to his ideals, Turner believes that there is little fairness in the world, adopting a more realistic, or cynical, worldview. Despite his cool pragmatism, he takes a major risk to help Elwood when he is in need.

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Hattie, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor 

Elwood’s grandmother. She works as a hotel cleaner and dotes upon her grandson. Her life has been marked by racial violence in the Jim Crow South. When Elwood is charged with a crime he played no part in, she reflects gravely upon the ways in which anti-Black racism have marked her life, including the death of her father, who died in a prison cell under suspicious circumstances. When Elwood is at Nickel Academy, she makes every effort to raise money for a legal defense.  

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Mr. Hill, played by Jimmie Fails  

Elwood’s teacher in Tallahassee. He highlights the racist biases in the school’s second-hand history textbooks, encouraging students to use markers to cross out prejudice and misinformation. He tells Elwood about the program for advanced high school students at a nearby HBCU. 

Spencer, played by Hamish Linklater 

The white superintendent at Nickel Academy. He claims that his goal is to reform students, though he makes little effort to do so and profits by loaning students out as a form of convict-labor. He personally, and brutally, punishes students accused of breaking rules, and resorts to even more drastic measures when he feels that his authority or position are threatened.  

Harper, played by Fred Hechlinger 

A white employee at Nickel Academy who helps oversee the labor program. 

Blakeley, played by Gralen Banks 

A Black member of staff at Nickel Academy and House Father of the dorm to which Elwood is assigned. He willingly cooperates with the school’s racist and violent policies.  

Mrs. Hardee, played by Lucy Faust 

Wife of the Director of Nickel Academy. She is relatively sympathetic figure to Elwood and Turner, though she is not above exploiting their labor for her own personal game.  

Jaimie, played by Bryan Gael Guzman 

A mixed-race student of White and Mexican heritage. Due to his ethnic background, the school authorities do not know whether they should place him with the Black or white students, and he is moved between the two groups.  

Griff, played by Luke Tennie 

A student at Nickel Academy and a skilled boxer. His failure to “throw” a fight at Spencer’s request, whether intentionally or unintentionally, has tragic consequences.  

Chickie Pete, played by Craig Tate 

A student at Nickel Academy. Decades after Elwood and Turner’s peers age out of the school, he asks his former classmate for work in his moving company.  

Millie, played by Sara Osi Scott 

Turner’s partner and later wife, decades after the events at Nickel Academy. She is shown in a series of short clips that depict Turner’s adult life. 

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