Who's Who in Showtime's Your Honor

Showtime's new miniseries Your Honor asks a central question both elemental and fairly sensational: how far would a respected judge go to protect his son if he killed the son of a mob boss in a hit-and-run? This is red-meat material for a legal thriller, and, between Apple TV+'s Defending Jacob and HBO's The Undoing, it seems to fit into a trend of recent "what would you do to protect your family" crime scenarios on TV.

Premiering this Sunday, the ten episode series stars Bryan Cranston in his first lead role on a TV series since Breaking Bad ended. The four-time Emmy winner will play both judge and dad, battling moral dilemmas as well as legal ones, all the while trying to stay one step ahead of the mob. Joining Cranston is a star-studded cast of Emmy-nominated actors, giving Your Honor one of TV's most accomplished casts this winter. Here's an overview of who's who in the cast, as well as where you may have seen them before.

Bryan Cranston as Michael Desiato

Four-time Emmy winner, Golden Globe winner, Tony winner, and Oscar nominee Bryan Cranston plays Michael Desaito, a highly respected judge in New Orleans who resorts to cover-up and corruption when his son commits a hit-and-run on the son of a mobster. Cranston's early success came in sitcoms like Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle, but it was his role as Walter White on Breaking Bad that shot him to true stardom.

Hunter Doohan as Adam Desiato

Playing the role of Adam, the young son of Cranston's character whose life spirals out of control after a hit and run, is Hunter Doohan, whose earliest roles include HBO's Westworld and Netflix's What/If. More recently, he starred on the Apple TV+ series Truth Be Told, where he happened to play the younger version of a character played by Bryan Cranston's Breaking Bad counterpart Aaron Paul.

Michael Stuhlbarg as Jimmy Baxter

Prolific character actor Michael Stuhlbarg plays feared New Orleans mob boss Jimmy Baxter, who's out to avenge the death of his son. Stuhlbarg is best known for his roles as Arnold Rothstein on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, as the beleaguered Larry Gopnik in the Coen brothers' Oscar-nominated A Serious Man, as Sy Feltz on the third season of Fargo, and as Richard Clarke on the Hulu series The Looming Tower. In addition to A Serious Man, Stuhlbarg has starred in six other Best Picture nominees: Call Me By Your Name, The Shape of Water, The Post, Arrival, Lincoln, and Hugo.

Sofia Black-D'Elia as Frannie

Playing Adam's girlfriend Frannie is Sofia Black-D'elia, who garnered great reviews for her pivotal role as Andrea on The Night Of, though some might say her best work was done on the short-lived FOX sitcom The Mick, where she played the spoiled teenage daughter of fugitive parents.

Carmen Ejogo as Lee Delamere

London-born actress Carmen Ejogo is probably best known for playing Coretta Scott King in the Oscar-nominated film Selma, but her film and TV credits go deep. She played Whitney Houston's eldest daughter in the remake of Sparkle, Maya Rudolph's sister in Away We Go, and President Seraphina Picquery in the Fantastic Beasts movies. On television, she's had lead roles on the second season of Starz's The Girlfriend Experience and the third season of HBO's True Detective. In Your Honor she plays Lee Delamere, a successful lawyer at a private firm who gets pulled back into the New Orleans criminal justice system via this case.

Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Charlie

The great Isiah Whitlock, Jr. spent five seasons playing the iconic corrupt state senator Clay Davis on HBO's The Wire. More recently he starred in Spike Lee's Oscar-nominated BlacKkKlansman and again with Lee in this year's acclaimed Da 5 Bloods. In Your Honor, Whitlock plays Charlie, an associate of Judge Desaito's who gets called upon to help cover up the hit-and-run.

Hope Davis as Gina Baxter

Hope Davis plays the grieving, deceptively dangerous mob wife Gina Baxter. The acclaimed star of film, TV, and stage has appeared in films like American Splendor (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination), About Schmidt (where she played Jack Nicholson's daughter), and Captain America: Civil War (where she played Tony Stark's mother). She also starred on the second seasons of HBO's In Treatment and ABC's American Crime, and had a featured recurring role as a gossip columnist on The Newsroom.

Lamar Johnson as Kofi Jones

Canadian actor Lamar Johnson plays Kofi, a young Black man who gets caught up in the cover-up drama. The actor and dancer starred on the Canadian dance drama The Next Step. He's also appeared in films like The Hate U Give and X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Amy Landecker as Nancy Costello

Playing Lieutenant Nancy Costello, who's investigating the hit-and-run murder is actress Amy Landecker. In addition to starring on the Bryan Cranston-produced Amazon series Sneaky Pete and opposite Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man, Landecker is perhaps most recognizable as Sarah Pfefferman on the acclaimed series Transparent. Most recently, she starred in the Netflix movie Project Power, opposite Jamie Foxx.

Tony Curran as Frankie

Scottish actor Tony Curran played Angus Macdonald in the Chris-Pine-starring Netflix film Outlaw King. He also played Vincent Van Gogh in an acclaimed episode of Doctor Who, and received a Best Actor nomination at the British Independent Film Awards for his performance in Andrea Arnold's Red Road. He'll be playing one of Baxter's criminal associates in Your Honor.

Margo Martindale as Elizabeth Guthrie

Three-time Emmy winner (for her roles on The Americans and Justified) Margo Martindale plays Senator Elizabeth Guthrie, Adam's grandmother. Martindale's character actress bona fides are second to none, having appeared in such films as Walk Hard, August: Osage County, and Million Dollar Baby. She voiced a version of herself as "Character Actress Margo Martindale" on BoJack Horseman, starred opposite Bryan Cranston on Sneaky Pete, and recurred as the iconic Ruth Eastman on The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Most recently, Martindale was Emmy-nominated for playing Bella Abzug on Mrs. America.

Lorraine Toussaint as Sarah LeBlanc

Lorraine Toussaint plays Sarah LeBlanc, the chief justice at the criminal court where Cranston's character presides. Among her best-known roles are as Vee on the second season of Orange Is the New Black, recurring public defender Shambala Green on Law & Order, and her lead role opposite Annie Potts on the Lifetime series Any Day Now. In 2012, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in director Ava DuVernay's Middle of Nowhere.

Chet Hanks as Joey Maldini

Playing the best friend of the deceased who has criminal plans of his own is Chet Hanks, the infamous son of Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, two-time Oscar winner and America's dad. Which would make Chet America's sibling. Our sibling who occasionally films Instagram videos or shows up at the Golden Globes speaking in an affected patois. After early roles playing "Pizza Delivery Boy" in his dad's film Larry Crowne, Chet has appeared in recurring roles on shows like Shameless and Empire.

Your Honor premieres on Showtime Sunday December 6 at 10:00 PM ET.

 

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.