Let’s be real for a second. When you hear about the cast of joan and bette, your mind probably goes straight to the high-octane camp and the legendary "hag-horror" drama of the 1960s. But the 2017 Ryan Murphy series Feud: Bette and Joan wasn’t just a bunch of people in wigs screaming at each other. It was a massive, high-stakes gamble that required a very specific kind of actor to pull off. You can't just put anyone in the shoes of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. These weren't just "stars"; they were industries.
Honestly, the casting was half the battle. If you get the wrong people, it becomes a parody. If you get the right people, it becomes a tragedy. And that’s exactly what happened when the show finally hit screens.
The Heavyweights: Who Actually Played Who?
Basically, the show lived or died on its two leads. You’ve got Jessica Lange playing Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis. On paper, it’s a dream. In practice, it was even better.
Lange didn't just "do" Joan. She captured that weird, desperate, skin-crawling insecurity that Crawford supposedly had. You know, that thing where she was so obsessed with being a "movie star" that she forgot how to be a person? Lange played that perfectly. Then you have Sarandon. She didn't go for a broad caricature of Davis. She went for the grit. She played Bette as a woman who was smarter than everyone in the room and absolutely miserable because of it.
But the cast of joan and bette wasn't just a two-woman show. The supporting players were arguably just as important for setting the scene of 1960s Hollywood.
- Alfred Molina played Robert Aldrich, the director stuck in the middle of these two hurricanes.
- Stanley Tucci was Jack Warner. He played him as a total jerk, which, let's face it, is probably how most of Hollywood saw him back then.
- Judy Davis stepped into the shoes of Hedda Hopper, the gossip columnist who basically invented the "influencer" game before the internet was a thing.
- Jackie Hoffman played Mamacita, Joan’s housekeeper, and she basically stole every scene she was in.
Why This Specific Cast Mattered So Much
You've probably noticed that most of the main actors in this show were over 50. That wasn't an accident. Ryan Murphy was trying to make a point about ageism in Hollywood. By hiring legends like Lange and Sarandon to play legends like Crawford and Davis, he was layering the show with a meta-commentary that you just don't see often.
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It’s kinda meta, right? You have Oscar winners playing Oscar winners who are terrified of losing their relevance.
Susan Sarandon actually talked about this in interviews. She mentioned that for a long time, the idea of a "Bette and Joan" project was just seen as a "bitchy and funny" movie. But expanding it into a series allowed the cast of joan and bette to actually explore the pain behind the pettiness. It wasn't just about the Pepsi machines or the Coke machines; it was about two women who were being discarded by an industry they helped build.
The Cameos and Guest Stars
The show also leaned hard into "stunt casting" in the best way possible.
- Catherine Zeta-Jones as Olivia de Havilland. She played her as the "sane" one looking back on the chaos.
- Kathy Bates as Joan Blondell.
- Sarah Paulson as Geraldine Page (in a very brief but memorable appearance).
- Kiernan Shipka as B.D. Hyman, Bette’s daughter.
Seeing Kiernan Shipka go from Mad Men to playing Bette Davis's daughter was a trip. She had to play that weirdly tense, "I love you but I also kinda hate you" dynamic that defined the real-life relationship between Bette and B.D.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Performances
There’s this idea that the cast of joan and bette was just doing impressions. That’s totally wrong.
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If you watch Susan Sarandon, she isn't doing the "Bette Davis Eyes" thing or leaning into the "Mummy Dearest" tropes. She’s playing a working actress who is tired of being the only person who cares about the craft.
And Jessica Lange? She had the harder job, honestly. Joan Crawford is so easy to mock. The eyebrows, the shoulder pads, the wire hangers. But Lange played the vulnerability. There’s a scene where she’s just scrubbing a floor, and you realize that for Joan, work was the only thing that made her feel like she existed.
The Real-Life Connections
Did you know Ryan Murphy actually interviewed Bette Davis?
It’s true. Back in 1989, just months before she died, a young Murphy got a four-hour interview with her. She apparently spent most of it talking about how much she hated Joan Crawford, but then she’d slip in a comment about how Joan was a "professional." That nuance—the begrudging respect buried under layers of resentment—is exactly what the cast of joan and bette brought to the screen.
The actors weren't just playing roles; they were carrying the weight of Hollywood history.
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The "Mamacita" Factor
We have to talk about Jackie Hoffman.
In a show filled with Oscar winners and A-listers, Hoffman’s Mamacita was the emotional anchor. She was the only person who actually told Joan the truth. While the rest of the cast of joan and bette was busy with the high-stakes drama of studio contracts and Oscar campaigns, Mamacita was just trying to keep the house running.
Her performance was so good it earned her an Emmy nomination. It’s rare for a "housekeeper" role to get that much shine, but Hoffman made her feel indispensable. She was the audience surrogate—the person watching the madness and wondering why everyone was being so extra.
Actionable Insights for Fans of the Show
If you’re obsessed with the cast of joan and bette and the era they portrayed, don’t just stop at the TV show. To really get the nuance of these performances, you should look at the source material.
- Watch "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" immediately after finishing the series. It’s wild to see how closely Sarandon and Lange mirrored the actual film.
- Read "Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud" by Shaun Considine. This is the book that much of the series is based on. It gives you the "unfiltered" version of the events that the actors had to interpret.
- Look up the 1963 Oscars. The show recreates this night in incredible detail. Seeing the real footage of Anne Bancroft’s win (and Joan Crawford accepting it on her behalf just to spite Bette) makes you appreciate the casting even more.
The legacy of the cast of joan and bette isn't just that they made a good show. It's that they forced us to look at two of the most misunderstood women in history with a little more empathy. They took the "feud" and turned it back into a human story.
If you're looking for a deep dive into Hollywood's golden age, start with the films mentioned in the show—specifically Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte—to see the actual projects that broke the relationship for good. Watching these back-to-back with the series provides a masterclass in how much (and how little) an actor brings to a historical role.