It’s been years. Honestly, the sting of that Netflix cancellation notice in 2019 hasn't quite faded for the people who spent weeks decoding braille on YouTube thumbnails or looking for literal movements in the stars. But when you look back at the cast of The OA, you realize something kinda weird happened. Usually, a show dies, the actors move on to a procedural or a Marvel movie, and the "family" vibe evaporates.
Not this group.
Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij didn't just hire actors; they recruited a collective of souls who seemed to vibrate on the same frequency. Brit, playing Prairie Johnson (or Nina Azarova, or the Original Angel), was the sun everyone orbited. But the gravity of the show really came from the chemistry between a seasoned veteran like Jason Isaacs and a then-unknown kid like Ian Alexander. It was lightning in a bottle.
The Core Five and the Haptives: A Study in Chemistry
The show was basically split into two worlds. You had the "Haptives" stuck in a basement and the "Crestwood Five" trying to make sense of life in the suburbs.
Brit Marling is the obvious starting point. She’s not just the lead; she co-created the whole universe. Her performance as Prairie was fragile but terrifyingly determined. She has this way of looking at other actors like she’s seeing their cellular makeup. It’s haunting. Then you have Jason Isaacs as Dr. Hunter Aloysius "Hap" Percy. Most people knew him as Lucius Malfoy, but his work here was different. He made a villain you almost—almost—wanted to agree with because he was so desperate for the truth of the afterlife. Isaacs has often talked in interviews about how he’s still obsessed with where the story was going. He’s arguably the show’s biggest fan.
Then there are the boys. And BBA.
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Phyllis Smith as Betty Broderick-Allen was the secret weapon. You know her from The Office, right? Seeing her transition from the droll humor of Phyllis Vance to the grieving, soulful protector of a group of wayward teens was a masterclass. She gave the show its heart. Alongside her, you had Patrick Gibson (Steve Winchell), Brendan Meyer (Jesse), Ian Alexander (Buck Vu), and Brandon Perea (Alfonso "French" Sosa).
They felt like real kids. Steve Winchell, specifically, had one of the best character arcs in modern television. Watching him go from a violent, lost bully to the man chasing a moving ambulance while screaming "Oh my god!" is a sequence that still lives rent-free in my head. Patrick Gibson played that desperation with zero vanity.
Where the Cast of The OA Is Now
Life went on, even if the show didn't.
- Brit Marling: She took a long break from the screen before returning with A Murder at the End of the World on FX/Hulu. Interestingly, she brought several of her OA collaborators with her. It’s clear she builds creative silos that last.
- Emory Cohen (Homer): Homer was the emotional anchor of the basement. Since the show ended, Emory has stayed busy in indie film circles and appeared in projects like The Bikeriders. He still carries that "puppy dog with a broken soul" energy that made the Homer/Prairie romance work.
- Kingsley Ben-Adir (Karim Washington): He joined in Part II and basically stole the show. Since then? He’s been everywhere. He played Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, a version of Ken in Barbie, and the lead in the Bob Marley biopic. His career exploded, but OA fans remember him as the private eye climbing through a magical house in San Francisco.
- Paz Vega and Riz Ahmed: People forget how much star power was tucked into the corners of this show. Riz Ahmed’s Elias Rahim was a pivot point for the mystery—a literal "traveler" in the guise of a counselor.
The Movement and the Physicality of the Performance
You can't talk about the cast of The OA without talking about the Movements. Most actors would feel ridiculous doing interpretive dance to stop a school shooter or resurrect the dead.
But they didn't.
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Choreographer Ryan Heffington (the guy behind Sia’s "Chandelier" video) pushed them. They spent months practicing. Brandon Perea once mentioned in a late-night social media post how intense those sessions were. It required a total lack of ego. If one person looked embarrassed, the whole thing would have collapsed into parody. Instead, the cast leaned in. That shared physical trauma—blistered feet, sore muscles, the absurdity of it all—bonded them in a way a standard sitcom cast never experiences.
The Mystery of Part III and the "Real World" Meta Ending
The end of Part II was... insane. The show broke the fourth wall. The characters "jumped" into a dimension where they were actors named Brit and Jason filming a show called The OA.
This is where the line between the cast of The OA and the actual human beings became incredibly blurry. Jason Isaacs was playing "Jason Isaacs," and Brit was playing a version of herself who was injured on set. Fans went wild. They started looking at the actors' real-life Instagram posts for clues. When the show was cancelled shortly after, a conspiracy theory emerged that the "cancellation" was just a meta-marketing stunt and Part III was happening in real life.
It wasn't, sadly. But the fact that the cast stayed so engaged with the fans—attending protests in front of Netflix headquarters and posting cryptic "YCFM" (You Come Find Me) messages—only fueled the fire.
Why the Casting Worked When It Shouldn't Have
On paper, this show is a mess. It’s about a blind girl who recovers her sight, gets kidnapped by a doctor who kills people to hear the sound of the afterlife, and then teaches teenagers how to jump dimensions via dance.
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It works because of the sincerity.
Look at Will Brill (Scott Brown). Scott was the cynic. He was the one who didn't believe. His resurrection in the basement is one of the most visceral scenes in the series. Brill played it with such grit that you forgot you were watching a sci-fi show. He made the stakes feel like life and death because, for those characters, they were.
The diversity of the cast also felt natural, not forced. Ian Alexander’s journey as a trans actor playing a trans character (Buck) was integrated into the plot through the "mirror" scenes and the relationship with his father. It wasn't a "very special episode" trope; it was just who Buck was. That level of representation in 2016 was ahead of the curve.
Next Steps for Fans and Researchers
If you're looking to dive deeper into the work of this specific ensemble, start by tracking their collaborative history. The "Brit Marling/Zal Batmanglij" cinematic universe is tight-knit.
- Watch "Sound of My Voice" (2011): This is the spiritual predecessor to The OA. You'll see the early blueprints of the "cult leader or savior" trope that Brit Marling perfected.
- Follow the "Save The OA" Archives: There are still active communities on Reddit (r/TheOA) that archive every interview the cast has given since 2019. They often drop nuggets of what Part III, IV, and V would have looked like.
- Explore "A Murder at the End of the World": It’s the closest thing we have to a spiritual successor. While the cast is different (mostly), the DNA of the storytelling—and the presence of Marling—makes it essential viewing for anyone still mourning the loss of the Crestwood Five.
- Check out the Cast’s Indie Projects: Actors like Brandon Perea (Nope) and Kingsley Ben-Adir have taken the "OA energy" into major blockbusters. Seeing them apply that intensity to different genres shows just how much the show acted as a hothouse for talent.
The story might be unfinished, but the impact the cast of The OA had on the landscape of "prestige" sci-fi is permanent. They proved that if you play the most absurd premise with total, unblinking honesty, people won't just watch—they'll believe.