Bottoms is the latest teen comedy from director Emma Seligman, putting together a great ensemble cast of promising young actors. The movie follows two queer high school losers who come up with a fight club to have sex with the school's most popular girls. Their plan backfires when the fight club spirals out of control, and they find themselves in the middle of a high school crisis.
Seligman's movie brings a self-aware and original approach to ideas that were explored in the best teen comedies about the high-school experience in the late-90s and early-2000s, taking the concept of teenagers desperate to lose their virginities before prom to a whole new level. The movie is the filmmaker's second feature film following the success of Shiva Baby, a black comedy that launched Seligman and her collaborator Rachel Sennott into the mainstream.
9 Rachel Sennott as PJ
PJ, the desperate teenager who comes up with the fight club plan in the first place, is played by Rachel Sennott. The actress kicked off her career with a series of short films in the late-2010s, one of which was directed by Seligman and ended up becoming the feature film Shiva Baby, where Sennott plays an awkward teenage girl trying to survive a succession of chaotic events at a family shiva.
She went on to play Jackie Raines on the TV show Call Your Mother and Leia in Sam Levinson's controversial The Idol. On the big screen, Sennott also starred in Tahara, Susie Searches, and Bodies Bodies Bodies, in which she plays the standout character Alice.
Related: Bottoms Review: Girls Run a Raunchy and Hilarious New Fight Club
8 Ayo Edebiri as Josie
Josie, an awkward teenager who could use a little self-confidence, is played by Ayo Edebiri. The actress is best known for co-starring in the hit show The Bear alongside Jeremy Allen White. In the show, a mix of drama and comedy that follows the chaotic routine of a restaurant staff, she plays the talented Chef Sydney.
Before she reunited with Sennott in Bottoms, Edebiri wrote and co-starred in the Comedy Central series Ayo and Rachel are Single alongside her Bottoms screen partner. Edebiri is also known for playing Hattie in Dickinson, Sandy in Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful, and delivering great voice performances in Big Mouth, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.
7 Ruby Cruz as Hazel Callahan
Hazel, PJ's best friend and the somewhat mediator of the fight club, is played by Ruby Cruz. The actress first rose to prominence in the horror TV show Castle Rock playing the teen version of Annie Wilkes. From 2019 to 2023 Cruz navigated through a variety of roles on TV, playing Jess Riley in Mare of Easttown, Kit Tanthalos in Willow, and appearing in a single episode of Blue Bloods as Amanda Webster. Bottoms marks the actress' shift from TV to the big screen.
6 Kaia Gerber as Brittany
Brittany, one of the most popular girls at school and a charming cheerleader, is played by Kaia Gerber. She's an American model and actress whose career started with a series of music videos. She eventually joined the cast of American Horror Stories as Ruby McDaniel and its sister show American Horror Story as Kendall Car, a victim of chilling extraterrestrial experiments. In 2022, Gerber joined the cast of Babylon in the role of Starlet, an exuberant black comedy directed by the renowned Damien Chazelle.
5 Havana Rose Liu as Isabel
Isabel, a new popular student at school harboring an important secret, is played by Havana Rose Liu. Isabel is Josie's love interest, although she's involved with the school's most handsome jock, Jeff. Rose Liu has a prominent modeling career that earned her the chance to be featured on a Vogue cover. She also played the lead role in No Exit, a crime thriller about a young woman convinced that one of the people stranded with her in a blizzard is a potential kidnapper. Prior to the success of Not Exit, Rose Liu starred in the small indie movies The Sky Is Everywhere and Mayday.
4 Nicholas Galitzine as Jeff
Jeff, a popular jock with violent tendencies, is played by Nicholas Galitzine. He's Isabel's boyfriend and the main antagonist of Bottoms, doing everything he can to stop Josie, PJ, and their fight club. 2023 is an inspiring year for Galitzine as he's starring in two of August's most acclaimed releases; Bottoms and Red, White & Royal Blue, a rom-com featuring a fictional romance between the son of the President of the United States and a British prince.
Galitzine made his acting debut in the coming-of-age film The Beat Beneath My Feet, then went on to star in movies such as High Strung, Cinderella, and Purple Hearts.
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3 Miles Fowler as Tim
Tim, Jeff's faithful best friend, is played by Miles Fowler. The actor is relatively new in the acting business, making his onscreen debut in 2022 as Trevor Daniels in the medical drama The Resident. Before getting the role in Bottoms, he also starred in the shows Women of the Movement and Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.
2 Marshawn Lynch as Mr. G
Mr. G, the school's counselor and the low-key mentor of PJ and Josie in their fight club, is played by Marshawn Lynch. He's most commonly known as a proficient American football running back, playing in 12 seasons of NFL and spending most of his career in the Seattle Seahawks.
Ever since his official retirement in 2016, Lynch has been dedicating his career to the entertainment industry, appearing in a variety of movies and TV shows. Most of the time, he plays himself, as was the case in The League, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Murderville, and 80 for Brady. Alternatively, Lynch showed his best acting skills in HBO's Westworld as Giggles and will now showcase his talent for comedy in Bottoms.
1 Wayne Péré as Principal Meyers
Principal Meyers, the school's principal who's openly suspicious of PJ and Josie's activities, is played by Wayne Péré. The character is a minor antagonist as school principles tend to be, interfering in the girls' fight club plan before they get to achieve their ultimate objective.
Péré has been an active figure in the entertainment industry since the 90s and contributed to a series of successful projects that range from superhero movies such as Venom and Spider-Man: Homecoming to political dramas such as The Big Short and The Beguiled. More recently, the actor joined Bryan Cranston in the TV show Your Honor, playing Johnny Zander.
