It's easy to see why Netflix's latest series Ginny & Georgia is being compared to Gilmore Girls. The story centers on a young, single mom (Brianne Howey) and her precocious teenage daughter (Antonia Gentry) who move to a beguiling New England town and subsequently find themselves involved in an array of dramas and love triangles. The show, created by Sarah Lampert, even acknowledges these comparisons. “We’re like the Gilmore Girls, but with bigger boobs," Georgia says in her perky Southern accent in the first episode.
Yet, Ginny and Georgia are a very different mother-daughter duo. For starters, the recently widowed Georgia is a crafty con woman who's harboring a few big secrets, like, say, embezzlement and potential manslaughter. Not to mention, she prefers hard alcohol to coffee. Meanwhile, Ginny struggles to fit in, not because of her cleverness but due to how her biracial identity makes her feel like an outsider. (Her oft-absent father is Black.) She's far more self-aware than Rory Gilmore could ever be.
That being said, Gilmore fans might find comfort in Ginny & Georgia's abundance of pop culture references and colorful cast of supporting characters, including Ginny's vibrant best friend Max and her broody twin brother Marcus. But that's where the comparisons end. In Ginny & Georgia, the consequences are more dire, the empathy is more palpable, and the pulp is best served with a knowing wink.
Read on to find out more about the cast and characters of your new favorite dramedy, Ginny & Georgia.
Antonia Gentry as Ginny Miller
A newcomer to the screen, 23-year-old Antonia Gentry plays Georgia's teenage daughter Ginny (don't call her Virginia). Ginny is smart, strong-willed, and deeply knowledgeable of languages and pop culture references from the early aughts, but her unstable home life has made it hard to make friends. Like any outspoken high schooler, Ginny initially dreads their move to Wellsbury — a very white, very wealthy New England town. It's never easy being the new kid in town, especially when Ginny realizes she's one of six Black kids in the whole school. Enter Maxine and Marcus, the twins across the street who turn Ginny's world upside down.
Over the course of the season, Ginny experiences a teen movie's worth of milestones — her first kiss, her first hit from a makeshift bong, and her first group of real friends, to name a few — but Antonia says the crux of Ginny's journey is that she's "trying to figure out who she is, not only as a young woman, but as a young biracial woman." It's hard for Ginny to talk about her biracial identity with her white mom, and the show does not shy away from depicting the everyday microaggressions Ginny faces and internalizes.
Ginny & Georgia may be Antonia's first leading role on the screen, but she's been acting since she was a kid, attending Davidson Fine Arts Drama performing arts high school and Emory University in Georgia. While studying at Emory, she was a leader in the Rathskellar Comedy Improv troupe.
Brianne Howey as Georgia Miller
To portray the beautiful and cunning Georgia Miller, 31-year-old actor Brianne Howey looked to several resourceful fictional heroines for inspiration, including Lorelai Gilmore, Fiona Gallagher, and Nancy Botwin; in the blond matriarch's angriest and most wine-drunk moments, she unleashes her inner Cersei Lannister. A force to be reckoned with, Georgia is the show's most enigmatic figure, and as the season progresses the pieces of her tumultuous past as a teenage runaway start to fall into place.
Still, Georgia is a mystery. To the uptight moms of Wellsbury, Massachusetts, Georgia is the jezebel next door; to Ginny's classmates, she's the coolest (and hottest) mom ever; to Ginny, she's just so embarrassing; and to everyone else, she's a sociable Southern belle. But the thing about Georgia is she's a survivor, and she'll do anything — and scam anyone — to give Ginny and Austin the life they deserve.
As for Brianne, the New York University graduate has a theatre degree from the Tisch School of the Arts. While studying her craft, she landed her first television role in a 2010 episode of 90210. Since then, she's become most known for her work on the small screen, starring in Batwoman, The Exorcist, and The Passage. But Ginny & Georgia gives Brianne the opportunity to show off her versatility as an actor, telling TV Line, "It’s really fun to get to sort of straddle the lines between scary and charming." Offscreen, she loves traveling and her pup Bodie.
Diesel La Torraca as Austin Miller
All Ginny's little brother Austin, played by child actor Diesel La Torraca, wants is to live a carefree existence full of magic and LDPs (living room dance parties) with his mom and half-sister — and without stepdads and classroom bullies, please. Oh, and he'd really like his acceptance letter to Hogwarts. It's hard for Austin to fit in, but what other kids see as being different is what he and Georgia like to call magic.
Despite his young age, La Torraca has been acting for a few years already with roles in Little Monsters and Lambs of God.
Sara Waisglass as Maxine Baker
Best known for playing Frankie on the long-running teen drama Degrassi (as part of both The Next Generation and the Next Class), 22-year-old Sara Waisglass steps into a different kind of teen role as Max Baker. Max is an unapologetic free-spirit who is quickly drawn into Ginny's orbit when the latter calls out their AP English teacher's syllabus for being full of novels written by white men. For Max, it's love at first sight, and she then bulldozes through Ginny's emotional walls to take her under her wing and introduce her to her colorful inner circle.
Max is loud, opinionated, and unafraid to take up a room (like a true theatre kid). "I think that was really incredible for me personally because I feel like as a woman I grew up shrinking myself a little bit," Sara said in an interview. "So to be able to take up the room the way that she did stuck with me long after filming." She's also openly gay and actively looking for a girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Sara, a Toronto native, has been acting professionally since childhood, but she also wants to try working behind the camera. She studied screenwriting in university, telling BriefTake in 2018, "The films that I’ve already wanted to write are the character-driven films, the ones that explore human relationships, because there’s really nothing more beautiful than … the natural narrative of life."
Felix Mallard as Marcus Baker
When Ginny first meets Marcus, he's kind of a f*ckboy. You know the type: pretty, elusive, and noncommittal. But 22-year-old Australian actor Felix Mallard imbues the character with real depth and vulnerability. Initially, the teenage troublemaker sends Ginny a lot of mixed signals. He's hot (climbing through her window in the middle of the night), then he's cold (ignoring her) and sending her longing glances across the hall. There's a simmering push and pull between them, made even more complicated by Ginny's relationship with sweet, naive Hunter.
"He's sarcastic, sardonic, he's an outsider," Felix says of Marcus. "He has a lot of barriers up because he doesn't really trust the world or himself … As soon as he sees Ginny, he sees this anchor."
The Aussie actor — and former fencer — has plenty of on-screen credits to his name. In 2018, he starred in the CBS comedy Happy Together as a popstar named Cooper, a role that was loosely based on Harry Styles. (The "Watermelon Sugar" singer even convinced Mallard to take the part.) He also starred in Locke & Key, All the Bright Places, and will have a recurring role in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist this season.
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Scott Porter as Mayor Paul Randolph
In Friday Night Lights, actor Scott Porter played the part of the high school football star; now, 15 years later, he's stepping into the pressed button-downs and brown loafers of the town mayor, Paul Randolph. It doesn't take Georgia long to set her sights on Wellsbury's most eligible bachelor and secure herself a job in his political office. As far as powerful men go, Paul is a nice guy, and he seems perfectly unaware of Georgia's machinations. He's too busy trying to win reelection — and maybe Georgia's attention. Though, their flirting is mutual.
Scott is most recognizable for his portrayal of Jason Street in Friday Night Nights, but he's since done a slew of voice work in animated series like Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble. He also starred in the CW drama Hart of Dixie and had supporting roles in Speed Racer, Bandslam, and Dear John. Fun fact: While he was attending the University of Central Florida, he was part of the campus a cappella group 4:2:Five.
Raymond Ablack as Joe
Actor Raymond Ablack stars as Joe, the local restaurateur who's a little gruff and rough around the edges but has a growing soft spot for Georgia. (His facial hair and affinity for plaid shirts will not go unnoticed by Gilmore Girls fans.) Joe and Georgia immediately hit it off, in part, because they're both outsiders to Wellsbury's obnoxious upper crust. They also know the value of a good scam and the meaning behind the phrase "eat the rich." Perhaps most intriguing is that there's more to Joe and Georgia's connection than meets the eye.
Toronto-born Raymond started acting as a child, and he's also a former Degrassi alumni. He played Sav Bhandari in five seasons and over 100 episodes of the long-running teen soap. Since his time on Degrassi, he's starred in Orphan Black, Defiance, Shadowhunters, and Narcos.
Nathan Mitchell as Zion Miller
Ginny describes her dad Zion, played by Nathan Mitchell, as the only man her mom has ever truly loved. So when he crashes back into their lives, he throws Georgia's feelings for a loop. A worldly photographer, "among other things," who loves books and hates to be defined by any one thing, Zion doesn't like to be tied down. Unless, of course, Georgia can give him a reason to stay.
Speaking of staying, the Canadian actor currently stars on Amazon's The Boys as the masked antihero Black Noir, where his character had a brush with death at the end of the second season. Don't worry: Nathan says he'll be back. Genre television seems to be his thing, having guest starred on Arrow, The Tomorrow People, iZombie, and Supernatural.
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Mason Temple as Hunter Chen
For Canadian actor Mason Temple, Ginny & Georgia is his big break. He plays Hunter Chen, Ginny's AP English classmate and boyfriend. He's an ideal catch for Ginny: He's smart, compassionate, a little awkward, and he writes her love songs. He also read all of Pride & Prejudice for her, so that they could have something to talk about — that's commitment. Hunter is a Nice Guy, which of course makes Marcus's intensity all the more appealing for Ginny.
Until Ginny & Georgia, Mason had been studying theatre and acting in local productions in Vancouver. To book his breakthrough role, he took a leap of faith and submitted a self-audition tape to the casting agent in Los Angeles. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Katie Douglas as Abby
One-fourth of MANG (a friendship acronym of Max, Abby, Norah, and Ginny's names), Abby has a strong personality. She loves to have a good time, and she wears her tenacity like a mask to cover her insecurities. She's struggling with her body image, and her parents' impending divorce only makes her feel more alone. So she acts out for attention, desperate for someone to actually hear her.
Her portrayer Katie Douglas has been acting since childhood, appearing in dozens of TV series including Defiance, Raising Expectations, and Mary Kills People. Her starring role in Spooksville even earned her a Daytime Creative Arts Emmy nomination for outstanding performer in a children's series. The 22-year-old was born in Ontario, Canada, and in addition to acting she also likes painting, drawing, and making music.
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Chelsea Clark as Norah
Low-key the rock of the group, Chelsea Clark's Norah is a supportive friend who's always there for her girls. But she's also not afraid to call them out when they cross a line (or for their basic tastes). In an interview with Mud Mag, 22-year-old Clark describes the atmosphere of the show as "very focused on female empowerment, female collectiveness, and really helping raise your peers and not being in competition with everyone."
Yet another Degrassi alum, Clark is currently living in Toronto and studying Anthropology in university.
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Jennifer Robertson as Ellen Baker
Canadian actor and comedian Jennifer Robertson plays Ellen Baker, Georgia's scene-stealing neighbor and Max and Marcus's mom. A typical mom with rowdy kids and too much on her plate, Ellen is just doing her best. No one understands that more than Georgia, who becomes her confidante. Together, they make fun of the other PTA moms and discuss their parenting woes over bottles of wine and the occasional illegal substance.
Robertson is best known for her starring role in the beloved Emmy-winning sitcom Schitt's Creek, which recently earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination alongside the ensemble cast. In real life, she's the cool mom.
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