'Freaks and Geeks' Cast: Where Are They Now?
“Freaks go all the way.” Though it only lasted for one season, Freaks and Geeks quickly became a cult favorite — and kicked off the careers of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
The teen comedy was developed by Judd Apatow and Paul Feig, and premiered on NBC during the fall of 1999. Set in a 1980s Detroit suburb, the series follows teenager Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini), who falls into a crowd of slacker “freaks,” and her brother Sam (John Francis Daley), who attempts to navigate the ins and outs of high school with his “geek” friends.
“We did our infamous two weeks with the writers locking ourselves in a room and telling personal stories. I wrote a list of questions for everybody to answer: ‘What was the best thing that happened to you in high school? What was the worst thing that happened to you in high school? Who were you in love with and why?'” Feig recalled during a 2014 interview with Vanity Fair, describing the writing process for the acclaimed series. “That’s where most of our stories came from. Weirder stuff happens to people in real life than it does on TV. It was a personal show for me and I wanted it to be personal for everybody else.”
Despite its early cancelation, the NBC comedy received three Emmy nominations, was featured as one of Time magazine’s “100 Greatest Shows of All Time” in 2007 and left behind a legacy like no other. To this day, Cardellini remembers exactly what drew her to her character, Lindsay.
“Here’s this girl who desperately wants to be away from her parents and what they know her as, but at the same time truly does not want to disappoint or rebel against them and really loves them,” she told Vanity Fair in 2014. “It was a more interesting approach than all the other teenagers I was reading, who just hated their parents.”
While Apatow and Feig both went on to have highly successful careers behind the camera, and often continued working with some of the Freaks and Geeks stars, they’ve each kept a special place in their hearts for the short-lived show.
“Even to this day, I think I didn’t want to admit that Freaks and Geeks was cancelled,” Apatow teased during a March 2014 talk at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills. “Everything I’ve done, in a way, is revenge for the people who cancelled Freaks and Geeks.”
Scroll down to learn more about where the cast of the one-season series is today.
The Canadian comedian went on to build a successful film career, starring in 2007's Knocked Up, 2011's The Green Hornet and 2014's Neighbors. When he's not on the big screen himself, he’s working behind the scenes in writing and producing roles. He currently resides in California with writer-actress Lauren Miller, whom he married in October 2011, and recently worked alongside Charlize Theron in 2019's The Long Shot.
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One year after Freaks and Geeks came to an end, Franco took the lead role in the biographical drama James Dean, which earned him a Golden Globe win in 2002. He later starred in Spider-Man (2002) and 127 Hours (2010), and went on to study English at Yale University. Since their time on the NBC series, Franco and Rogen have built a strong friendship. The two worked together on Pineapple Express (2008), The Interview (2014), The Disaster Artist (2017) and many more.
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Along with Freaks and Geeks, Segel is best known for playing Marshall Eriksen on How I Met Your Mother. The CBS series lasted for nine seasons between 2005 and 2014. Segel simultaneously took on a number of film roles, appearing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), I Love You, Man (2009) and The Muppets (2011). He is an ordained minister and performed a wedding ceremony on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in 2010. In 2020, he began starring in the AMC anthology series, Dispatches From Elsewhere.
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The Loyola Marymount University graduate worked on Legally Blonde and Brokeback Mountain after the sitcom came to an end in 2000, and has since appeared in shows like Mad Men, New Girl and Dead to Me. In October 2011, she confirmed that she and her boyfriend, Steven Rodriguez, were expecting their first child together. Their daughter was born in February 2012 and the couple got engaged in June 2013.
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Since Freaks and Geeks went off the air, the Illinois native has starred in a number of short films and had smaller roles in 2007’s Sydney White and 2009's I Love You, Beth Cooper. He regularly appears on the "Doug Loves Movies" podcast and has been a frequent participant on YouTube’s Kevin Pollak's Chat Show since its premiere in March 2009. In March 2020, he confirmed his engagement to TV editor Rachel Cushing.
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Philipps went on to star in the beloved teen drama Dawson's Creek from 2001 to 2003. She later appeared in ABC's Cougar Town from 2009 to 2015, and had supporting roles in films like White Chicks (2004), Made of Honor (2008), He's Just Not That into You (2009) and I Feel Pretty (2018). Philipps is an outspoken advocate for women's equality and briefly had her own late-night show, Busy Tonight, which ended in May 2019. She shares two daughters, Birdie and Cricket, with husband Marc Silverstein.
In 2020, Philipps revealed that Birdie is gay and prefers they/them pronouns.
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After scoring a handful of supporting roles in film and television, Daley began collaborating with writing partner Jonathan Goldstein. The duo were co-screenwriters for Horrible Bosses (2011), cowriters for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) and co-story writers for Horrible Bosses 2 (2014). They also co-directed the 2018 comedy Game Night starring Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman. In January 2020, it was announced that Goldstein and Daley were in talks to direct and write the screenplay for the reboot of Dungeons & Dragons (2023). In 2016, he married actress Corinne Kingsbury.
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The California native is known for playing Roman DeBeers on the comedy series Party Down (2009 to 2010) and Bertram Gilfoyle on HBO's Silicon Valley (2014 to 2019). He continued to collaborate with Apatow with small roles in Knocked Up, Superbad and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, all of which came out in 2007.
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Baker's television credits include Frasier, Star Trek: Voyager, Sex & the City, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and All My Children. She is also known for her work as Loreen Horvath on Lena Dunham’s HBO series, Girls, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 2017.
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The Second City Theater alum appeared in various Disney productions including The Legend of Tarzan (2001 to 2003) and Home on the Range (2004). In 2004, he began teaching a comedy writing course at Humber College in Toronto.
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