Explainers

Firefly Lane explained: Who’s in the cast?

Teenage Kate and Tully in Netflix's Firefly Lane
Teenage Kate and Tully in Netflix’s Firefly Lane. Pic credit: Netflix

The extremely bingeable comedy-drama Firefly Lane has touched the hearts of many since its premiere on February 3. The series follows childhood best friends Tully and Kate into their adulthood where they discover that growing older isn’t always easy.

The cast of Firefly Lane

There are plenty of familiar faces in Firefly Lane as well as some new ones. 

Starting off easy, playing the main character Kate Malarkey is none other than Sarah Chalke. Before Firefly Lane, Chalke played the quirky and loveable doctor Elliot Reid in the sitcom-comedy Scrubs. 

She is also an acclaimed voice actress, voicing Beth Smith in the adult animation show Rick and Morty and Gina Jabowski in Paradise PD. Other notable roles include Becky Conner in Roseanne, love interest Stella in How I Met Your Mother and Angie in Cougar Town. 

Her character, journalist Kate Malarkey, tends to follow the rules and occasionally finds herself getting walked all over. Although she fiercely stands for progressive rights, she tends to be introverted and very laid back. 

On Instagram, Chalke has been posting behind-the-scenes pictures from the set of Firefly Lane and sharing her fun adventures with her cute dogs, Waffle and Sadie. 

Next up is Katherine Heigl, playing opposite of Chalke, as famous reporter Tully Hart. Heigl is well-versed in the romantic-comedy world, playing lead roles in the movies Life as We Know It, Jenny’s Wedding and New Year’s Eve. 

Much like Chalke, she is known for playing a doctor in a hospital television series. Heigl originated the role of Dr. Izzie Stevens in Grey’s Anatomy. She can also be found in the drama series Suits, Doubt and State of Affairs. 

Heigl effortlessly plays Tully Hart, a widely respected news reporter turned entertainment personality. Tully has some major personality flaws and setbacks from her rough childhood being raised by a free-spirited drug-addicted single mother. 

Heigl describes herself as an “actor, advocate and animal advocate” on Instagram and shares that is the mother of three children. 

Playing the teenage versions of Kate and Tully are Roan Curtis and Ali Skovbye. Before Firefly Lane, Curtis played the young version of Chloe Sullivan in the superhero series Smallville and the recurring Underworld worker Slyvia in The Magicians. 

Skovbye also had many prior appearances before Firefly Lane. She starred in one episode of Supernatural as the frightened child Kelly Harper and she played the character Becky in the period-drama When Calls the Heart.

Lastly, there is Ben Lawson who plays the show’s main love interest, Johnny Ryan. Lawson has a Hollywood career spanning over 20 years. 

For two years, he played the character Frazer Yeats in the Australian soap opera Neighbours. He also played Sam in the romantic comedy movie No Strings Attached, opposite Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. 

More recently, he portrayed the character Benjamin in three episodes of Don’t Trust the B***h in Apartment 23, Rick Wlodimierz in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why and the recurring character Larry Hemsworth in The Good Place.

Lawson’s character Johnny Ryan is a television producer and war correspondent. He plays the husband of early-2000s Kate and the producer of Tully’s talkshow. 

On Instagram, his username is @bennyvegas and in his biography, he links to an interview that he did about Firefly Lane with the Australian magazine The Latch. 

Firefly Lane is streaming on Netflix.

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