List of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip characters
[2] Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) is a former head writer for Studio 60 who in the show's pilot episode, is asked to return when executive producer Wes Mendell is fired.
This also puts him in an awkward position; he has recently ended a relationship with Studio 60 star Harriet Hayes, for whom he still holds strong personal feelings.
Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) is the recently promoted President for Entertainment Programming for the network NBS (National Broadcasting System) of which Studio 60 is the flagship show.
While Jordan's previous credentials are impressive, she knows that confidence in her is not very high (on the pilot, she mentions that on the day of the announcement of her hiring, the share price of NBS's parent company instantly took a 3/8 point dip) and the pressure on her to deliver is strong, with particularly intense scrutiny coming from network chairman Jack Rudolph.
In "The Cold Open", Jordan proposes a policy of charging a 20% "cowardice fee" to advertisers who had acquiesced to boycotts by the Christian right but came back after the boycotted show in question turned out to be successful.
As she describes to journalist Martha O'Dell in "The Long Lead Story", Harriet was born in Brighton, Michigan — and uses her middle name because a Hannah Hayes was already registered in the Screen Actors Guild.
After attending the Yale School of Drama, and frustrated about parts lost to other prominent black performers (Jamie Foxx, Will Smith and Denzel Washington are named as examples), Simon was recruited to the cast of Studio 60.
"[3] As he told Matt in "The Wrap Party", Simon grew up in South Central Los Angeles and risked death or imprisonment as a teenager.
Jack has a history of controversy with Matt and Danny, having caused the pair to quit Studio 60 four years earlier (in the wake of 9/11), when he ordered the two to apologize for a Karl Rove sketch he had expressly approved following pressure from conservative Christian groups, a move that he would later regret.
While his frustrations at the re-hiring of Matt and Danny are evident, his main focus of administrative swagger is over Jordan, upon whom he places enormous pressure to succeed.
Jack has a quick and intense temper which he frequently brandishes, but is also a man of conviction, coming to Jordan's defense in a period of personal turmoil and vehemently defending the independence of the nightly news.
[5] Ricky Tahoe (Evan Handler) and Ron Oswald (Carlos Jacott) are writers and, as part of their $30,000 per-episode contracts, current co-executive producers of Studio 60.
They stepped into the creative void left by Danny and Matt when the pair quit, and in the pilot are portrayed as poor writers, "hacks" and command little professional respect from the stars of the show.
In "The Option Period", Ricky and Ron leave the show to pursue a spin-off pilot on Fox of "Peripheral Vision Man", a Studio 60 sketch.
In the events of the pilot, he is the catalyst that brings Matt and Danny back to the show, fired on the night for the hijacking of the live broadcast of Studio 60 and ranting an improvised tirade, similar to that in the film Network (which is commented on in the pilot itself), venting against bureaucratic control, the influence of minority groups in the censorship of the network, and the nature of the broadcast industry.
Jerry later appears during flashbacks in "K&R Part II" asking Matt and Danny to cut a sketch about Karl Rove in the show following the beginning of the war in Afghanistan.
In "The Wrap Party", Harriet found out that Darren also wrote his phone number on a baseball given to Jordan, which apparently ended the relationship.
Martha O'Dell (Christine Lahti) is a journalist writing a "long lead story" about Matt and Danny's return to Studio 60 for Vanity Fair.
Darius Hawthorne (Columbus Short) is a junior writer who is hired by Matt Albie and Simon Stiles after seeing his stand-up act in "The Wrap Party".
Andy Mackinaw (Mark McKinney) was introduced in "B-12" after Ricky and Ron's departure (from the prior episode: "The Option Period") when Matt needed the help of an extra writer.
Mary Tate (Kari Matchett) is a lawyer from Gage Whitney Pace who is investigating a sexual harassment suit by Karen Salzburg, a writer who was fired from the show.
Zhang Tao (Raymond Ma) is a Chinese businessman who is behind a multimillion-dollar merger with NBS to turn the city of Macau into "the Las Vegas of East Asia."
