David, the middle Fisher sibling, refers to himself as "the stable one." He joined the family business at the age of twenty, lives in the same house where he grew up and is a life-long member of St. Bartholomew's Church. At the time of his father's death, David had been working at Fisher and Sons for eleven years — and was beginning to wonder whether he'd made the right choice. So while he initially resisted Nate's suggestion that they sell the funeral home, David realized it might afford him the opportunity to pursue the things he'd always wanted in life, like going to law school. When Nate did an about face, however, David pushed his own interests aside and agreed to keep Fisher and Sons going.

The baby of the Fisher family, Claire struggled through a difficult childhood and adolescence. She grew up in a house constantly full of people who are either dead or grieving. Her father was killed in a hearse/bus collision one Christmas Eve and she had to drive herself to the hospital high on crystal meth. As a result, she finds it difficult to connect with most people, and the prevailing opinion of her during her high school years was that she's a freak. 

Nate is the firstborn of the Fisher siblings, and arguably the one whose life was most drastically changed by his father's death. Until then, he hadn't dedicated his life to much of anything — except, perhaps, keeping far away from his family. At the age of thirty-five he was a college dropout who hadn't had a romantic relationship that lasted longer than two months and the pinnacle of whose career was Assistant Manager of Organic Produce at Seattle's "highest-volume food co-op." When he inherited half of Fisher and Sons Funeral Home, Nate's first impulse was to sell the business to his father's archrival, Kroehner Service International. But he thought better of it, convincing his brother David that Fisher and Sons should remain independent, with the two of them running it. As a result, Nate suddenly found himself totally immersed in the family business — and his family.

The paterfamilias of the Fisher clan, Nathaniel Sr. had a fatal accident while driving a brand-new hearse and singing, "I'll Be Home for Christmas." And although he is no longer of this world, he shows up from time to time to kibitz with his widow and children. Nathaniel was a decent man, summed up by his epitaph as "Father, Husband, Caregiver." He served as a volunteer medic in Viet Nam, carrying a snapshot of Ruth in his pocket the entire time. He was also hardworking, rarely taking time off from the funeral home. But he had another side — one that Nate discovered accidentally and only after Nathaniel's death. 

Ruth, mother of Nate, David and Claire, has spent most of her life taking care of other people. For the majority of her teen years she cared for her grandmother, whose legs had been amputated. She got married at 19 and spent the next thirty-odd years keeping house, raising her children and tending to the grieving people who passed through Fisher & Sons Funeral Home. When she got the phone call that informed her she was a widow, Ruth's immediate reaction was to hurl a roast — and everything else she could get her hands on — onto the kitchen floor. Since then she has been trying to build a new life and reconcile feelings of guilt from her old one.

Sarah is Ruth's younger sister and, outside of her children and grandchild, her only living relative. A free spirit, Sarah lives a life very different from Ruth's: she's into Tai-chi, feng-shui and magic mushrooms; she's traveled the world and counts many important painters and writers among her friends. She once shared a flat in Berlin with Allen Ginsberg until she "got fed up with the parade of Aryan starfucker boys." Every year in her Topanga Canyon home, she honors her old flat-mate by hosting a "Howl weekend," an excuse for aging hippies to get together and read poetry, do drugs and dance naked in the great outdoors.

Brenda is highly intelligent, highly protective of her emotions and highly skeptical of the possibility of being happy. She comes by her misgivings honestly: at the age of six she was declared a genius and placed in the care of psychiatrists who manipulated and scrutinized her every move. To make matters worse, her hell wasn't even a private one — it became the subject of a best-selling book titled, Charlotte Light and Dark.

One of the best restorative artists around, Federico got his start at Fisher & Sons shortly after the death of his father, Mauricio Ricardo Diaz. Mr. Diaz had been severely disfigured in an accident, and when Nathaniel Fisher was able to restore the body for an open viewing, the young Federico was grateful and deeply impressed. He struck up a relationship with Mr. Fisher and started doing odd jobs around Fisher & Sons; later Mr. Fisher put Federico through mortuary school. At the time of Mr. Fisher's death, Rico had been working for him for five years. 

Billy is Brenda's younger brother, a bright but disturbed young man. He's a diagnosed manic-depressive who, as Brenda says, "always seems to pick the holidays to go off his meds." In the past, Billy — who could be charming one moment and hostile the next — was highly possessive of Brenda, who seemed to have made taking care of him her life's work. As children the two of them were nearly inseparable, and as adults it was Brenda who Billy turned to when he felt overwhelmed. 

Bettina is Ruth Fisher's only close girlfriend. They met at the home of Ruth's sister, Sarah, whom Bettina was helping though Vicodin withdrawal. "She begged me to make sure she got through it no matter what," Bettina explained and despite her qualms, Ruth pitched in to help.  Ruth quickly came to admire her strength and directness.

A sharp contrast to his troubled son, George's daughter Maggie is a stable and caring force in her father's life, "the one thing I did right," as he puts it. She has fond memories of camping and hiking with her dad as a kid, but has also witnessed his wavering mental health over the years. 

Painter Olivier Castro-Staal, exotic, charismatic and opinionated in the extreme, swept into LAC-Arts as a last-minute substitute for Claire's "Form in Space" instructor. His first act was to announce that the course, listed as a lecture, would instead be a studio class. Declaring, "I don't do lectures," the question of whether he had the authority to make such a change was irrelevant. Olivier, to put it mildly, is not constrained by the expectations of others.

Keith Charles, the love of David's life, is charming, handsome and tough — for years he was a gay officer in the LAPD and didn't care who knew it. Being out is important to Keith, and when he and David were first dating it was a major source of conflict between them. Keith was continually frustrated because David couldn't — or wouldn't — be open about his homosexuality. 

At first glance, Lisa could appear to be the exemplar of what Claire calls the "crunchy-granola, back-packy" Seattle woman. A strict vegan whose wardrobe consisted of baggy dresses, overalls and clogs; she didn't go to movies because film, which is processed with gelatin from animal hooves, contributes to the "global slavery of animals"; and when she wanted to get rid of ants in her kitchen she sat on the floor and politely asked them to leave. When Nate lived in Seattle, Lisa was his friend, co-worker, roommate — and occasional sex partner.

Vanessa, mother of Julio and Augusto, has been with Federico Diaz since they were kids, so she overcame any squeamishness about his profession long ago. In fact, she often steered business to Fisher & Sons from the nursing home where she worked and has lunched with Federico in the prep room, a few feet away from a draining corpse. Vanessa has a strong will to go along with her stomach; she makes sure her sons obey her, and she can more than hold her own in an argument with her husband.

Married to Bernard Chenowith, Margaret Chenowith is the mother of Brenda and Billy Chenowith, and a career woman (psychiatrist). By her standards, she and her husband "met cute"; while an intern, she was one of his patients. As Margaret tells it, she walked into his office in a "tight blue Givenchy skirt slit up to my wazoo" and, with a few notable exceptions, they were together until his recent death from cancer.

Geology professor George Sibley entered the Fishers' lives serendipitously. After attending a funeral at Fisher & Diaz, he returned to retrieve a pair of reading glasses and ended up with an emotionally devastated Ruth sobbing into his lapel. Lisa had just been reported missing and Ruth, desperate for comfort, collapsed onto George. When she apologized for weeping in front of a complete stranger, he gently replied, "Not anymore, I'm not."

Shy, sensitive and self-effacing, Russell meets Claire as first-year students at art school and they had an immediate rapport; Claire found she could talk to Russell about anything, including her travails with men. When she once expressed guilt at bending his ear so often, Russell was quick to set her at ease. "Women tell me this kind of stuff all the time," he assured her, "I'm the guy who listens."

Cast & Characters

See the full list of cast and characters

Cast and Character

Michael C Hall

Lauren Ambrose

Peter Krause

Richard Jenkins

Frances Conroy

Patricia Clarkson

Rachel Griffiths

Freddy Rodriguez

Jeremy Sisto

Kathy Bates

Tina Holmes

Peter Macdissi

Mathew St Patrick

Lili Taylor

Justina Machado

Joanna Cassidy

James Cromwell

Ben Foster

About the Series

Six Feet Under