Where You've Seen The Cast Of Bad Sisters Before

There's a traditional Irish toast, usually given at a wake: "Those we love don't go away. They walk beside us every day, unseen, unheard, but always near; still loved, still missed, and very dear." It's an eerily relevant saying, one that rings especially true throughout "Bad Sisters," the Apple TV+ program that dropped quietly on the streamer in late August. The deceased, in this case, is one John Paul Williams, husband of Grace, father of Blanaid. But John Paul is not loved, or missed, or dear. John Paul was, in the eyes of Grace's sisters Eva, Bibi, Becka, and Ursula, a stain on the family reputation. Nicknamed "The Prick," he wasn't just a bad husband. He was a terrible husband — psychologically abusive, belittling, and crushing Grace's self-esteem so thoroughly that her sisters felt the need to make him go away ... forever.

"Bad Sisters" bears the unmistakable stamp of actor-writer-producer Sharon Horgan, whose mordant sense of humor permeates the series. No one does mourning, or death for that matter, like the Irish, and while the show is an adaptation of the Belgian series "Clan," "Bad Sisters" (co-created by Horgan, Brett Baer, and Dave Finkel) fits perfectly into the Irish worldview. With humor as black as night, and actual life-and-death stakes, the 10-episode series has ungodly mischief in its dark heart. Let's get to know the cast.

Light spoilers follow for Season 1 of "Bad Sisters."

As Roger Muldoon, JP and Grace's good-natured neighbor, Michael Smiley maintains an almost preternatural optimism, even in the face of JP's irascibility. After bringing the Williams family numerous gifts from the sea, Roger, who heads a church group for children, becomes the subject of one of JP's more nefarious plots. The role is a far cry from some of the roles for which Smiley is best known, including the hit man Gal in Ben Wheatley's 2011 film "Kill List." For the role, Smiley earned the best supporting actor award at the 2011 British Independent Film Awards. He reunited with Wheatley in the director's 2013 folk horror film, "A Field in England."

Stateside audiences will also recognize Smiley from his appearances in "Black Mirror" (the episode "White Bear"), "Doctor Who" (the episode "Into the Dalek"), and the Idris Elba series "Luther," in which Smiley appeared as Benny "Deadhead" Silver.

An avid cyclist who got his start doing stand-up comedy, Smiley shared a flat with Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the 1990s. Praising Pegg and Frost, Smiley gushed to the U.K. site Echo, "For a couple of manic depressives, they're probably the funniest people I know."

If the face above makes you a little nervous, you're not alone. After appearing as Christian in Ruben Östlund's 2017 Cannes Palme d'Or winner "The Square," and starring in "Dracula" for Netflix, Danish actor Claes Bang is back having the kind of year actors only dream about — albeit on the sinister side. He appeared in as the usurper Fjolnir in Robert Egger's brutal Viking opera "The Northman," as the menacing drug dealer The Dean in the BBC-Amazon series "The Outlaws," and now, as the villainous John Paul in "Bad Sisters." John Paul is inspired by the character of Jean-Claude (Dirk Roofthooft) in "Clan," although, as "Bad Sisters" co-creator Sharon Horgan told the New York Times, in "Clan," Jean-Claude was "a bit of a gargoyle." In her retelling, JP would be smoother, more conscious of appearances — or, as Horgan put it, "an attractive abuser." On top of that, she wanted someone Scandinavian to incorporate a "sort of coldness and a sort of warmness at the same time." Next up for Bang, per the Irish Times, Apple's "The New Look" with Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche. It's currently unclear if Bang plays the bad guy.

Tempering his image somewhat is Bang's side gig, This Is Not America (with Bang on guitar, piano, and MacBook), which took its name from a David Bowie song out of reverence for the artist. As Bang told Kultur for Unge, "[Bowie] is one of my biggest role models and I have everything he released." 

Of Sharon Horgan's writing, Anne-Marie Duff told The Guardian, "She's so brilliantly irreverent and funny, and cheeky... full of emotional truth and compassion, and sometimes devastating heartbreak. All in a breath." That statement neatly sums up Duff's character in "Bad Sisters," the show's emotional center. Tormented by a husband determined to snuff out any pleasure, Grace retreats inward; her attempts to branch out, take a dance class, or even find solace in her own home, are shut down. It takes a mighty actor to pull all this off, and in Duff, Horgan found her amazing Grace.

In the U.S., she's probably best known as Maeve's drug-addled mom Erin Wiley on Netflix's "Sex Education"; she's appeared in "His Dark Materials" and "Parade's End" for HBO and on Broadway opposite Ethan Hawke in "Macbeth." In the U.K., she's renowned for her stage work, and appeared on the original "Shameless," which ran on Channel 4 from 2004 to 2013. Sadly, Duff's seen her own share of heartbreak, having been married to actor James McAvoy from 2006 to 2016. Duff told Desert Island Discs in 2018, "The nature of opening your heart up to someone else... This sounds ironic, of course, but sometimes in a marriage you are never closer than the moment at which the two of you decide it's time to finish." If only Grace had that opportunity.

Bibi Garvey's desire to off JP springs from the car accident that cost her an eye and fractured his skull. An expert archer, Bibi comes close to taking out The Prick, but like other attempts on his life, things go horribly awry. Such a misstep is nowhere to be found in career of Irish actor-singer Sarah Greene, who's won her share of plaudits over the years, including a Tony Award nomination and Theater World award for her role as Helen in Martin McDonagh's 2014 Broadway production of "The Cripple of Inishmaan" opposite Daniel Radcliffe. Greene has also appeared as Hecate Poole in the Showtime-Sky TV series "Penny Dreadful," Áine in "Frank of Ireland" with Brian and Domhnall Gleeson, Connell's mother Lorraine in the acclaimed Hulu miniseries "Normal People," Cassie in the BBC-Starz series "Dublin Murders," and Maxine in the CBS series "Ransom." Greene's future includes a TV prequel series to the 2000 film "Sexy Beast,"; "The Way of the Wind," for director Terrence Malick if it is ever released, and the thriller "In the Land of Saints and Sinners" in which Greene joins an all-star Irish cast featuring Liam Neeson, Ciarán Hinds, Colm Meaney, and Kerry Condon. 

Born Memphis Eve Sunny Day Hewson, Irish actress Eve Hewson is the youngest Garvey sister Becka. Enmeshed in a relationship with Matthew Claffin, she's got her own reasons for hating JP, who promised to back her massage studio before withdrawing for no reason and sending Grace to deliver the news. The free-spirited Becka is another in a line of terrific roles for Hewson, who is the daughter of U2 singer Bono and activist Ali Hewson. Stateside audiences have caught Eve Hewson in Paolo Sorrentino's "This Must Be the Place" with Sean Penn; "Blood Ties" with Clive Owen and Marion Cotillard; Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies," and the multiple Razzie Award-nominated "Robin Hood" opposite Taron Egerton, Ben Mendelsohn, and Jamie Foxx. For the small screen, Hewson appeared in Steven Soderbergh's acclaimed and dearly missed Cinemax series "The Knick," and in Steve Lightfoot's Netflix miniseries "Behind Her Eyes."

A New York University graduate, Hewson lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Regarding her relationship with her famous dad, Hewson told The Independent, "Like any dad, he would do things that were really annoying. He used to blast The Backstreet Boys in his car in traffic on the way to school and then get out in his dressing gown and dance with his glasses on. We were just mortified. But now I think he's a really fun dad."

Brian Gleeson springs from one of the first families of Irish acting. His father is Brendan Gleeson, perhaps best known as Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody in the "Harry Potter" films, and his brother is Domhnall, perhaps best known as General Armitage Hux, the double-crossing First Order bigwig in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy. There are two other brothers, Fergus and Rory, but we'll leave them for now. In "Bad Sisters," Brian plays the hapless insurance agent Thomas Claffin, whose desperate attempt to carry on his father's legacy includes doing everything under the sun to avoid having to pay out the insurance claim for JPs demise, including subjecting each Garvey sister to the third degree and stealing their trash.

For Channel 4 and Amazon, Gleeson has appeared with his brother Domhnall and Sarah Greene on "Frank of Ireland," which he co-created for Sharon Horgan's production company. He's also appearing in "The Lazarus Project," a time-loop drama for Britain's Sky TV that's been renewed for a second season, and according to Deadline, he'll show up in the next, final season of the Netflix drama "Top Boy" with Barry Keoghan. Other work includes, perhaps inevitably, "Peaky Blinders," as Jimmy McCavern in Season 1; Desiree Akhavan's "The Bisexual," for Channel 4 and Hulu, and "Love/Hate" with Peter Coonan.