Characters / Changeling

Christine Collins

Christine Collins

Portrayed By: Angelina Jolie

• Beware the Nice Ones: Spends most of the film recessive and helpless to mistreatment of the corrupt souls around her. When Northcott, a serial killer, offers a very cruel Yank the Dog's Chain, she attacks him and tells him to burn in hell.
• Determinator: A hallmark of her character; Christine refuses to give up for even one moment in the face of overwhelming opposition.
• Historical Beauty Update: The real Christine Collins was rather plain. Here, she's played by Angelina Jolie, widely considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. However, she isn't sexualised in any way and her beauty update comes mostly from the fact that it's hard to make Angelina Jolie look plain.
• Historical Domain Character: Christine Collins was a real life person.
• Precision F-Strike: She uses it on Dr. Steele in a particularly powerful moment.

J.J. Jones

Capt. J.J Jones

Portrayed By: Jeffrey Donovan

• Big Bad: Is the main one who comes into conflict with Chrissy.
• Dirty Cop: Jones is corrupt to the very core, willing to destroy lives for the sake of protecting his (and the department's) image.
• The Dragon: To Chief Davis.
• It's All About Me: He seems genuinely convinced that Christine is wrong for trying to get him to find her son because it would inconvenience him and expose his incompetence.
• Jerkass: It doesn't take much for Jones to drop his professional veneer and start being a complete dick to pretty much everyone.
• Karma Houdini: In real life, he was reinstated only shortly after the incident.
• Knight Templar: Seems to genuinely believe the police's good name is more important than the welfare of Collins and the numerous other victims.
• Villainous Breakdown: He gradually devolves into a meek and simpering figure as his deception slowly falls apart.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A non-fatal example; Davis throws him under the bus in an attempt to save face.

Gustav Briegleb

Rev. Gustav Briegleb

Portrayed By: John Malkovich

• Badass Preacher: Despite being fully aware of the LAPD's willingness to destroy people's lives or even kill them, he doesn't relent in his crusade against them.

Gordon Northcott

Gordon Stewart Northcott

Portrayed By: Jason Butler Harner

• Bad Samaritan: Northcott would lure in the kids by pretending to have been sent by their parents, who he lied and said were in a bad accident and was sent to bring them (using Sanford to give them a false sense of security).
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He is improperly hanged because the rope for the noose was too short, and he winds up slowly being strangled to death rather than have his neck broken.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sparingly, but it's there.
  Reporter: [as Northcott is being taken into custody] How did you avoid capture?
  Northcott: Well, I didn't, did I?
• I Lied: Offers to reveal to Collins what he did to her son. When their meeting comes he refuses, even when Collins goes ape shit on him.
• Not Afraidof Hell: Very much averted. Gordon's so afraid that he tries to go full 180 religious, refuses to reveal whether or not he killed Walter to Christine because he doesn't want to lie, gets a look of absolute horror on his face when she tells him she hopes he goes to hell and even breaks down crying when he's forced to walk the steps to the gallows.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Gordon tries to suggest he is this towards Christine when he gives his last words before he is sentenced, believing that Christine's own struggles with the police and the justice system are the same as his own. Though he's fully guilty for murdering the children, while Christine was framed as an unfit mother and a head case.
• Serial Killer: Of preteen boys.
• Thicker Than Water: He thinks this when he goes to hide with his sister after fleeing the ranch where his crimes were exposed. Literally five minutes after arriving, she heads next door to safety when he's in the shower and her husband calls the police.
• Villainous Breakdown: Northcott's newfound religious faith doesn't stop him from freaking the ever-living fuck out as he's being led to the noose.
• Would Hurt a Child: He kills 20 young boys...with an axe.
  • On top of this, the real life killer raped and sexually assaulted said boys, only killing them once he tired of them.

Carol Dexter

Carol Dexter

Portrayed By: Amy Ryan

• Composite Character: Of several inmates.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: She becomes Christine's only friend in the asylum, and she 'used to work nights'.

Lester Ybarra

Det. Lester Ybarra

Portrayed By: Michael Kelly

• Composite Character: Of several police officers.
• Good Is Not Soft: His kindness does not prevent him from cracking the case.
• Screwthe Rules Im Doing Whats Right!: When Jones orders Ybarra to bring Sanford Clark in to the police and hide the confession Clark gave about being an accomplice to as many as twenty kidnappings and murders, including Walter Collins, Ybarra instead takes him back to the ranch with several colleagues and has Clark dig up the bodies.
• Token Good Teammate: He seems to be the only member of the LAPD that isn't corrupt, callous, or incompetent.

S.S. Hahn

S.S. Hahn

Portrayed By: Geoff Pierson

James E. Davis

Chief James E. Davis

Portrayed By: Colm Feore

• Dirty Cop: He's deeply corrupt and made the LAPD more corrupt.
  Rev. Briegleb: He picked fifty of the most violent cops on the force, gave them machine guns and permission to shoot anyone who got in their way. He called them the Gun Squad. No lawyers, no trials, no questions, no suspensions, no investigations, just piles of bodies. Bodies in the morgues, bodies in the hospitals, bodies by the side of the road, and not because the LAPD wanted to wipe out crime. No. The LAPD wanted to wipe out the competition. Mayor Cryer and half the force are on the take: gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, you name it. Because once you give people the freedom to do whatever they want, as the Lord found in the Garden of Eden, they will do exactly that.
• Faux Affably Evil: He tries to come across as genial when giving Arthur Hutchins back to his mother, but can barely hold back his frustration and anger.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Shares this role with Gordon Northcott, as he is responsible for the rampant corruption within the LAPD, which comes into conflict with Christine Collins.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A non-fatal example, but he throws Captain Jones under the bus to avoid a 'lingering problem'.

Jonathan Steele

Dr. Jonathan Steele

Portrayed By: Denis O'Hare

• Composite Character: Of several corrupt doctors who dealt with Christine Collins.
• Dr. Jerk: Of the most disturbing order.
• Evil Is Petty: He uses torturous shock therapy for trivial and sometimes personal reasons. He submits Carol to it as payback for slugging him in the face (this she did after he himself slapped her and called her a whore for standing up for Collins) and later smugly sentences Collins to it after she gives him a Precision F-Strike.
• Karma Houdini: Though indignantly forced to release Collins and the other wrongly accused patients, he seemingly faces no charges or repercussions for his abusive and corrupt methods.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Steele is a corrupt tool of the LAPD, performing shock therapy on patients who don't come close to needing it.
• Sadist: He doesn't make much attempt to hide his enjoyment over tormenting Collins. When he is forced to release her, he practically sulks, like he lost a game.
• Slimeball
• Smug Snake: A very smug and weaselly figure who attempts to bully, torture, and goad Collins into accepting the police's charges. When he is firmly forced to release her by Briegleb, he acts bitter and disgusted, even quickly attempting to trick Collins into submitting one final time before she is informed.

Cryer

Mayor Cryer

Portrayed By: Reed Birney

• Mayor Pain: A corrupt mayor who took help take part in Davis’ corruption.

Sanford Clark

Sanford Clark

Portrayed By: Eddie Alderson

• Forced into Evil: Northcott forces Sanford to help him kidnap and murder young boys.
• Tears of Remorse: After showing Detective Ybarra where the young boys were buried, Sanford completely feels horrible for his actions and breaks into tears.

Walter Collins

Walter Collins

Portrayed By: Gattlin Griffith

Arthur Hutchins

Arthur Hutchins

Portrayed By: Devon Conti

• Karma Houdini: As he smugly points out when caught, the police can't do anything to him since he's 'just a kid'. However, Ybarra is more than willing to bluff on that until he talks.
• Kids Are Cruel
• Smug Snake: He comes across as especially loathesome in his police interrogation.