Character page for Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow.
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Sam Hall
Portrayed by: Jake Gyllenhaal
A 17-year-old high school student and a member of the Scholastic Decathlon Team.
- Distress Ball: He becomes this when he desperately wants to go home when the worst weather conditions happen.
- Ignored Expert: Tells the people in the library that the weather will freeze anyone outside, but most of the people ignore him. Jack finds their corpses later in the film.
- Insufferable Genius: He doesn't show his work on his math test, something that's a key requirement in most schools. It's not a surprise that his teacher gave him an F.
Jack Hall
Portrayed by: Dennis Quaid
Dubbed by: Bernard Lanneau (European French)
Sam's father and a paleoclimatologist who works for the government.
- Big Damn Heroes: Shows up at the library with additional resources just in time to save the survivors left freezing inside after the storm.
- Disappeared Dad: He is never around for his family because of how often he has to travel for his work.
- Ignored Expert: The Vice-President is skeptical of his research both when he predicts it will be in a thousand years and when he tells him the disaster is imminent.
- Heroic BSoD: Has this reaction when Frank dies.
- Papa Wolf: He is determined to rescue his son and even the blistering cold will not stop him.
- Parents as People: He has a very busy job and lives apart from his family because of it. He does at least make an effort about being part of the family and keeps track of things he's promised to do, like give his son a ride to the airport when asked.
Lucy Hall
Portrayed by: Sela Ward
Sam's mother and a physician.
- Mama Bear: She’s willing to stay behind with Peter until help arrives and ultimately encourages Jack to go into the storm to save their son.
- Tears of Joy: She cries these when she hears a group of survivors made it from the storm, and she realizes her son and husband are alive.
Laura Chapman
Portrayed by: Emmy Rossum
Sam's classmate, love interest and eventual girlfriend.
- All for Nothing: Believes this during the events of the movie, she spent her whole life studying and working for a future that went up in smoke because of the second ice age caused by the storms.
- Nice Girl: She’s a sweet, friendly girl. Most prominently, she stays in the rapidly flooding streets to translate for a mother and child who didn’t speak English so a cop could save them.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She falls for Sam after he risks his life to save her during the flood of New York.
Brian Parks
Portrayed by: Arjay Smith
Sam's classmate and best friend.
- Black and Nerdy: He figures he's the biggest nerd in the library.
- Deadpan Snarker: And he's also the snarkiest.
Luther
Played by: Glenn Plummer
A homeless man who owns a dog named Buddha.
- Animal Motifs: He in some scenes can be comparable to a dog himself, such as when he and Buddha shake off rain at the same time, with his rain cap taking the place of ears.
- Canine Companion: He has a close bond with his dog Buddha, and is willing to wait in a rapidly flooding street because a security guard demands all animals be kept outside.
- Homeless Hero: Luther is a homeless man who lives on the streets of New York, and also one of the few refugees at the library who heeds Sam's warnings. It ends up saving his life, as he manages to survive the superstorm and the resulting ice age.
- Pet the Dog: A somewhat literal example. He gives Buddha his last stolen hot dog when Buddha starts whining, despite being in a situation where that food might be the deciding factor on if he lives or dies.
- Plucky Comic Relief: In a movie that can get pretty dark, Luther lightens the tone with some of his antics and interactions with other characters.
- Wisdom from the Gutter: Helps the survivors keep warm by further insulating their clothes with the paper from the books in the library.
Terry Rapson
Played by: Ian Holm
A British oceanographer.
- Cool Old Guy: Old enough to have grandkids, and one of the few people who believes Jack Hall and immediately realizes how serious the situation is and does whatever he can to help.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Tells Jack to not focus on helping him as his weather station loses power, condemning himself to freeze so Jack will focus on saving other people.
- One Last Smoke: When he sees Simon hid away a bottle of 12-year old scotch, he gets out three glasses as the power goes out and pours out three drinks.
- Uncertain Doom: While it is implied he died from the cold, they never appear again after the scene where he has a drink with his assistants, leaving his survival ambiguous.
Simon & Dennis
Played by: Adrian Lester (Simon), Richard McMillan (Dennis)
Rapson's two assistants in studying the weather.
- Those Two Guys: Dennis and Simon share all of their scenes in the film.
- One Last Smoke: They both accept the glasses of scotch Rapson offers as the power goes out, likely sentencing them to die from the extreme cold.
- Surveillance Station Slacker: They are both this trope in different ways in their first scene, with Dennis watching a soccer game while Simon sleeps on the job.
- Uncertain Doom: While it is implied they died, after they take a last drink they never appear again in the film, leaving them with a slim chance of survival.
Vice President Raymond Becker
Portrayed by: Kenneth Welsh
The greedy, obstructive United States vice president at odds with Jack throughout much of the film.- Captain Ersatz: With the film being made at the height of the Bush administration, Becker was deliberately written as a scathing parody of then-vice president Dick Cheney, right down to the character being played by dead ringer Kenneth Welsh.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Didn't directly cause the apocalypse, but by the end feels tremendous guilt for not taking action earlier in the movie and ignoring Jacks warnings too often until it was too late.
- Original Position Fallacy: He accuses Jack Hall of being this by virtue of him suggesting everyone below a certain latitude evacuate and have everyone above said latitude wait out the storm. Since Jack Hall was below said latitude, he argued Jack Hall would have no trouble deciding that recommendation since he immediately benefited. He is shut down when a staffer reveals Jack's son Sam is above that latitude and that he didn't make such a recommendation lightly.
