Character sheet for Babylon (2022).
Main Characters
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Manny Torres
Manuel 'Manny' Torres
Played by: Diego Calva
"Call me Manny."
"And nothing happened, for real, but at the same time it's something even more important than life. You can feel it. Like, I don't know. Movies are sad sometimes. Movies are fucking happy."
A Mexican-American gofer turned film assistant whose ingenuity helps him climb the ranks of the Hollywood studio system.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Showcases such in an unsightly and effective manner when he begs the hitman who had just killed the Count not to murder him just for being in the same apartment, claiming in broken, sobbing English that he's a "nobody". Ultimately seeing him as Not Worth Killing, helped somewhat by seeing Manny piss himself in fear, the hitman just tells Manny to leave Los Angeles and to keep his mouth shut.
- Beware the Nice Ones: When Nellie reveals she doesn't have the money to pay off James McKay, Manny is finally fed up with her behavior and absolutely explodes, screaming at her in Spanish about how he's always tried to help her, but she's only ever ruined his life and broken his heart.
- The Everyman: Manny serves as our eyes and ears into the chaotic world that is Rise of the Talkies-era Hollywood, and as such lacks the eccentricities that much of the other characters have and is an Only Sane Man for the most part.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: When first introduced as a naive gofer, Manny has bangs framing his face. After he becomes one of the Hollywood elite, he starts slicking his hair back.
- Fake Nationality: Invoked. He lies about his heritage and claims to be Spanish instead of Mexican at an elite party (the same one where Nellie is under pressure to hide her working-class accent).
- Foreign-Language Tirade: He's a Mexican immigrant who tends to start ranting in Spanish when under stress.
- Guile Hero: Manny largely gets by on his quick thinking and resourcefulness, which turn out to be pretty useful in the movie industry: he comes up with the idea to use the elephant to distract partygoers so that he can haul out an overdosed actress without anyone noticing and he's able to get a camera to Jack's big film set on time by stealing an ambulance, therefore being able to bypass the traffic that would otherwise impede him.
- Hopeless Suitor: Towards Nellie, whom he is hopelessly in love with, even though she doesn't seem to notice his feelings and sees him just as a friend; even though Nellie does agree to marry Manny and says that she loves him back, it's left ambiguous as to whether she ever actually loved him romantically or if she's just trying to make him feel better.
- I Can Change My Beloved: He really tries to make Nellie into someone that fits into the changing times, forcing her to modify just about everything about herself and it blows up in both their faces.
- Nice Guy: Manny a sweet and polite guy who's nice to just about everyone he meets and he quickly becomes friends with both Nellie and Jack. Even when he becomes a studio executive and is forced to do several unscrupulous things for the sake of the studio, he still retains that same sense of kind-heartedness, clearly regretting what he has to do and genuinely apologizing to Fay when he has to fire her.
- Second Love: By 1952, he moves on from Nellie and falls in love with a woman named Silvia.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Manny's main attire are suits and ties.
- Significant Name Shift: As he climbs his way through the industry, he still goes by his given name of Manuel, with Nellie being the only person who calls him Manny; it's not until he becomes a studio executive that he insists that people call him Manny and starts going by it.
- Undying Loyalty: He's devoted to Nellie from the very first time they meet at a party in 1926. He repeatedly risks his career and later his life for her, only for her to leave him at the end because she knows she is bad for him.
Nellie LaRoy
Nellie LaRoy
Played by: Margot Robbie
"Honey, you don't become a star. You either are one or you ain't."
"They really fucked up with me. 'Cause I make 'em squirm. And I like making 'em squirm. Let 'em know that I got here on my terms, not theirs. And when I'm done, I'm gonna dance my ass off into the night. And they'll know...everyone will fucking know that they could never control one goddamn fucking thing."
An aspiring actress who maintains a friendship with Manny during their concurrent rises through Hollywood.- Addled Addict: Nellie's addictions lead her to do incredibly stupid things like fight a rattle-snake and gamble money she doesn't have to a dangerous mobster. In her final scene with Manny, she's barely holding on to reality.
- Ambiguously Gay: Nellie is not seen throughout the film pursuing any male characters. She notably abandons Manny after his proposal. It's her relationship with Fay that gets the most screentime and her reaction to dancing with her is one of happiness.
- Born in the Wrong Century: Or rather "born in the wrong part of the century". Nellie does have genuine talent as an actress, possessing considerable charisma and magnetism and a skill at non-verbal acting and even for playing more outgoing, assertive women. She'd have been right at home in the silent era or a later period when there'd have been more roles to fit her talent, even just a few years after the film is set when films had more assertive, working class female leads played by actresses from more working-class backgrounds like Nellie. She just has the bad luck to be hopelessly unsuited to the kind of traditional female roles the studios are trying to make at the start of the sound era to court more conservative audiences and combined with her own vices and poor decisions, it sinks her career.
- Brooklyn Rage: She's from New Jersey but otherwise fits this trope to a T, being loud, brash, opinionated, volatile and energetic.
- Chaotic Stupid: Nellie can be defined as an engine of chaos, that pulls everyone around her in and leaves mayhem wherever she goes. And she genuinely made an attempt to change but that only made her worse. Her inability to play by the rules ultimately caught up to her when she wound up in debt to a deranged gangster. She dies not long after.
- Deranged Dance: Her wild and flamboyant dancing gets noticed by a bunch of executives at a party looking to replace an actress who just overdosed and it lands her her first job on a movie set. Much later, she leaves Manny when he goes off to The Count's apartment by maniacally dancing off into the night, with this performance being the very last time we see Nellie.
- Face Death with Dignity: After calming down while on the run, she tells Manny she's bad for him and she's made peace with probably going to die soon.
- Feigning Intelligence: Her attempts to fit in with the more educated types Elinor is friends with are unconvincing to say the least as she thinks Miss Julie is an actress, not a play, and mistakenly refers to George Eliot as a man when asked about her work.
- Freudian Excuse: It's implied that much of her hedonism, self-destructive habits, and desire to become a star comes from a mix of a troubled home life and being told by everyone in her small town that she'd never amount to anything.
- The Gambling Addict: Nellie has a serious gambling problem. It's a minor character flaw at first but later triggers the third act, since she's $85,000 (with adjustment for inflation, that's 1.5 million in 2022) in debt to a mob boss and Manny tries to fix it for her.
- The Hedonist: Nellie participates in the many parties that Hollywood holds and tends to snort a lot of cocaine. She also gambles a lot to the point she gets into trouble with James McKay, who threatens to pour acid on her.
- Joisey: She's from New Jersey and lives up to this trope in full with her nasal accent, crude behavior and volatile temper.
- Lady in Red: She wears a skimpy red dress to the 1926 party. She looks so good in it that Manny quickly takes a liking to her, and she's Hired for Their Looks when a spot opens up for a shoot the next day.
- Lower-Class Lout: She is seen as one by Hollywood, especially the more sophisticated circles, due to her accent and brash demeanor and is shown to be deeply resentful about it, eventually snapping at a party of upper class types in epic fashion after Manny and Elinor try in vain to change her image.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's a sexy and hedonistic woman prone to revealing outfits and provocative dances. In-Universe, her film roles also rely on her sex appeal; a rival actress complains that she ices her nipples to look hotter and Kinoscope briefly tries to transition her to more 'dignified' and conservative roles.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Nellie LaRoy is primarily based on Clara Bownote : a boisterous and hard-partying silent film it girl who did not transition gracefully to talkies. Like Bow, Nellie had a mentally unwell mother. It's never made explicitly clear if her father is as abusive as Bow's was, but it is at least heavily implied to be a strained relationship.
- Quirky Curls: Nellie has some untamed, curly hair and has a “wild child” persona. Her hair gets shortened and curled differently in an attempt to integrate her into upper class society but after she lashes out at the party, her hair goes back to its usual curls.
- Rags to Riches: Subverted. She goes from living in a dinky apartment to becoming one of Hollywood's hottest stars — but due a combination of being The Gambling Addict and having bad financial sense in general she turns out to be cash-poor.
- Rich Language, Poor Language: After the transition to sound films the hoits and toits look down on Nellie's working-class Jersey accent. As part of her attempted Tom Hanks Syndrome Manny and Elinor try to get her to talk like an upper-class woman.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In-Universe, she gets her big break from a film where she was originally intended to have a supporting role before her talent caught the director's eye, much to rival actress Constance Moore's displeasure.
- Stage Name: Her real name is Nellie Roy, but she adds the La for an extra bit of French class.
- Too Dumb to Live: Drunk driving, fighting a rattle-snake, and gambling money she doesn't have to a dangerous criminal are her biggest examples. The film doesn't say how she actually ended up dying, but since she was only thirty-four years old, it's safe to assume her addictions finally reached their natural conclusion.
- Toxic Friend Influence: She's a sad example of one. Despite on numerous occasions Manny giving her sound advice to improve her career and financial stability, she ends up pissing her future away due to a combination of misplaced charity and poor impulse control. Nevertheless, Manny repeatedly puts his career and life on the line to get her out of trouble, only finally (unwillingly) parting ways with her for good due to a combination of her walking away from him in recognition of the negative and dangerous impacts her toxic decisions have on his well-being and his forced exile from L.A. due to an ultimatum given to him by a slightly sympathetic mob underling.
- Unkempt Beauty: Nellie spends large portions of the film looking dirty and sweaty with her hair a mess and her make-up applied poorly. She is usually only formally done up for roles or events. She's still considered a head-turner.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: She makes a big splash at the tail end of the silent movie era, but when the industry starts transitioning to talkies and the influence of Moral Guardians, she finds herself losing her place in the new Hollywood.
Jack Conrad
Jack Conrad
Played by: Brad Pitt
"What I do means something to millions of people."
"You know, when I first moved to L.A., you know what the signs on all the doors read? 'No actors or dogs allowed'. Yeah, I changed that."
A popular silent film star.- The Alcoholic: Jack tends to drink quite a bit throughout the film. During the opening party sequence, he rattles off about a dozen different alcoholic beverages when he's asked what he'd like to order.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Jack drinks all day on set and when it's time for his scene, he stumbles out obviously drunk...before getting in character and nailing it on the first take. It's easy to see why the studio has invested so much in him by this point.
- Chick Magnet: In his first scene, his current wife demands a divorce just before he enters a fancy party, where he's immediately swarmed by adoring women. He romances several women over the course of the film.
- Cloudcuckoolander: For all his charisma, Jack can be pretty spacey sometimes, from randomly speaking in foreign languages to going off on odd drunken tangents about his thoughts on the state of the film industry to drunkenly falling off his rooftop.
- Cynicism Catalyst: He becomes noticeably more sad and closed-off following the death of his longtime producer friend George, and his gradually waning popularity leads to become disillusioned about the film industry that he once loved so much.
- Heroic BSoD: The suicide of his friend George leaves him visibly shaken and triggers a massive blow-up with his wife Estelle.
- Hidden Depths: Jack at first seems like an eccentric but somewhat shallow star who mostly coasts on his charm, but he has some genuinely thoughtful points about how the film industry could improve and adapt to new changes, and is shown to appreciate opera and classical music. He's also Nice to the Waiter and unquestionably loyal and supportive towards his friends.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While his outburst at Estelle is uncalled for, he’s correct that her position on theater over film is a snobbish one as film is a more available commodity that brings comfort to more audiences while theater is a luxury of the privileged few and a pretentious thing to hold over those who can’t afford it, a problem that continues into modern day.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Jack Conrad is primarily based on John Gilbert (a romantic leading man of the 1920s and notorious Serial Spouse who had a rumored affair with Greta Garbo and eventually fell out of favor with the studios).
- Nice to the Waiter: Eccentric and hard to handle Jack may be, but he's genuinely supportive of his assistant Manny when he's poached by a rival studio, warmly telling him that he's a hard worker who deserves the job. Tellingly, before he kills himself he asks a bellboy what the biggest tip the bellboy had ever gotten — the bellboy tells him that it was $50 from Jack himself.
- Serial Spouse: When we meet him, he's on the brink of divorce with wife #4. He gets engaged to three more women (and marries the first two) over the course of the film.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: He's a big star of the silent film era whose insistence on innovation in Hollywood is implied to hide fears about the future of his career. After multiple films of his flop, Elinor tells him point-blank that his time in the spotlight is up. Unable to deal with this, he commits suicide.
Elinor St. John
Elinor St. John
Played by: Jean Smart
"An earthquake could wipe this town off the map, wouldn't make a difference. It's the idea that sticks. There'll be a hundred more Jack Conrads. Hundred more me's. Hundred more conversations, just like this one, over and over again. God knows when. Because it's bigger than you."
A sensationalist journalist.- Brutal Honesty: Delivers a very blunt speech to Jack about his status as a White-Dwarf Starlet, noting that his career has passed the point of no return and it probably won't even matter if he starts getting good roles again. She demonstrates she's genuinely coming from a place of honesty and not malice by readily admitting it's only a matter of time before the exact same thing happens to her and that this sort of thing is inherent to show business.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: As a renowned columnist who reports on 1920s films and actors, she's a stand-in for Louella Parsons
, Hollywood's original gossip columnist. - Pet the Dog: She caps her harsh assessment of Jack's career by telling him there's a good chance he and other movie stars can achieve immortality through their films.
Sidney Palmer
Sidney Palmer
Played by: Jovan Adepo
- Ascended Extra: In-Universe. He started off as a trumpet player who worked as part of an onscreen orchestra in a musical. His chance interactions with Manny eventually leads to him gaining more and more of a spotlight.
- But Not Too Black: He isn't as dark-skinned as his bandmates, forcing Manny to convince him to paint himself darker for the sake of selling to Southern audiences.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: He quits Hollywood after being forced to put on Blackface. The last we see of him, he's playing in small bars but clearly happier than when he was in front of the camera.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Twice, once at a high class party where he has to put up with a great deal of Condescending Compassion and after a humiliating performance where he has to put on blackfacenote he leaves his employee pass at the gate and doesn't look back.
Lady Fay Zhu
Lady Fay Zhu
Played by: Li Jun Li
A cabaret singer.
- Eternal Sexual Freedom: Suffers from this as the story progresses. In the free-wheeling bohemian spirit of the early parts of the movie, none of her co-workers give her any grief for her open attraction to women. As times change and Moral Guardians gain more influence over the film industry, she loses her opportunities for work and eventually moves to Europe.
- Lipstick Lesbian: While she is openly attracted to women, she still looks like any woman of her time. Played Straight because of the movies time and setting.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: She's a loose mix of two figures.
- As a Chinese-American performer who is eventually forced out of Hollywood, Fay alludes to Anna May Wong (a Chinese-American actress who could never make the headway her white costars did and later moving to Europe).
- As an openly lesbian woman who is introduced in a tuxedo singing a sultry song about vaginas, she brings to mind Marlene Dietrich (who was known for her gender nonconformism and open bisexuality).
- Only Sane Man: She attends all the same parties as the other characters, but unlike everyone else at those parties she's never seen doing drugs, spiraling out of control, or being a jerk. In the end she's the only one facing her change of circumstances with dignity and rationality and decides to simply leave Hollywood for better opportunities.
Others
George Munn
George Munn
Played by: Lukas Haas
A close friend of Jack's and a movie producer.
- Suicide as Comedy: He reacts to romantic rejection with suicide attempts, which are played for humor (for example, the physical gag of Jack trying to help him get his head out from the toilet). When he truly offs himself, it's offscreen and a sobering moment for Jack.
The Count
The Count
Played by: Rory Scovel
A man who sells "peanuts" (really pills in peanut shells).
- Only Known By His Nickname: He's only known as "The Count" and his real name is not known.
- Too Dumb to Live: He has the brilliant idea to pay off a violent mob boss with prop money and ends up getting gunned down in his apartment for it.
James McKay
James 'Jim' McKay
Played by: Tobey Maguire
- Beauty Inversion: In contrast to the rest of the cast, who get styled with classic Hollywood glamor, Maguire as creepy antagonist McKay is given a chalky white complexion with crooked yellow teeth.
- Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: McKay has very noticeable shadows under his eyes, and he is not a very trustworthy person.
- The Dreaded: Everyone who knows of him is terrified of this guy, with Manny practically quaking with fear every moment he's around him and justifiably so.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: McKay has dark brown hair with pale skin and he is a sleazy, unsettling man.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: His movie ideas — "a 50-year-old midget" plays a child prodigy, structured as a strange joke on the audience; the story of the O.K. Corral with Wyatt Earp as "a full-fledged retard" — are terrible, but he thinks they're hilarious. Manny and the Count feel like they have to laugh along so they don't die.note
- Faux Affably Evil: He's a depraved mob boss who puts on the act of a fun-loving party host who just wants to show his guests a good time. It's... not very convincing.
- The Hedonist: James McKay runs some sort of underground club that has some truly depraved sights, such as a masked man who eats live rats.
- Obviously Evil: Between the previously mentioned Beauty Inversion, Faux Affably Evil demeanor, and the fact that we already know he's threatened to mutilate Nellie with acid before he's even appeared on-screen, he is not a subtle villain by any means.
Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Played by: Max Minghella
- Not So Above It All: He is very serious and professional in contrast to the rest of the cast until he gets completed wasted at a party and leaves visibly disheveled.
- Straight Man: He is this for most of the film, managing the chaos caused by everyone he works with.
