This article contains spoilers for Paper Girls season 1.
Amazon's Paper Girls TV series features a stellar cast of characters faithfully reproduced from the classic comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang. Comic book adaptations are all the rage right now, but fortunately, the industry is far more diverse than just Marvel and DC. Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang's Paper Girls may not be a superhero comic book, but it's won multiple Eisner Awards - including several for colorist Matt Wilson.
Paper Girls stars a group of four kids who are transported through time, unwittingly becoming part of a time war between two different generations. Though they don't know it, the stakes are insanely high; in contrast with films like Back to the Future, time travel here is dangerous. If either side changes history too much, they risk destroying the entire time-space continuum. The original comics struck a delicate balance between "timey-wimey" temporal mechanics and wonderfully well-developed character arcs, as the four paper girls faced their (sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet) destines.
The Amazon Prime adaptation is remarkably true to the Paper Girls comics, although by the end of the season it's diverged quite radically. It features a superb cast who seem to have practically been born to play these characters, and any fans of the original comics will be thrilled. Here's the essential guide to all the cast and characters.
Riley Lai Nelet is Erin Tieng
American actress Riley Lai Nelet (American Housewife, Altered Carbon, Generation) plays Erin Tieng, the "new girl" on the paper round whose first day on the job takes a turn for the insane. The Amazon TV series transposes Erin on to the small screen in a surprisingly faithful manner; she's a young Asian-American with strong maternal instincts who simply can't help trying to look after everyone. In the comics, Erin is cloned after sustaining a bullet wound, and various generations of Erin clones help the Paper Girls out as the story progresses; although the TV show follows the bullet wound plot, it appears to have dropped the cloning - at least for season 1.
Ali Wong is Erin Tieng
Popular American stand-up comedian and actress Ali Wong (Ali Wong: Baby Cobra, American Housewife, and of course a star in Tuca & Bertie) plays the adult version of Erin Tieng, an unmarried woman who still works for the Cleveland Preserver and who takes medication for anxiety. Just as in the comics, the two versions of Erin clash, with the 12-year-old unimpressed at her future self. Ironically, Erin's maternal streak has proved to be her undoing, with the Amazon Paper Girls TV series developing the fracturing of her relationships in much greater detail. Old Erin is given a much more heroic fate than in the comics, going to extreme lengths to get her younger self home.
Camryn Jones is Tiffany Quilkin
An American actress and social media personality, Camryn Jones told GameRant sci-fi is in her blood, and the actor has been perfectly cast as Tiffany Quilkin. An obsessive gamer who loves her walkie-talkies, Tiffany has struggled in the face of racism for years, and she tends to be underestimated. The character isn't especially well-developed in the comics, but Amazon's Paper Girls adds another dimension by making her future self - played by industry newcomer Sekai Abenì - the inventor of time travel. This is a major change from the comics, suggesting Paper Girls will completely drop an arc in which the kids travel back to prehistoric times and meet a very different character who invents time travel.
Sofia Rosinsky is Mac Coyle
Sofia Rosinsky (The Other Side of the Door, Forever Boys, Fast Layne) is one of the most talented members of the Paper Girls cast, having won "Breakthrough Director" from the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival for her short film Faery. Her character, Mac, is a rough-and-ready tomboy who's had a tough life and always dreamed of getting out of her hometown of Stony Lane. The Paper Girls TV series follows the same arc as the comics, with Mac discovering she only has years left to live - being destined to die due to cancer. In the comics, the cancer Mac suffered from was a rare side-effect of the time travel itself, but it remains to be seen whether time travel in Paper Girls will follow the same approach.
Fina Strazza is Karina "KJ" Brandman
A native New Yorker, Fina Strazza made her Broadway debut on Matilda: The Musical and has since appeared in the likes of A Christmas Melody, Madame Secretary, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. KJ's journey of discovery in Paper Girls centers upon her beginning to realize she's a lesbian, and the Amazon TV series actually improves this story considerably. In the comics, KJ learned this about herself after touching an artifact form the future and receiving visions from the timestream; in the TV show, she sees her future self with her girlfriend. Adult KJ is played by Delia Cunningham (Elementary, Madam Secretary, In the Off-Season).
Adina Porter is the Prioress
Accomplished actress Adina Porter (The 100, Grey's Anatomy, and a major recurring cast member of American Horror Story) plays the Prioress, one of the key figures among the Old Watch. In the comics, she's a commander who's ruthlessly dedicated and who ultimately dies in battle. Amazon's Paper Girls gives her a very different arc, with a relentless focus driven by the losses she has suffered personally during the battle, and she ultimately takes the story in a very different direction - setting up a second season that will bear no similarity at all to the comics.
Jason Mantzoukas is the Grand Father
An American actor of Greek descent, Jason Mantzoukas (The League, The Dictator, The Lego Batman Movie) is well known as an actor, comedian, and writer; he has a deep love of pop culture, including comic books, which means Paper Girls is a labor of love. Grand Father is the leader of the Old Watch, dedicated to preserving the timeline, and the Paper Girls TV series increases the sinister aspect of his character quite effectively - although it does tone down on some of the spectacle surrounding him, a smart way of reducing VFX costs. The character's origins and backstory aren't explored in the Amazon TV series, but they're likely to be very different to the original Paper Girls comics, where he was a baby rescued from prehistoric times and transported to the future, brought up by the inventor of time travel.
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