I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation...
Premiering on September 25th 1999 and running for just one season, the NBC series Freaks And Geeks followed gifted high schooler Lindsay Weir, who befriends a gang of slacker "freaks", and her younger brother Sam, as he and his geek friends navigate high school. Eighteen episodes were completed, but the series was canceled after only 12 had aired (the rest did air later, three more on NBC with the rest of FOX Family Channel). Despite it's brief time on the air, the Paul Feig created/Judd Apatow produced series was a well loved and much remembered show, and it would see all its cast of young & then-relatively-unknown actors and actresses go on to achieve greater success and fame.
So what did the cast of Freaks And Geeks get up to next? And where are they now? Join us as we explore...
Linda Cardellini as Lindsay Weir
After a few guest appearances in TV shows like 3rd Rock From The Sun and Boys Meets World, plus the leading role in the 1996 children's show Bone Chillers, Linda Cardellini got her first major success in Freaks And Geeks as Lindsay Weir, an honor student in the midst of an identity crisis,
Cardellini went on to star in the live-action big screen adaptation of Scooby-Doo in 2002, in which she played the cartoon character Velma Dinkley, reprising the role in 2004's Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. She also appeared in the films Legally Blonde, Brokeback Mountain, Daddy's Home and it's 2017 sequel Daddy's Home 2. Cardellini is also a supporting character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making her first appearance in Avengers: Age Of Ultron as Clint "Hawkeye" Barton's wife Laura. She's not the only Freaks And Geeks star to be connected to the MCU, as we will discover.
In 2003, Cardellini joined the cast of the TV hospital drama ER as Samantha Taggart, a free-spirited nurse, where she remained for six seasons until the series finale. She provided the voice of Wendy on the Disney Channel show Gravity Falls, and in 2013 was chosen to play Sylvia Rosen, a love interest of Don Draper on Mad Men, a performance which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
Linda Cardellini can currently be seen as Judy Hale in Netflix's dark comedy series Dead to Me, which began in 2018 and she co-star's in with Christina Applegate. On the big screen she briefly reprised her role of Laura Barton for last years Avengers: Endgame, and played the female lead of Mae Capone in the recent 2020 biographical drama Capone starring Tom Hardy as the titular gangster.
John Francis Daley as Sam Weir
Prior to his casting as Sam Weir, protagonist of the "Geeks", John Francis Daley began his acting career on stage playing "Young Tommy" in the touring production of the Broadway hit The Who's Tommy.
After Freaks And Geeks was cancelled, Daley never found himself short of work. He played Carter Ryan in The Geena Davis show, which again was cancelled after one season. He then had a string of guest appearances in shows He played Sam Weir, protagonist of the "Geeks", in the television series Freaks and Geeks, and since like Boston Public, The Ellen Show, Regular Joe, Stacked, Judging Amy, and Spin City. A season on another one year series, Kitchen Confidential, was followed by a seven year stint on Bones as Dr. Lance Sweets.
But it's off-camera where John Francis Daley has excelled, in both the writing and directing departments. Back in 2001, at the age of just 16, he co-directed a short film titled What Babies Do. A decade later, Daley and his writing partner Jonathan M. Goldstein penned the black comedy Horrible Bosses, following this up two years later with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone in which Daley also had a cameo as a paramedic. Daley and Goldstein co-wrote and co-directed the 2015 film Vacation, the most recent installment of the National Lampoon's Vacation film series, starring Ed Helms and Christina Applegate, and the duo also wrote the screenplay for the 2017 MCU film Spider-Man: Homecoming with four other screenwriters.
Most recently, Daley and Goldstein directed the quite wonderful 2018 black comedy Game Night, starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, Daley also plays the character of Carter, which is his most recent on-screen appearance. Goldstein and Daley are set to write the screenplay and direct the reboot of Dungeons & Dragons, which is currently scheduled for release on May 22nd 2022.
James Franco as Daniel Desario
Although he had a few minor roles in several television productions, and a 1995 commercial for Pizza Hut, James Franco found 1999 to be his breakout year. As well as being cast as Daniel Desario on Freaks And Geeks he won a small role in his first movie, Never Been Kissed.
Franco has appeared in numerous TV shows since and made dozens of films but he is perhaps mostly remembered for his role in 127 Hours which earned him a nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and for playing Harry Osborn in the Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Franco's other films include Milk (2008); Pineapple Express (2008); Eat, Pray, Love (2010); Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011); Spring Breakers (2012); Oz the Great and Powerful (2013); This Is the End (2013); and The Disaster Artist (2017), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. His most recent cinematic role came as Ike "Vikar" Jerome in the 2019 film Zeroville which he also directed
On the small screen, Franco portrayed the title character in the 2001 television biographical film James Dean, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. Franco had a recurring role on the daytime soap opera General Hospital (2009–2012) and starred in the limited series 11.22.63 (2016). He starred in the David Simon-created HBO drama The Deuce (2017–2019), which is his most recent TV appearance.
Samm Levine as Neal Schweiber
Beginning his career in the entertainment industry at the age of 12, performing stand-up at bar mitzvahs, Sam Levine was encouraged to audition for acting roles when Lisa Kudrow saw him perform. After adding an additional 'm' to his name, to avoid confusion with an already registered actor, Samm Levine found himself with a guest appearance on One Life To Live before being cast as Neil Schweiber in Freaks And Geeks.
Although his career may not have been as high profile as his Freaks And Geeks co-stars, Levine has constantly been in work since the series was cancelled. You can here him in the 2001 film Wet Hot American Summer where he plays Arty, a role he'd reprise in the 2015 & 2017 Netflix continuation/prequel. Other notable film appearances include Not Another Teen Movie, Columbus Circle, a role in fellow "Geek" John Francis Daley's Vacation, and in the 2009 Quentin Tarrantino film Inglorious Basterds where he played Private First Class Hirschberg,
On the small screen, Levine has guest starred in Spin City, Boston Public, The Drew Carey Show, How I Met Your Mother, My Name Is Earl, Veronica Mars, Lost, Modern Family, Person Of Interest and Hawaii Five-0. His most recent on-screen work came in 2018 in an episode of truTV's Bobcat Goldthwait's Misfits & Monsters.
From 2009 to 2019, Levine was also the sidekick and fill-in host on the YouTube streamed talk show Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, which ran every Sunday for 400 episodes. Levine was a regular competitor on Collider's Movie Trivia Schmoedown on their YouTube channel. He returned to the Schmoedown in 2019 and is currently the manager of The Usual Suspects faction.
Seth Rogen as Ken Miller
Perhaps the most successful of the Freaks And Geeks cast, like Samm Levine, Seth Rogan begun his career as a stand-up comedian before moving to Los Angeles when he won his first acting role as Ken Miller, forming a close working relationship with Judd Apatow.
After Freaks and Geeks, Rogen landed a part on the sitcom Undeclared, which also hired him as a writer. After landing his job as a staff writer on the final season of Da Ali G Show, Apatow guided him toward a film career. Rogen made his first movie appearance in Donnie Darko with a minor role in 2001. Apatow then cast Rogen in a supporting role in Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, which was ultimately cut from the film. Another supporting role, this time one that survived, came Rogen's way in Apatow's directorial debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, before he took the lead in Apatow's next features Knocked Up and Funny People.
In 2016, Rogan developed the AMC television series Preacher with his writing partner Evan Goldberg and Sam Catlin. He also serves as a writer, executive producer, and director, with Goldberg.
Rogen and Goldberg co-wrote the films Superbad, Pineapple Express, The Green Hornet, This Is the End, and directed both This Is the End and The Interview; all of which Rogen starred in. The last two films also featured fellow "Freak" James Franco, who has appeared in five other movies with his old co-star.
Rogan has also provided voice work for the films Shrek the Third, Horton Hears a Who!, the Kung Fu Panda film series, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Monsters vs. Aliens, Paul, Sausage Party, and Pumbaa in the 2019 remake of The Lion King.
Seth Rogan's most recent film role was in An American Pickle, released August 2020, where he plays the lead character Herschel Greenbaum, a Jewish immigrant who gets preserved in a vat of pickles and wakes up in modern-day New York City. On the small screen he was last seen in the rather excellent and criminally underviewed Future Man, playing Susan in the final episode of season 2 and recurring throughout this year's third and final season, Rogan also produced and directed several episodes of the comedy series.
Jason Segel as Nick Andopolis
After making his film debut in 1998's Can't Hardly Wait, Jason Segal was cast as stoner "Freak" Nick Andopolis on Freaks and Geeks. Segel personally composed a song for his character to sing to Linda Cardellini's character Lindsay. It was during his time on the series that he approached Judd Apatow asking for his advice on how to become a leading man. Apatow, perhaps at the time quite jokingly, said that Segal should write his own film and if it was good enough then he'd produce it for him.
A decade later Segel starred in the lead role of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a film he wrote and Apatow produced.
In the interim, Jason Segal was hardly short of work, guest appearances on CSI and Alias led to a leading role on the TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother which he starred in concurrently with his blossoming film career.
In 2010, Segal voiced Gru's arch-rival Vector in Despicable Me and appeared as "Horatio" in a fantasy comedy film Gulliver's Travels. The following year he appeared in Bad Teacher, starring Cameron Diaz, before successfully bringing the Muppets back to the big screen as star, writter and executive producer of the 2011 film. In 2015, Segel received praise for his portrayal of the late author
David Foster Wallace in the independent biographical drama film The End
of the Tour, earning an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best
Male Lead.
In 2014, Segel released the first in a series of young adult novels, based on a story he conceived when he was 21, called Nightmares! which he co-wote with Kirsten Miller, the followup coming out the following year.
In 2017, Segel and Miller released their first young adult novel, Otherworld.
Most recently, Jason Segel created and starred in the American drama television series Dispatches from Elsewhere, which premiered on March 1st 2020, on AMC, and he is soon to be seen on screen as Fezzik in Home Movie: The Princess Bride, produced while the participating actors were isolating themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Martin Starr as Bill Haverchuck
Although he'd had a couple of minor film roles in the early to mid-nineties, it was his role as "Geek" Bill Haverchuck that saw Martin Starr land his first properly credited performance. In an interview, Starr admitted to feeling "frustrated and depressed" after Freaks and Geeks was cancelled, and although he appeared as a guest star in shows like Roswell and reunited with Jason Segal in a first season episode of How I Met Your Mother, acting offers were few and far between and minor, so in 2005, at the age of 22, he fired his agent and decided to quit acting altogether.
Starr trialed for a job as a barista job, but he didn't take it as Judd Apatow called and cast him in Knocked Up, and then other offers then started to come his way, including playing Roman DeBeers on the wonderfully funny and cancelled too soon Party Down (2009–2010), Bertram Gilfoyle on the HBO series Silicon Valley (2014–2019), and as Roger Harrington in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films The Incredible Hulk (2008), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019).
Starr has also guest-starred on New Girl and Parks And Recreation, and played an Ironbron Soldier in the final season of Game Of Thrones. His most recent TV work is as Tothar in two episodes of truTV's Tacoma FD, and on the big screen he will be seen next year in the upcoming superhero action movie Samaritan, starring Sylvester Stallone.
Busy Philipps as Kim Kelly
While still in high school, Busy Philipps worked as a model, specifically a real-life "Cool Teen Skipper" Barbie model appearing at toy conventions. Among the people who saw her was actress Sharon Stone, who was impressed with Philipps' in-character performance as Barbie and told her that she would be a star. Pursuing acting, Phillips first major role was Kim Kelly Freaks and Geeks, although not part of the main cast (she was credited after titles as "also starring") Philipps appeared in all but one of the show's 18 episodes.
When Freak And Geeks was cancelled, Philipps landed her film debut role in the comedy The Smokers, and had various small appearances on television before being cast as Audrey Liddell in the teen drama Dawson's Creek where she was a series regular in seasons 5 and 6, appearing in 46 episodes, before the show finished in 2003.
Philipps other notable film roles came in Home Room (2002), White Chicks (2004), Made Of Honor and He's Just Not That Into You (both 2008). Her most recent big screen part was in Amy Schumer's 2018 comedy I Feel Pretty.
Most of Busy Philipps work has been on the small screen where she's had notable guest roles in show's like How I Met Your Mother (with fellow Freaks And Geeks star Jason Segal), Entourage, Arrested Development, New Girl and Camping. She's also landed several major recurring roles, including in 2006 a two year stint as Hope Bobeck on ER, alongside her Freaks and Geeks co-star Linda Cardellini. From 2009 to 2015, Philipps portrayed Laurie Keller in the television series Cougar Town. Philipps starred on the 2016/17 HBO series Vice Principals, and had a recurring role in the fourth season of Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Most recently, Philipps hosted her own late-night talk show called Busy Tonight, which premiered on October 2018 on E! and ran for six months.
And that's what that cast of Freaks And Geeks got up to next and where they are now. As you can see, despite what it said in the theme song, the show certainly didn't give any of its cast a bad reputation.
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