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Main Cast
Jesse
Jesse Custer
Played By: Dominic Cooper
Trying to fulfill a promise to his dead father, former criminal Jesse Custer has returned to his hometown of Annville, Texas, to lead his father’s church as the town preacher. But when he’s inhabited by a mysterious entity, he’s forced to wrestle with a new kind of mission.
- Adaptational Villainy: Aside from his life of crime, TV Jesse is much more callous in his use of the Word than his comic counterpart. For instance, when a cop gruffly arrests Jesse and Tulip for a police chase Jesse initiated, Jesse tells him to mace his balls. He finds it funny when the cop, obviously suffering, can't stop until the can's emptied.
- Amicable Exes: While he refuses to do a job for Tulip, Jesse states he bears no ill will and speaks to her in a friendly tone.
- Badass Normal: Able to take out multiple opponents with his fists, while a vampire with Super-Strength watches from a payphone. All this was before he even became a host to Genesis.
- Badass Preacher: A man of the cloth and against violence unless innocents are being threatened, Jesse shows he can also kick ass in a bar fight against multiple opponents.
- Blood Knight: Although he tries to avoid violence, Jesse can be seen smiling while beating up the thugs in the bar, seeming very at home in the chaos.
- Bully Hunter: Despises people who pick on those weaker than them and a father threatening to hurt his own son is what set Jesse off to break his arm.
- Also subverted in that Jesse himself uses Genesis to bully others for his amusement, much to Tulip's chagrin.
- Compelling Voice: Gains the power of Genesis, similar to the other preachers, though he survives and is seen using it to convince Ted to "open his heart" to his mother.
- Heroes Fight Barehanded: While Cassidy uses a chair to trip up an opponent in a fight, Jesse uses confrontational and very straight-forwarded battle tactics, rarely using weapons and preferring to bash people with his fists.
- Smoking Is Cool: Jesse is both a badass fighter and seems to smoke in places that are just odd, such as church when he's praying to God.
- Technical Pacifist: Jesse believes that violence just breeds more violence but will fight if it means defending innocent people.
- Wife-Basher Basher: Although he's unwilling to attack Betsy's husband at first, wanting him to go to the police and still reluctant to hit him back when Betsy makes it clear she doesn't want Jesse involved, he eventually breaks her husband's arm when his threat to assault his own son sets Jesse off beyond what he's willing to sit by.
Cassidy
Cassidy
Played By: Joe Gilgun
Cassidy is an Irish vagabond, a glutton for every possible vice, and when he stumbles across the weird town of Annville, he quickly becomes Jesse’s most wild-ass, bestest friend. Up for any kind of adventure, his hedonistic lifestyle and humanist views are constantly at odds with Jesse’s faith.
- Adaptational Heroism: Cassidy's significantly more concerned with keeping Jesse on his path than he was in comics, even trying to protect Eugene when the comic version just thought Arseface was funny to laugh at. He also wants to tell Jesse about his fling with Tulip, where the comic version went out of his way to try to hide it.
- Cool Shades: Grabs a pair to deal with the rising sun after escaping from the crashing plane. Since Cassidy is a drug-loving vampire, this attire makes sense.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: His lower body is reduced to exposed entrails and paste after jumping out of a crashing aircraft. Fortunately, his vampiric powers help him get better.
- Healing Factor: Falling from a plane and splattering on the ground leaves him only temporarily immobilized until he gets an unwitting cow to approach him and drink its blood to heal.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: After literally crashing into Annville, Cassidy comes to the bar Jesse's in and requests his whiskey of choice, before declaring he'll drink rat water if it's all they've got.
- Mr. Vice Guy: Cassidy loves partying, taking all kinds of drugs and has no problem killing people if it's necessary. Despite this, he takes care of Jesse when he's injured.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Cassidy burns in the sun and drinks blood but religious symbols have no effect on him. A vampire slayer tries pouring holy water on him, comically to no effect.
- Super-Strength: Injured and in sunlight, Cassidy lifts and drags a cow closer to himself to drink its blood, even after being so injured that half his body is just a bloody paste.
Tulip
Tulip O'Hare
Played By: Ruth Negga
A volatile, hell-raising force of nature, Tulip O’Hare is Jesse Custer’s ex-girlfriend and one true love. She’s also a gifted criminal who’s not afraid to steal, cheat or kill to get what she wants.
- Action Girl: Introduced fighting a man while also driving a car and after killing him, takes out a helicopter with a homemade bazooka.
- Amicable Exes: Although she says she hates Jesse, she speaks playfully and without animosity to him, only showing mild irritation when he refuses to do a job for her.
- Badass Driver: She fights a thug trying to strangle her by rigging the drive, beating the shit out of him and then driving her car to a stop before finishing him off.
- The Corrupter: She's hell-bent on returning Jesse to his violent, criminal ways.
- Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced fighting and killing a thug twice her size in a moving vehicle. She promptly teams up with two children, jovially constructing a homemade bazooka before taking down a helicopter with a smile on her face. Everything about it establishes Tulip as resourceful, intelligent, shady, affable and volatile.
- MacGyvering: Makes uses of numerous miscellaneous farm equipment, including tape, to make a bazooka which she uses to shoot down a helicopter.
- Race Lift: Tulip is a white blonde in the comic, but African-American in the TV show.
- Troll: She likes fucking with people, especially Jesse.
Emily
Emily Woodrow
Played By: Lucy Griffiths
A young widow and single mother of three, Emily excels in the practicalities of life, juggling several jobs and upholding her church duties for Preacher Jesse Custer, but simmering beneath the surface are a whole lot of dark and debased desires.
Root
Sheriff Hugo Root
Played By: W. Earl Brown
Sheriff Root is Annville’s local lawman, a tough, conservative redneck who loves his deformed son but is dubious of Eugene’s faith in Preacher Custer.
- Adaptational Heroism: Hugo Root was a complete bastard in the comics, but here is genuinely upset at his son's disappearance.
- The Sheriff: Of Annville.
- Jerkass: Sheriff Root shows a disgusting lack of concern for Betsy when her husband beats her. He also seems to think of his son as a family shame, not wanting him to attend church with the family.
Deblanc
Deblanc
Played By: Anatol Yusef
Strangely mysterious government agents Deblanc and Fiore are heading up a top-secret investigation that has led them right to the doorstep of Jesse Custer.
- The Men in Black: He appears during the aftermaths of the power targeting preachers and being able to enter the crime scene displays his level of government authority.
Fiore
Fioere
Played By: Tom Brooke
Strangely mysterious government agents Deblanc and Fiore are heading up a top-secret investigation that has led them right to the doorstep of Jesse Custer.
- The Men in Black: Along with Deblanc, he is a mysterious figure who shows up following sightings of the strange power that seems to target preachers.
Arseface
Eugene Root / "Arseface"
Played By: Ian Colletti
Teenager Eugene Root has the heart of a saint and the face of a monster. Despised by most, he finds solace in Jesse’s sermons and is the new preacher’s biggest fan.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Doesn't look anywhere close to as bad as he did in the comics in the AMC series.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, he simply survived a suicide attempt. Here, he's a jilted lover who tried to kill the object of his affection, merely lobotomizing her instead.
- The Atoner: Although a good kid, he's still tormented by his attempted suicide and feels he needs to atone in the eyes of God.
- Named by the Adaptation: Only ever referred to as "Arseface" in the original comic but given the first name "Eugene" in the show.
- Nice Guy: He's supportive of Jesse and even respectful of his own Jerkass father's wishes for him to stay out of church out of embarrassment.
Donnie
Donnie Schenck
Played By: Derek Wilson
Quincannon’s right-hand man, Donnie is all brawny ambition. When Preacher Jesse Custer resurfaces and publicly undermines Donnie’s role as the town bully, Donnie becomes hell-bent on evening the score.
- The Bully: Donnie's the bully of the town, picking on anyone and everyone.
- Bullying a Dragon: He attacks Jesse for interfering with his marriage. His bullying tactics and threats are ineffective and he roundly gets his ass kicked.
- Domestic Abuse: To his wife. In a stroke of luck for Donnie, she derives gratification from being hurt.
- The Dragon: To Odin Quincannon.
- Jerkass: He's a sadistic, violent bully.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's a Confederate sympathizer.
- Sadist: Donnie is a sadist of the highest order; he loves hurting people, regardless of who it is. He even breaks the nose of an underling just to make himself feel better and get through the day.
Saint of Killers
The Saint of Killers
Played By: Graham McTavish
- Adaptational Badass: Immune to the Word, unlike his comic counterpart.
- Adaptational Villainy: The Saint in the comics typically only attacks people defending Jesse, in self-defense, or if they insult him. This Saint casually kills and maims people who get in his way.
- Adaptational Wimp: Relatively speaking, anyway. In the comics, the Saint's attacks always hit, and always kill. Here, he misses Jesse and hits bystanders, and occasionally people survive his hits.
- Jesse manages to trap The Saint inside an armored van in "Sokosha", and he is utterly unable to escape until he's freed. A far cry from the comic's version of The Saint, who kicked tanks over and would have laughed at that trap.
Recurring
Vyla
Vyla Quinncannon
Played By: Elizabeth Perkins
Betsy
Betsy Schenck
Played By: Jamie Anne Allman
Odin
Odin Quincannon
Played By: Jackie Earle Haley
A small, decrepit man with the unscrupulous iron will necessary to be the most powerful man in Annville County, Texas. The chief employer in town, Odin runs Quincannon Meat & Power, a 125-year-old family run cattle slaughterhouse business
