You’ll Recognize the Cast of CBS’ ‘Cupertino’: Here’s Where You’ve Seen Them Before, Including ‘Hamilton’
CBS is stacking its new Thursday-night legal drama with faces you already know. Cupertino airs Thursdays at 10|9c on CBS and streams on Paramount+, and if you keep up with what’s on this fall, the ensemble is a who’s who of Marvel, Broadway and prestige TV.
The cast pulls from Jessica Jones, Hamilton, Scandal, Rescue Me, Freaks and Geeks and more. Here’s who’s playing whom.
Mike Colter Leads the ‘Cupertino’ Cast as Michael Price
Mike Colter headlines the series as Michael Price, a lawyer cheated out of his stock options by the Silicon Valley tech giant that once employed him. Refusing to stay silent, Price channels the injustice into a mission to expose the powerful and represent the wronged. Most viewers will recognize Colter as Luke Cage, the role he originated in Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and The Defenders. He also played David Acosta in the supernatural drama Evil and Lemond Bishop in The Good Wife and The Good Fight, with film credits including Million Dollar Baby, Men in Black 3, Girls Trip and Plane. He has also portrayed Jameson Locke in the Halo franchise. Colter has been married to his wife, Iva Colter, since 2002, and the pair share two daughters.
Rachel Keller Plays Olivia Siffre, Price’s Fellow Fired Attorney
Rachel Keller stars opposite Colter as Olivia Siffre, a quiet but determined young lawyer wrongfully fired alongside Price. Raised under strict Christian parents she moved to California to escape, Olivia discovers her voice and her fight when she teams up with Price to launch their own firm. Keller broke through as femme fatale Simone Gerhardt in the second season of Fargo, then starred across all three seasons of Noah Hawley’s Legion opposite Dan Stevens. She went on to lead Dirty John, Betty, Netflix’s The Society and The Shadow of the Moon, and more recently starred opposite Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe in HBO Max’s Tokyo Vice. Her film credits also include A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks, Chestnut with Natalie Dyer and Butcher’s Crossing alongside Nicolas Cage and Fred Hechinger.
Renée Elise Goldsberry Brings Hamilton Pedigree to the Ensemble
Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry plays Nichole E. Ferebee, a formidable opposing counsel who shares a romantic history with Michael, a dynamic teed up for plenty of courtroom sparks. Daytime fans first met Goldsberry as Evangeline Williamson on One Life to Live from 1999 to 2007, but her signature role arrived in 2015 when she originated Angelica Schuyler in Broadway’s Hamilton, winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Screen credits include The Good Wife, Netflix’s Altered Carbon, Albany Road and A House of Dynamite. Off-screen, Goldsberry has been married to attorney Alexis Johnson since 2002. The couple welcomed son Benjamin in 2009 and daughter Brielle via adoption from Africa in 2014.
Busy Philipps and Ella Stiller Join the Price & Siffre Inner Circle
Busy Philipps plays Natalia, a sharp, resourceful woman coming out of a marriage to America’s third-richest man and looking for payback. Money, connections and motivation make her a crucial ally as Michael and Olivia build their firm. Philipps is a familiar face from Freaks and Geeks, Dawson’s Creek and ER, earned a Critics Choice Award for Cougar Town and most recently starred in Netflix’s Girls5eva. She hosts Busy This Week on QVC+ after previously leading Busy Tonight, wrote the New York Times bestseller This Will Only Hurt a Little and cohosts the podcast Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best. Big-screen credits include Mean Girls, The Musical, I Feel Pretty, The Gift, He’s Just Not That Into You, Made of Honor and White Chicks. She was married to Marc Silverstein from 2007 to 2021, and the exes share daughters Birdie and Cricket.
Ella Stiller plays Christy Palladino, Michael’s former assistant whose Bay Area connections help turn the fledgling firm into a real threat. The daughter of Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, she trained at The Juilliard School, graduating in 2024. Her credits include Hubie Halloween, Happy Gilmore 2 and Driver’s Ed, plus appearances on And Just Like That… and The Comeback.
Joe Morton, Steven Pasquale and the Rest of the ‘Cupertino’ Cast
Emmy winner Joe Morton plays Bayard, Michael’s high-profile celebrity lawyer father, a setup built for tension as the season digs into their strained, competitive bond. Morton’s four-decade career includes recurring stints on Search for Tomorrow, Watch Your Mouth and Another World, and he won a 2014 Primetime Emmy for his portrayal of Rowan Pope in Scandal. Recent work includes God Friended Me, Our Kind of People and Going Dutch. Morton was married to set decorator Nora Chavooshian until their 2006 divorce, and the former couple share three children, daughters Hopi and Set and son Ara.
Steven Pasquale plays Ry, a seasoned Silicon Valley attorney positioned as a courtroom power player. Pasquale broke through as firefighter Sean Garrity on FX’s Rescue Me from 2004 to 2011, with earlier credits in Six Feet Under, Aurora Borealis and Aliens vs. Predator, Requiem. He has since turned up in The Good Wife, Doubt, The Comey Rule and Netflix’s The Four Seasons. Off-screen, Pasquale has been married to original Hamilton star Phillipa Soo since 2017.
Nik Dodani joins the ensemble as Vik Malhotra, a brilliant programmer who hires Price & Siffre when he realizes his own company is working against him. Dodani is best known as Zahid in Netflix’s coming-of-age hit Atypical, a run that lasted from 2017 to 2021, with film credits in Tooken, The Good Neighbor and Alex Strangelove. He also writes and produces, co-producing the Broadway adaptation of Life of Pi in 2023.
Rob McClure rounds out the group as Bo, a prospective client who turns to Michael and Olivia for representation. A Broadway staple, McClure made his debut in the 2002 revival of I’m Not Rappaport and earned a 2013 Tony nomination for Chaplin, with leading turns in Something Rotten!, Mrs. Doubtfire and Spare Parts. Screen credits include The Spine of Night, Evil and Elsbeth. He has been married to fellow actor Maggie Lakis since 2009, and the couple has one daughter.
Where to Watch ‘Cupertino’
New episodes drop weekly on the CBS schedule noted above, with next-day streaming available through Paramount+. The official logline calls it a “David vs. Goliath legal drama set in the heart of Silicon Valley” that follows Price as he joins forces with Olivia to “represent those taken advantage of by the tech elite and help them fight back in a high-stakes battle against the Goliaths controlling Silicon Valley.”
