'Fringe' - Cast and Characters

Australian actress Anna Torv, a relative newcomer to television, plays the key role of Olivia Dunham, the FBI agents who brings together a team to use unconventional science to explore strange events that seem to involve deliberately destructive paranormal activity. Resourceful and direct, with experience as a tough-minded Marine Corps investigator, Olivia directs the hurt of being betrayed by a trusted colleague toward an unexpected career shift.

The producers describe Dr. Walter Bishop as Frankenstein mixed with Einstein. Once hailed as one of the most brilliant scientific minds of his generation, Bishop pioneered groundbreaking work with lab partner William Bell, in fields ranging from quantum physics to genetic engineering. This propelled him into a secret relationship with the U.S. government to advance its most scientifically innovative research projects. But an accident in 1991 that killed a lab assistant put Walter into St. Claire's mental hospital for 17 years. Now he's Olivia's best hope for unraveling and combatting the string of paranormal events known as the Pattern. Australian actor/director John Noble is best known for playing Denethor in Return of the King.

As the neglected son of a real-life mad scientist, Peter Bishop had a less than idyllic childhood. After Walter Bishop's institutionalization, Peter set out to make himself as different from his father as he could. Peter is a college drop-out who passed for several months as a physics professor, but his intuitive grasp of mathematics didn't prevent him losing his shirt and more in the casinos of Europe and America. Though dismissive of his father's work, Peter now finds himself, against his better judgment, following in his dangerous footsteps. Prone to corrosive sarcasm and impulsive outbursts, Peter is a polar opposite to Walter Bishop's mild-mannered iconoclasm. Joshua Jackson was previously one of the stars of Dawson's Creek.

Homeland Security Agent Phillip Broyles leads the U.S. Government's official investigation into The Pattern. A master of navigating the halls of power, Philip Broyles could easily have risen through the ranks of government without ruffling feathers. But Broyles prefers to push limits and test boundaries. When unexplainable events began to occur around the globe, he makes it his mission to find out why. Now he has assembled a special team to look into these events, and his goal is to find out who or what is behind these them, and to stop them from spiraling out of control. Reddick was one of the stars of The Wire and appeared in the fifth season of J.J. Abrams's previous series, Lost.