The Cast Of Santa Clarita Diet Is Only Getting Hotter

Some television shows hit the chopping block before their time, before their stories can be told to a satisfying conclusion. A few of those attain cult status after they've been axed, leaving legions of fans to bemoan what might have been. Netflix's "Santa Clarita Diet," which produced just 30 episodes across three seasons from 2017 to 2019, is one such series. Starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant, the offbeat comedy followed the exploits of two married, suburban Southern California realtors with a dark secret — the undead wife's appetite for human flesh.

An Olyphant-centric Rolling Stone feature described the show as "short-lived but beloved," an apt description, and one that may owe just as much to the cast that brought its narrative to life on screen as to creator Victor Fresco and the writers who built out its bizarre universe. From bona fide movie stars like Barrymore and Olyphant to television vets such as Ricardo Chavira, nerd icons like Nathan Fillion, and then-rising stars, including Skyler Gisondo and Liv Hewson, the allure and talent of "Santa Clarita Diet's" cast were omnipresent.

Fast-forward to the mid-2020s, and the performers who played the series' colorful characters have continued making their mark on Hollywood. Here's a rundown of "Santa Clarita Diet's" stars, what they've been up to since the show ended, and what they look like now.

Already a Hollywood icon by the time "Santa Clarita Diet" came around in 2017, Drew Barrymore played Sheila Hammond — the show's pivotal character who becomes undead and develops a hankering for human flesh. Not only that, she executive-produced the series through her Flower Films banner. For Barrymore, the series came along at a moment when she was in need of inspiration. 

"I was just in a really low point in my life and I read the script and it made me laugh and it made me feel something," Barrymore said in 2017 (via The Hollywood Reporter). "It took [me] out of my own world that wasn't super pleasant at the time and I thought, maybe other people want to be taken out of their unpleasant times and be transported into something that's cool and different."

Barrymore is still flexing her acting muscles on shows such as the Netflix animated series "Princess Power" today, but she has seemingly made her daytime talk show her primary career focus. According to a 2026 Deadline report, "The Drew Barrymore Show" began its seventh season with its highest total viewership for a premiere episode in series history.

Sheila Hammond's husband, Joel Hammond, was played by veteran actor Timothy Olyphant, who only seems to get better with age. He landed his "Santa Clarita Diet" role after having cemented his leading-man status on series like HBO's "Deadwood" and FX's "Justified" (on which he played Sheriff Seth Bullock and U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, respectively). He also had a run of starring film roles during the mid-to-late 2000s. So, playing the hapless husband charged with satiating his undead wife's hunger was a major switch-up.

For Olyphant, though, his chemistry with Barrymore was undeniable. "For me, in the first episode it felt like we clicked right off the bat," Olyphant told Variety in 2018. Unfortunately, he and Barrymore weren't allowed to bring the Hammonds' story to a satisfying close, but Olyphant kept things light when addressing "Santa Clarita Diet's" untimely cancellation. "I loved working on this show," he said at the time (via Deadline). "I'm going to continue coming in and doing scenes. If they don't want to film it, that's up to them."

Fast-forward to now, and Olyphant is everywhere on the Hollywood scene. In 2026, he starred alongside Jennifer Garner in the Peacock series "The Five-Star Weekend," in addition to playing Anya Taylor-Joy's convict father in the Apple TV+ miniseries "Lucky." He's also attached to the upcoming "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" sequel "The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth."

Australian actor Liv Hewson was still in their early 20s when "Santa Clarita Diet" first streamed on Netflix in 2017. So, it was hardly a stretch to see them in the role of Abby Hammond — the teenage daughter of Sheila and Joel Hammond who rolled her eyes at her uncool parents while they were engaging in cannibalism on the down low. However, Hewson already had a level of depth and wherewithal as an actor that was beyond their years.

"Santa Clarita Diet" executive producers Victor Fresco and Tracy Katsky put a spotlight on Hewson and another young costar, Skyler Gisondo, in a joint statement following the show's cancellation, labeling the duo "the immensely talented Liv and Skyler" and calling the working experience with them and their older cohorts "a joy and a once in a lifetime experience" (via The Hollywood Reporter). Given what Hewson and Gisondo went on to do after the show, the shout-out now feels prophetic in a sense.

Hewson has been playing Van Palmer in the hit Showtime series "Yellowjackets" since 2021; the show's fourth and final season is set for a November 2026 premiere. Hewson also stars as detective Nell Buchanan in the ABC Television/BBC series "Treasure & Dirt," and provides the voice of Black on the Paramount+ animated adaptation of the popular video game "Among Us."

One of the more important aspects of "Santa Clarita Diet" is the excess of interesting characters it had to enrich its Hammond-centric world. One of those characters was Eric Bemis — the lovable if ineffectual teenage boy and son of Mary Elizabeth Ellis' Lisa Palmer who discovers the Hammonds' secret and becomes their unlikely ally (and a friend to Abby).

Prior to his "Santa Clarita Diet" run, Gisondo became familiar to audiences through his work on the 2014 film "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb," 2015's "Vacation" reboot (which made him a meme), and his earlier time on the TBS sitcom "The Bill Engvall Show," to name just a few of his credits. Since "Santa Clarita Diet," he has become one of the hottest stars in Hollywood. He played Jimmy Olsen in James Gunn's 2025 "Superman" reboot, in which a running joke was that he was too attractive for his own good. 

An HBO mockumentary series centered on Jimmy and an iconic DC Comics supervillain, titled "The People v. Gorilla Grodd," is currently in the works. He also starred in the hit HBO series "The Righteous Gemstones." In 2026, he appeared in the Chris Hansen/"To Catch a Predator"-inspired psychological thriller "Primetime."

Ricardo Chavira was already a known quantity in the television world by the time "Santa Clarita Diet" rolled around. He played Carlos Solis on the hit ABC drama series "Desperate Housewives" from 2004 to 2012, and had guested and/or recurred on shows such as Fox's "24," HBO's "Six Feet Under," CBS' "JAG," and ABC's "Scandal," to name a few of his credits. In Season 1 of "Santa Clarita Diet," he played Deputy Sheriff Dan Palmer — the husband of Mary Elizabeth Ellis' Lisa Palmer and Eric Bemis' stepfather, who grows wise to some of the strangeness surrounding the Hammonds before meeting an unfortunate end.

It would seem that there's no love lost between Chavira and his "Desperate Housewives" costar Felicity Huffman. In 2019, Chavira made headlines by calling her and the system out amid her 14-day prison sentence following a college admissions scandal, tweeting (via USA Today), "White Privilege. And I saw eight years' worth of it, so I know what I'm talking about." 

Professionally, Chavira landed the role of Abraham Quintanilla in Netflix's "Selena: The Series" as "Santa Clarita Diet" met its own end. He has continued to amass TV credits since then and recently appeared on Broadway via the David Lindsay-Abaire comedy play "The Balusters," which premiered in 2026.

Mary Elizabeth Ellis is perhaps best-known for her longtime recurring role as The Waitress on FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and for being the real-life wife of "Sunny" star Charlie Day since 2006. She also appeared on Fox's "New Girl" and on the short-lived sitcoms "Perfect Couples" and "The Grinder" (via NBC and Fox, respectively). On "Santa Clarita Diet," she played Lisa Palmer, the wife of Dan Palmer and mother of Eric Bemis.

More recently, Ellis appeared in the 2020 holiday comedy/fantasy "Godmothered," the 2021 Paul Thomas Anderson film "Licorice Pizza," and the 2024 holiday action comedy "Red One." A versatile talent, Ellis made her directorial debut on the 2024 short film "Last to Leave," which she also wrote. She currently stars as Emily alongside Ted Danson in the Netflix comedy series "A Man on the Inside." 

Like Emily, Ellis is finding new ways to express herself as a woman in her 40s — namely combat sports. "It's like, who am I? What am I still into? And for me it's kickboxing," she explained to People in 2026. "I do kickboxing with my friend Kendra Smith, who also did stunts ... So, we do a lot of fun stunt things."

Actor Natalie Morales played Anne Garcia on "Santa Clarita Diet" — a Deputy Sheriff and Dan Palmer's partner, who eventually stumbles upon Sheila's zombification. However, her religious background leads her to unexpected conclusions about what she sees. Anne also became romantically involved with Lisa Palmer in the wake of Dan's death.

Morales came to "Santa Clarita Diet" after having starred on ABC Family's "The Middleman" during the late 2000s, appeared in several episodes of NBC's "Parks and Recreation" as Lucy Santo Domingo, and also worked alongside Mary Elizabeth Ellis on Fox's "The Grinder." In 2021, she made her directorial debut with the coming-of-age comedy film "Plan B," which debuted on Hulu. She also lent her voice to the Hulu animated series "Solar Opposites" and portrayed Dr. Monica Beltran on the long-running ABC medical drama series "Grey's Anatomy." Since 2025, she has been a main cast member on the Netflix crime series "The Beast in Me."

Morales came out for Pride Month in 2017, and while she seemingly eschews labels, she later told Vanity Fair that it affected how people saw her as an actor. "People have really strong opinions about what they think things should be called, and what represents what," she said. "The fear that you get into career-wise is: will I be typecast as this? And will people start seeing me in a narrow way? That does happen. You have to steer around that, because I think all types of queer people and LGBTQ people can play all sorts of characters."

Richard T. Jones is best-known for his ongoing role as Wade Grey on the long-running ABC police procedural "The Rookie," on which he stars alongside another "Santa Clarita Diet" alum Nathan Fillion. However, his career on television and in film dates back to the early 1990s when he played Ike Turner Jr. in the Angela Bassett-led Tina Turner biopic "What's Love Got to Do With It?" Along the way, he starred in series like CBS' "Judging Amy" and Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," as well as movies including the 1997 cult classic horror "Event Horizon."

On several episodes of "Santa Clarita Diet," Jones played Rick — a Santa Monica police officer who lives in the Hammonds' neighborhood and is a friend of Timothy Olyphant's Joel. The two even occasionally smoke pot together, with Rick being wholly unaware that his friend's wife is an undead with a craving for fresh human flesh, or that the Hammonds have committed murders to satiate her cravings.

Jones has kept busy since "Santa Clarita Diet," primarily with his role on "The Rookie." However, fans were left to wonder about his future on the show following the events of its eighth season. Thankfully, "The Rookie" creator and showrunner Alexi Hawley put those concerns to rest, telling Deadline in 2026, "Richard is a hugely important piece of the puzzle of our show ... I think we'll figure out something fun to do, for sure."

Jonathan Slavin is one of those actors whose face you've probably seen, but you may not be able to place. However, "Santa Clarita Diet" fans can tell you that he portrayed Ron Ruffin on the under-the-radar Netflix series. Ruffin was a patient at a mental institution who meets Joel when the latter is briefly admitted to the facility himself. Joel reveals his family's big secret to Ruffin, who later tracks the Hammonds down when he's discharged and ends up becoming undead himself.

Before "Santa Clarita Diet," Slavin was a cast member on sitcoms such as ABC's "Dr. Ken," "Speechless" (concurrently with "Santa Clarita Diet"), and "Better Off Ted," and Fox's "Andy Richter Controls the Universe." He also racked up guest spots on a plethora of popular series. Slavin's notable film credits include 2004's "A Cinderella Story," 2009's "Race to Witch Mountain," and the 2014 Brian Wilson biopic "Love & Mercy."

More recently, Slavin has made an impact on the stage. In 2026, a Talkin' Broadway review noted that "Jonathan Slavin takes the spotlight with his wry, witty, and damaged Asher" in the Joel Zwick-directed play "Sukkot." He has also recurred as a nurse, Parker, on the NBC mockumentary sitcom "St. Denis Medical."

Among a certain segment of the content-consuming populace, Nathan Fillion is a veritable icon. That's because he has starred in television series and films that are practically required nerd viewing: shows like Fox's "Firefly" and UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and films including 2005's "Serenity" and 2006's "Slither." More recently, he played the mercurial DC Comics superhero/Green Lantern Corps member Guy Gardner in James Gunn's 2025 "Superman" film and the HBO series "Lanterns."

Fillion portrayed Gary West in "Santa Clarita Diet," a realtor who attempts to blackmail Sheila Hammond only to get devoured by her instead. His disembodied head survives the ordeal as a zombie, and the Hammonds decide to keep it/him out of guilt. Alas, Fillion was replaced in the role by another geek icon, Alan Tudyk, after the show's second season.

"We couldn't get Nathan back, so our choices were get rid of that character or recast, and we just loved that character," Fresco said of the recasting decision (via The Hollywood Reporter). "So, it was a challenge for us to figure out a way to use that character, and then, of course, it occurred to us that we could just make that character deteriorate more — we had that luxury in our world — and get a different actor to play the role."

Kaylee Kaneshiro — who was then credited as Kaylee Bryant — appeared in a handful of episodes of "Santa Clarita Diet" as one of Abby and Eric's classmates, Sarah. Although she's friendly with Abby, Sarah's breakup with a local drug dealer named Cole leads the latter to have a run-in with Joel and Sheila.

Following her appearances on "Santa Clarita Diet," Kaneshiro was a main cast member on the CW supernatural teen drama series "Legacies." More recently, she starred alongside Holly Robinson Peete in the 2022 Hallmark film "The Journey Ahead," in addition to starring in the 2024 horror film "Spin the Bottle."

In 2023, Kaneshiro officially dropped the Bryant surname, which she had chosen as a child, opting instead to be credited by her birth name. "When I was 11 years old I was told that I would never work as an actor with the last name 'Kaneshiro,' so I wrote some random names on a napkin and chose my new last name 'Bryant,'" she revealed in an Instagram post. "I have regretted that decision since I didn't understand at such a young age that I was erasing a huge part of my identity."