What Happened To The Cast Of Netflix's Mindhunter?

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Man, I miss "Mindhunter." This series, helmed by David Fincher, was one of the best early Netflix originals — you know, before the streaming service was popping out a different crime thriller every other week. So what was the deal with "Mindhunter," and what happened to its wildly talented cast after it wrapped up with its second season?

"Mindhunter," which won't ever get a third season due to a whole host of factors, is loosely based on John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker's 1995 nonfiction book "Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit." Unsurprisingly, it centers around a specialized unit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation — specifically, the Behavioral Science Unit, which was first founded in 1972. On the series, we follow the growth of the BSU through three characters — Jonathan Groff's Holden Ford, Holt McCallany's Bill Tench, and Anna Torv's Wendy Carr — as they try to understand the psychological drive of serial killers, speaking to real murderers as the trio attempts to figure out what makes someone kill in the first place.

As for what happened to the wildly talented cast of "Mindhunter" after the show's second season wrapped up in 2019? Some housekeeping, before I continue. Even though Cameron Britton's Ed Kemper was the focus of the show's debut season, the second season switches to an investigation concerning a string of murders in Atlanta, so Britton is not included on this list; in fact, the four actors you'll see here are the only ones who consistently appeared across both seasons. With that out of the way, here's what the cast of "Mindhunter" did after the series ended.

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When we first meet Jonathan Groff's Holden Ford, he's working as a hostage negotiator in his role as a special agent for the FBI — but he ultimately gets promoted to teaching, which is how he develops an interest in how a killer's mind truly works. Alongside Bill Tench and Wendy Carr, Holden is instrumental in launching the Behavioral Science Unit, but over time, the job starts to deeply affect his mental health. Still, Holden is a brilliant and insightful man whose instincts almost always serve him during interrogations, even as he loses his grip on his personal life while the BSU overtakes his entire existence.

Groff has been extremely busy since "Mindhunter" ended; in fact, it's easy to assume that demand for him as a performer may have stalled the intended third season. A Tony and Grammy Award winner for his work on the stage — the former of which he earned for the 2024 revival of "Merrily We Roll Along" and the latter of which is for his breakout stage performance in "Spring Awakening" — Groff has also appeared on "Glee," the HBO series "Looking," and "Hamilton," where he originated the role of King George III. Of course, Groff is also known for voicing Kristoff and Sven in "Frozen" and its sequel, and when it comes to live action, Groff has popped up in major projects like "The Matrix Resurrections" and "Knock at the Cabin." If you're a fan of Groff's work but you haven't seen "Mindhunter," you definitely want to binge this series; it's some of his best work.

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Two law enforcement officers with radically different worldviews and approaches are a staple of the crime genre, and Bill Tench, Holt McCallany's older FBI agent who works alongside Holden Ford, is one of them. While Holden isn't able to commit to a relationship and has an idealistic approach to his work, Bill is practical, calm, and a perfect contrast to Holden; plus, he's happily married to his wife Nancy (Stacey Roca) and lives a somewhat normal life when he's not, you know, talking to serial killers about why they do what they do. McCallany's steady but grizzled presence as Bill is an ideal contrast to Holden's frazzled, occasionally erratic vibe, and the actor is perfectly cast in the role. So what has McCallany been up to?

Before "Mindhunter," McCallany was a well-regarded supporting and character actor with roles in projects like "Fight Club" and "Sully." He's continued that streak since with roles in films like Gerard Butler's "Greenland," Guillermo del Toro's Oscar-nominated period piece "Nightmare Alley," and "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning." You probably know him best, though, from "The Iron Claw," the tear-jerking wrestling drama starring Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, and Harris Dickinson that casts McCallany as former wrestler Jack "Fritz" Von Erich, who all but forces his sons (played by the three actors I just named) to follow in his footsteps.

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Alongside Holden Ford and Bill Tench, Anna Torv's Wendy Carr helps build the Behavioral Science Unit brick by brick ... but she does so in a different capacity. Wendy isn't an FBI agent, but a psychology professor working with the agency, and she also arguably has the most fascinating personal life of any of the main characters. As a closeted queer woman, Wendy left the woman she loves behind in Boston to take the FBI-adjacent job in Virginia, forcing her to keep her sexuality a secret. (As a reminder, the show is set in the early 1970s.) In her work, Wendy is so collected that she rarely betrays emotion ... something that makes the small, victorious smile she allows after the BSU finally gets funding from the FBI even more impactful.

As for Torv herself, she was best known, before "Mindhunter," for her lead role on the sci-fi series "Fringe" — and afterward, she continued working on the small screen. Though she largely works in her home country of Australia, she still shows up in high-profile projects. Most notably, Torv appeared in the debut season of "The Last of Us" as Tess, the character from the video games who originally accompanies the protagonist, Joel (Pedro Pascal), through a ravaged, post-apocalyptic, zombie-filled world.

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One of the most fascinating characters on "Mindhunter" is also its quietest ... and though quite a few characters, like Cameron Britton's Ed Kemper, are directly based on real people from history, Sonny Valicenti's ADT Security repairman is arguably the most famous. That's largely because he's not an everyday, normal ADT repairman; throughout "Mindhunter," it's revealed that this guy who's supposed to fix people's security systems is none other than Dennis Rader. In case you're not up to date on your deep serial killer lore, Rader went by another and much more famous name in the end: "The BTK Killer," with "BTK" standing for "bind, torture, kill." In real life, Rader killed ten people across three decades using the techniques that made up that acronym, and on "Mindhunter," the show cleverly lets him lurk in the darkness and on the fringes, with his presence looming large over the main story.

So what has Valicenti been up to since? He's appeared in a number of projects like the scammer drama "WeCrashed," a few episodes of "NCIS," and "Blonde," the Marilyn Monroe vehicle starring Ana de Armas that released in 2022 and earned her an Oscar nod.

Meanwhile, "Mindhunter" is streaming on Netflix now.