The Watchers Cast & Character Guide

The supernatural horror film The Watchers spends a ton of screentime with a small group of individuals trapped in a mysterious and dangerous forest, so the talented cast is understandably small. The Watchers is the feature film directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of the iconic director M. Night Shyamalan. The movie follows a young American immigrant in Ireland, Mina, who becomes trapped with others in a forest that is home to nocturnal creatures known as Watchers, whose appearance remains a mystery to anyone who hasn’t encountered them.

Mina and her fellow survivors remain trapped in a concrete bunker at night, which keeps them safe from the creatures, but also allows the creatures to observe their activities and behavior. The Watchers is heavy on dread and atmosphere-building, and as is expected, includes a trademark “Shyamalan twist”, although it is based on the novel of the same name by A.M. Shine. The narrative focuses heavily on Mina, although all the characters trapped in the bunker are brought to life by strong performances from the cast.

Dakota Fanning as Mina/Lucy

Date of Birth: February 23rd, 1994

Actor: Dakota Fanning was born in Georgia in 1994, and began her career at a young age. As a child actor, her big break came in the 2001 comedy The Cat in the Hat, based on the Dr. Seuss children’s book of the same age. She has continued acting consistently, and has starred alongside some of the biggest stars and directors in Hollywood. Throughout her career, Fanning has garnered many award nominations, the most recent of which was a Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the show Ripley.

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Character: Fanning stars as Mina (and her twin sister Lucy), an American immigrant living in Ireland. Mina is still coping with the death of her mother, which occurred 15 years earlier in a car accident inadvertently caused by Mina. Not unlike the Watchers themselves, Mina shows a penchant for imitation and altering her identity, yet she is emotionally intelligent enough to recognize the plight of halflings like Madeline.

Georgina Campbell as Ciara

Date of Birth: June 12th, 1992

Actor: Georgina Campbell was born in Kent, England to a Jamaican father and English mother, and received a degree in Film Studies from the University of London. Campbell’s breakout TV role was in the BBC television film Murdered by My Boyfriend, for which she won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. Her movie breakout came more recently, when she starred as Tess in Zach Cregger’s critically-acclaimed horror hit Barbarian. While Barbarian and The Watchers are her two most well-known horror movies, she has had a slew of horror roles already in her career, and is becoming a go-to horror actress.

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Character: Ciara is one of the other individuals locked in The Coop when Mina arrives. She initially arrived with her husband John, but John left The Coop just days before Mina arrived. Mina stays in touch with Ciara after they escape from the Watchers, and it’s actually Ciara that Madeline, as a halfling, imitates so that she can attack Mina at the end of The Watchers.

Olwen Fouéré as Madeline

Date of Birth: March 2nd, 1954

Actor: Olwen Fouéré was born in Galway, Ireland, and over the course of her long career she has been recognized and one of the greatest Irish film actors working. While she has worked as a stage actress for her entire career, her big break in mainstream movis and TV occurred more recently. In 2018 she starred in Mandy, the psychological horror movie starring Nicolas Cage, and in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. She has since become a popular choice for horror directors, as she starred in three horror films in 2024 alone: Sunrise, Tarot, and The Watchers.

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Character: Madeline begins as one of the other individuals trapped in The Coop, but she is the keeper of knowledge when it comes to the Watchers. The Watchers‘ big twist is that Madeline is a halfling, a Watcher who is able to more perfectly imitate humans and can go out in the daylight. The form presented to Mina and the rest of The Coop is that of the wife of Professor Kilmartin, the person who created The Coop to study the Watchers.

Oliver Finnegan as Daniel

Date of Birth: Unlisted

Actor: Finnegan’s birth info is currently not known to the public, likely as a result of how recent his acting career began. Finnegan has only been in a few TV series since 2017, and The Watchers is his biggest break by far.

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Character: Daniel is the youngest individual trapped in The Coop, and the first to turn hostile after their many months trapped together. At one point Daniel locks Mina and Madeline out of The Coop, forcing them to seek shelter. As the survivors are about to escape the woods, Daniel is lured back to the Watchers and is killed.

Alistair Brammer as John

Date of Birth: November 12th, 1988

Actor: Alistair Brammer was born in Exeter, England and has worked as a stage actor for many years. His big break came in 2012, when he starred as Prouvaire in the movie musical Les Misérables. He has had a few noteworthy roles since then, both in movies and television, but The Watchers marks his most high-profile role since starring in the TV series Casualty in 2015-2016.

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Character: John is Ciara’s husband who leaves The Coop, theoretically to find a way out of the woods and send help for the group. John is shown being dragged away and is killed off-screen by the Watchers. A Watcher later uses his likeness to attempt to get into The Coop, but it fails in convincing the group to let it in.

John Lynch as Kilmartin

Date of Birth: December 26th, 1961

Actor: John Lynch was born in Newry, Northern Ireland and has been acting for over 40 years on the stage, in movies, and in television. His mainstream breakout came in 1993, when he starred in both The Secret Garden and In the Name of the Father, and he has worked steadily since then. He starred as George Best in the biopic Best, and more recently has had significant roles in dramatic TV series like The Terror, The Fall, and Blue Lights.

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Character: Kilmartin is a former professor and the creator of The Coop. He constructed the bunker and the facility underneath it to study the Watchers, given what he had discovered about their abilities and history. Kilmartin even managed to capture one of the Watchers and bonded with it, although he came to realize how dangerous they are and attempted to kill both the creature and himself. The Watcher would escape, and go on to imitate Kilmartin’s deceased wife as the character Madeline.