What The Cast Of Community Is Doing Now

In 2009, a new sitcom premiered on NBC, one that would never rise to the same ratings heights of hits like "Friends" or "The Office" but would nonetheless build its own special following. Boasting the writing talents of creator Dan Harmon and a tremendous ensemble cast that included comedy mainstays and newcomers, "Community" quickly became one of the most talked about and most consistently entertaining shows on television.

As the series went on — and it became clear that it would never be the hit that some of its network mates were — the "Community" fandom only grew more dedicated to keeping the show alive. The phrase "six seasons and a movie" became their rallying cry, and the show managed to survive for five seasons on NBC before getting a sixth on the streaming service Yahoo! Screen. The movie has yet to materialize, but the show did manage to produce a cast of stars who've all gone on to big things since the series ended. Here's what the cast of "Community" is up to today.

Before he landed the role of ex-lawyer-turned-community-college-student Jeff Winger on "Community," actor and comedian Joel McHale was perhaps best known to audiences as the host of "The Soup," a weekly clip show mocking wild TV moments broadcast on E!. The role of Jeff highlighted McHale's acting talents, and other roles soon followed. While "Community" was still on the air, he nabbed major parts in films and TV series like "Ted," "Sons of Anarchy," and "Blended."

In the years since "Community" aired its sixth and final season, McHale has found continued success, namely with his spiritual successor to "The Soup" on Netflix, "The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale," which aired in 2018 for one season. He also appeared in "A Futile And Stupid Gesture," where he portrayed fellow "Community" co-star Chevy Chase during the comedy renaissance of the '70s and '80s. McHale has also not abandoned sitcoms since "Community": He appeared on the CBS show "The Great Indoors," which aired for only one season, while "Animal Control" on Fox premiered in 2023 and has since been renewed for an additional season. 

McHale has been vocal in the years since "Community" ended about his love for the show and all the people who worked on it. With the recent news that the "Community" movie has been greenlit by Peacock, perhaps no one is more excited than Joel McHale to return to the world of Greendale Community College. 

Few "Community" cast members have been as busy since the ending of the show as Alison Brie. During her tenure as type-A student Annie Edison, Brie also co-starred in the hit AMC series "Mad Men" as Trudy Campbell, which showcased her dramatic capabilities. Since the end of "Community," Brie has demonstrated both comic and dramatic talents in projects such as the 2015 rom-com "Sleeping With Other People," the animated sitcom "BoJack Horseman," and her Emmy-nominated Netflix series "GLOW," where she played a struggling actress who lands a gig as a TV wrestler. 

Sadly, "GLOW" was canceled by Netflix in 2020 as a result of production shutdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Brie was devastated by the premature end of "GLOW," she's spent recent years delving into a new challenge: screenwriting. In 2020, Brie starred in the psychological drama film "Horse Girl," which she co-wrote with director Jeff Baena. The two reunited in 2022 with "Spin Me Round," a dark comedy co-starring Aubrey Plaza and Alessandro Nivola. She also made appearances in the Oscar-nominated film "Promising Young Woman," as well as the anthology series "Roar" by "GLOW" creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. 

Most recently, Brie teamed up with her husband Dave Franco to co-write "Somebody I Used To Know," a romantic comedy in which she appears alongside her "Community" co-star Danny Pudi. After the "Community" movie comes out, it's likely Brie and Franco will continue their creative partnership in the future.

Donald Glover spent much of the 2000s paying his dues in comedy, performing in sketches and pursuing stand-up comedy. His first major break in the TV world came when he was hired as a writer on the acclaimed NBC series "30 Rock," and later when he was cast as Troy Barnes on "Community." Playing Troy earned Glover a wide fan base, which helped him to expand his budding music career, releasing his first two full-length albums as Childish Gambino while on "Community." However, Glover famously left the show at the beginning of the fifth season to pursue other projects.

In addition to making music as Childish Gambino, including the 2018 hit "This Is America," Glover also co-created the FX series "Atlanta," which netted him two Emmys for acting and directing. "Atlanta" wrapped up its four-season run in 2022, and Glover was quick to move on, co-creating the 2023 horror-comedy series "Swarm" on Amazon Prime Video. Glover has also been developing a remake of the 2005 film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" for television that's set to star him and Maya Erskine in the titular roles originated by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. 

Glover's distant relationship with "Community" has remained a subject of interest for fans of the sitcom. However, in 2023 Glover confirmed he would be reprising his role as Troy Barnes in the upcoming "Community" movie, although admitting to GQ Magazine, "I know just as much about it as you do."

Before Community, Danny Pudi was a largely unknown young actor who you might've recognized for his small roles on shows like "Gilmore Girls" and "Greek." Then came the character of Abed Nadir, easily the most memorable of the show's original ensemble cast, and Pudi quickly became a fan favorite with a devoted following of his own. Though his frequent scene partner Donald Glover exited the show early in its fifth season, Pudi stayed on through its final season, then got busy with other opportunities.

Among these included the 2016 comedy "The Tiger Hunter" and the 2017 reboot of "DuckTales," in which he voiced Huey. Most notably, Pudi joined the cast of the Apple TV+ sitcom "Mythic Quest" alongside Rob McElhenney, David Hornsby, and Charlotte Nicdao. In the series, Pudi plays Brad, the head of monetization for the titular video game, which allows him to play a much colder and more ruthless character than "Community" fans might be expecting. 

In addition to roles in films like "American Dreamer" and shows like "Clone High," Pudi also reunited with his former study group member Alison Brie in "Somebody I Used To Know," in which they replicated many of their old on-set antics from "Community" to portray former best friends. Their reignited chemistry on-set has only gotten the two actors more excited to return to the world of "Community," despite the 2023 Writers' Guild Strike indefinitely delaying production. 

Although Gillian Jacobs' big break came with playing Britta Perry on "Community," she has since built up her acting resume with an impressive array of credits. Shortly after "Community" ended, Jacobs appeared in the hit HBO series "Girls" as Mimi-Rose Howard, which later got her cast as sex addict Mickey Dobbs in Judd Apatow's Netflix series "Love," which ran for three seasons. Jacobs also starred in the 2016 dramedy "Don't Think Twice," directed by Mike Birbiglia, which centers around a fractured group of friends in a struggling improv troupe.

In the years since "Community" ended, Jacobs has also ventured into documentary directing. In 2016, she helmed a short about computer scientist Grace Hopper titled "The Queen of Code," and also contributed an episode to the Disney+ anthology series "Marvel's 616," documenting the impact of Marvel Comics on pop culture. In more recent years, Jacobs appeared in the three-part Netflix film "Fear Street," and voices Atom Eve in the Amazon Prime animated series "Invincible," based on the comic series of the same name.

In 2023, Jacobs returned to television with "Transatlantic," a Netflix miniseries in which she played Mary Jayne Gold, an American woman who helps European refugees escape persecution during World War II. She starred opposite Joel McHale, her former "Community" love interest, in the 2022 film "The Seven Faces of Jane," also directing one of the film's segments, while another was helmed by her "Community" co-star Ken Jeong. 

Even before Community came along, Yvette Nicole Brown had spent the 2000s establishing herself as a prolific and versatile actress, with roles in "The Big House," "Drake & Josh," "Sleeper Cell," "Boston Legal," and more. As the church-going single mother Shirley Bennett on "Community," she became a crucial part of the show's chemistry-laden ensemble, though she sadly was absent from the show's sixth and final season on Yahoo! Screen. However, since the show's ending, Brown has continued to see an avalanche of roles come her way.

Alongside supporting roles in films like "Avengers: Endgame," "Broken Diamonds," and "DC League of Super-Pets," Brown also starred in the 2022 film "Disenchanted," a sequel to the 2007 Disney film starring Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey. Brown has appeared as a frequent guest on "Talking Dead," the live after-show for "The Walking Dead" hosted by Chris Hardwick, as well as the game show "Hollywood Game Night." In 2015, Brown starred in the CBS reboot of "The Odd Couple" starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon, which ran for three seasons until 2017.

Among Brown's other television roles include the ABC sitcom "The Mayor" with Brandon Micheal Hall and Lea Michele, which was canceled after one season, and "Big Shot," a Disney+ series starring John Stamos. Brown has also frequently appeared as a guest on the HBO series "A Black Lady Sketch Show," for which she received an Emmy nomination for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series. 

When "Community" started, there was one bona fide legend in the cast: Chevy Chase. Chase was the breakout star of the game-changing first season of "Saturday Night Live" all the way back in 1975, and he parlayed that success into a career in films that included "National Lampoon's Vacation," "Caddyshack," "Fletch," and "Three Amigos." By being cast as moist towelette magnate and longtime Greendale student Pierce Hawthorne, Chase reached an entirely new generation of comedy fans. 

However, Chase's departure from "Community" resulted from a long-running conflict between him and series creator Dan Harmon. After the show's third season, Harmon was fired for his feud with Chase as well as for causing numerous production delays with his own work ethic. During production on the fourth season, Chase himself was fired after going on a racist tirade on set that upset several cast members, and Harmon was re-hired for the show's fifth and final season on NBC. Chase's career post-"Community" hasn't been as consistent as it once was decades ago.

Among Chase's more notable works since leaving "Community" include the 2015 reboot of the "Vacation" franchise, as well as "The Last Laugh" on Netflix with Richard Dreyfuss and "The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee," which was released on Amazon Prime Video in 2020. While Chase briefly had a pilot in the works at ABC, he nowadays mostly appears at fan conventions and makes guest appearances at screenings of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" all across the country. 

Ken Jeong famously worked as a practicing physician before he began performing stand-up comedy and auditioning for roles. It wasn't until 2009 that he landed two major breaks: Playing Mr. Chow in "The Hangover," and Spanish teacher Ben Chang in the first season of "Community." Although Jeong's character is fired from Greendale at the end of the first season, the character returns later as a student, then a security guard, and finally a member of the Save Greendale Committee during the show's final two seasons. 

Following the end of "Community," Ken Jeong has remained incredibly active in both film and TV. He created, wrote, and starred in his own ABC sitcom "Dr. Ken," and appeared in the 2018 blockbuster "Crazy Rich Asians." Since 2019, Jeong has been a permanent panelist on Fox's game show "The Masked Singer," and in 2020 started a podcast with former "Community" co-star Joel McHale titled "The Darkest Timeline," which ran for 25 episodes over the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More recently, Jeong appeared in several episodes of Mike Myers' 2022 Netflix series "The Pentaverate," and is due to star in Season 2 of Christopher Miller's murder mystery anthology series "The Afterparty" on Apple TV+ in 2023. Jeong played a starring role in "Fool's Paradise," the directorial debut of Charlie Day, playing a struggling Hollywood publicist who befriends a mute man who resembles a difficult method actor. Jeong also directed a segment of Gillian Jacobs' film "The Seven Faces of Jane."

Jim Rash spent much of the late '90s and early 2000s establishing himself as a talented character actor, appearing in TV series including "Friends," "The Naked Truth," "That '70s Show," and "Reno 911." On "Community," his role as the eccentric Dean Pelton was initially smaller than that of the rest of the main cast, but he was eventually promoted to a series regular beginning with the third season, remaining a major player until the show's sixth and final season. While starring in "Community," Rash also won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for "The Descendents," which he co-wrote with Nat Faxon.

Rash and Faxon teamed up again to co-write and co-direct indie darling "The Way Way Back" in 2013, as well as the critically-panned remake of Ruben Östlund's "Force Majeure," titled "Downhill," in 2020. In front of the camera, Rash has continued to play supporting roles in films like "Long Weekend" and "Bros," and is also set to star alongside Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in "Project Artemis" on Apple TV+. 

On the TV side of things, Rash's reputation as a consistent character actor is still strong. He's contributed recurring voice roles on shows like "Harley Quinn," "DuckTales," and most recently "Velma" on HBO Max. He's also set to appear in Marvel's Disney+ series "Ironheart," reprising his role as the Dean of M.I.T. from "Captain America: Civil War."

John Oliver first gained notoriety as a correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" from 2006 to 2013, though in 2009 he joined the cast of "Community" during its first season as Professor Ian Duncan, a former client of Jeff Winger who refuses to help him cheat his way through Greendale Community College in the show's pilot episode. Oliver played the character in several episodes throughout the first two seasons, before returning later as a more integral member of the Save Greendale Committee. 

Oliver's absence in Season 6 of "Community," however, was due to his time commitment to his own show, "Last Week Tonight" on HBO, which began airing in 2014 and has since become a staple of the cable network's late-night lineup. The show, which has won over 10 Emmys, has had a major impact on American politics, raising awareness for issues like net neutrality, cryptocurrency, and police brutality. 

Outside of "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver has provided voicework for animated shows like "Gravity Falls," "Big Mouth," and "Bob's Burgers." He notably starred in the 2019 live-action remake of "The Lion King" as Zazu, a role that originated in the 1994 animated film by Rowan Atkinson. Oliver has also produced shows like "Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas," a documentary series where the titular comedian travels the world learning about social issues, though the show was canceled in 2019 after two seasons. 

By this point, Brie Larson's involvement in "Community" is a fun fact amongst film fans, given her relatively small role compared to other actors in the series. Larson first appeared in the Season 4 episode "Herstory of Dance" as Rachel, a volunteer coat check attendant for Greendale's dances, where she meets and sparks a romance with Abed. Larson later returned in Season 5 as Rachel and Abed began a real relationship, though her time on the show was brief, thanks to Larson's burgeoning career as a movie star.

After critically-acclaimed appearances in films like "Short Term 12" and "Trainwreck," Larson gained attention for her 2015 film "Room," which won her an Academy Award for best actress. She subsequently transitioned to starring in blockbusters like "Kong: Skull Island," and joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Carol Danvers in 2019's "Captain Marvel," a role she's set to reprise in the upcoming 2023 film "The Marvels." In 2023, she appeared in "Fast X," playing the daughter of Kurt Russell's character from previous "Fast & Furious" films. 

Aside from her stellar resume as a film actress, Larson has also been a staunch advocate for gender equality, sexual assault survivors, and inclusivity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Larson also started a YouTube channel, where she began frequently posting vlogs, workout videos, and Q&As as a way to engage with her fanbase. Suffice it to say, but she's come quite a long way from Greendale's coat closet.

Before he was in Season 5 of "Community," Jonathan Banks had a long career of supporting roles, including appearances in "48 Hrs." and "Beverly Hills Cop." His performance as Frank McPike in the CBS crime drama "Wiseguy" earned him an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor, which was a first but not a last for Banks' career. In 2009, Banks joined AMC's "Breaking Bad" as fixer Mike Ehrmantraut, a character he portrayed until the show's end in 2013.

Following Banks' departure from "Breaking Bad," he joined the cast of "Community" in 2014 as Professor Buzz Hickey, the officemate of Joel McHale's Jeff Winger when the ex-lawyer gets a job teaching at Greendale. He subsequently becomes a member of the Save Greendale Committee, befriending Abed and even recruiting the gang to help him rekindle his relationship with his son, played by David Cross. Sadly, Banks' time on "Community" was short-lived, but for a good reason.

In 2015, Banks reprised his role as Mike Ehrmantraut in "Better Call Saul," the prequel/sequel to "Breaking Bad" which ran for six seasons and ended in 2022. Banks was nominated four times for his work in the spinoff and additionally made a cameo in 2019's "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie" on Netflix. At 76 years old, Banks has no intention of slowing down any time soon, as he was recently cast in the science fiction thriller "Constellation" on Apple TV+.

For an actress who joined the cast of "Community" in its sixth and final season on Yahoo! Screen, Paget Brewster didn't have to wait long to win fans over. The performer had been putting in stellar performances on TV since the late '90s, appearing as Kathy in "Friends," and later joining the cast of CBS's "Criminal Minds" during its second season. She even guest starred as Debra, Greendale's IT lady, in an episode of "Community" during its fifth season as Debra.

Brewster later returned to "Community" in a much different role in 2015 as Frankie Dart, a consultant who is hired to whip Greendale into shape. Though her character's stoic demeanor puts her at odds with the rest of the group, she nevertheless fits perfectly into the show's main cast. Sadly, Brewster's tenure on "Community" was short-lived, since the show ended after its sixth season — though perhaps she will return for the upcoming film on Peacock.

Since "Community," Brewster has remained busy, appearing in shows like "Another Period," "Grandfathered," and "Mom," as well as main voice roles in "DuckTales" and "Birdgirl." In 2016, Brewster returned to the main cast of "Criminal Minds" for its 12th season, and remained until it briefly ended after Season 15 in 2020. When "Criminal Minds: Evolution," a reboot of the series, premiered on Paramount+ in 2022, Brewster came back as part of the main cast. 

Keith David has been a major presence in the world of film and TV long before "Community" was on the air, beginning his career in the early 1980s with film roles in John Carpenter's "The Thing," "Platoon," and "Road House." He also appeared in TV shows like "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," "ER," and "7th Heaven." In 2012, he made a guest appearance during the "Community" episode "Pillows and Blankets" as the narrator of the show's Ken Burns-esque documentary covering a pillow war between Troy and Abed that spans the entire Greendale campus, referencing David's own work doing voiceover narration for documentaries.

In Season 6 of "Community," David joined the main cast as Elroy Patashnik, an amateur inventor who is hired as their head of IT after the Dean becomes obsessed with his virtual reality program. Elroy later joins the Save Greendale Committee, though his aloof attitude towards the rest of the group and closed-off personality make him a bit of an outlier. His shining moment comes in the show's penultimate episode, when he revisits an old habit of encouraging white people at Garrett's wedding. 

Since the ending of "Community," Keith David has remained a frequent face — and voice — in Hollywood. He's reunited with "Community" creator Dan Harmon numerous times, voicing the President of the United States in "Rick & Morty." More recently, he appeared in Jordan Peele's 2022 film "Nope," and the Netflix miniseries "From Scratch," while also providing voiceover work for "Stargirl," "Amphibia," and "DC League of Super-Pets."