Seven years after the end of Community, many devoted fans still have difficulty parting with their favorite on-screen characters. The cult classic gathered such a big following that after the six seasons were up, they petitioned the hashtag #SixSeasonsAndAMovie, demanding the making of a movie which unfortunately hasn’t happened yet (and might not).
The actors who played characters we have come to love have since worked on various projects. No matter the scale of their projects, fans can collectively agree that their roles in Community are their favorite. Go Greendale!
Joel McHale
Joel McHale played Jeff Winger and was the main protagonist of the series. He played an egotistical, too-cool-for-school type of character who mostly only cares about himself and doesn’t put much effort into anything. He is charismatic and charming and knows how to argue his way into or out of things — a trait he had (and still has) while serving as an attorney.
After the series ended, McHale went on and starred in a sitcom called The Great Indoors, but it only ran for a season. In 2018, he announced the release of his series The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, which premiered on Netflix. However, just a few months after the series aired, Netflix announced its cancelation. McHale is currently filming a comedy called California King alongside former Victorious star Victoria Justice and hosting a baking competition reality show, Crime Scene Kitchen.
Gillian Jacobs
Gillian Jacobs’ character, Britta Perry, was the most politically and socially inclined character out of the study group. She joined the Peace Corps and joined several activist groups and a feminist group called “An-Her-Chists.” She had an on-and-off romance with Mchale’s character, Jeff Winger, and confessed their love for one another but officially never ended up together.
Since the end of Community, she has worked on many projects, such as the series Girls and the animated superhero series Invincible. Jacobs has also directed a few projects and documentaries of her own and is now working on one called More Than Robots, which follows four teams of teenagers competing in a robotics competition. Her most recent project is the anthology film The Seven Faces of Jane, where she will be co-directing and starring in the leading role, which is currently in the making. Other co-directors include Community former co-star Ken Jeong and Gia Coppola of the Coppola family.
Danny Pudi
Abed Nadir is one of the most beloved characters in the series. His unique and offbeat personality makes him a memorable character, not to mention he’s also a genius when it comes to…almost everything. Despite being in the study group, he has difficulty communicating and expressing his feelings to others and puts most of his focus on films and pop culture.
Danny Pudi currently stars on the Apple TV+ comedy series Mythic Quest, created by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia stars Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney. He also has two other projects, both alongside his Community co-stars. One of them is a film featuring Pudi and Danny Glover (Troy and Abed reunion!) called American Dreamer, which will be released in June this year. The other is a romantic comedy, Somebody I Used To Know, directed by Dave Franco, which he is also producing alongside his wife (and Pudi’s Community co-star), Alison Brie.
Alison Brie
Many of Community’s fans fell in love with Brie’s character, Annie Edison. She played the studious and diligent character who always plays by the rules and only focused on her grades and school-based activities such as the group’s study sessions. She is innocent in the sense that she has no ill intent towards anyone and is pure at heart and is therefore considered the baby of the group.
Brie has had an incredibly busy schedule since Community. She has starred in several major projects, such as voicing Diane Nguyen in Bojack Horseman, Ruth Wilder in Netflix’s GLOW, and most recently in the comedy film Spin Me Round, alongside Aubrey Plaza, which has just been released last month. Her next project is an action-comedy called Freelance, where she will co-star with professional wrestler and actor John Cena.
Donald Glover
His role as Troy Barnes served him well for the entirety of the series. Troy was known for being close to his best friend in the series, Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi). The dynamic duo’s misadventures are some unforgettable moments in the series, and the whole of Greendale will usually follow suit. No one can forget their iconic talk show and the slogan “Troy and Abed in the Morning!”
A few years after the series ended, Donald Glover, also known by his stage name Childish Gambino, continued to pursue his acting and music career. He had minor roles in Magic Mike XXL and The Martian until he announced the release of Atlanta, a series he created and starred in, in 2016. The series received critical acclaim and won many Golden Globe and Emmy Awards. In that same year, he released his album Awaken, My Love, which had hits such as "Redbone" and "Me And Your Mama" and was certified platinum. And again, in 2018, he released the hits "This is America," "Summertime Magic," and "Feels Like Summer." He is currently producing and starring in a reboot film of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which hasn’t been released yet. Season Three of his series, Atlanta, is currently airing on FX, and the final season of the series is set to be released by the fall of this year.
Yvette Nicole Brown
Shirley Bennett is kind, religious, and a motherly figure to most of the study group. She is slightly older than the rest of the group and divorced and remarried her husband, Andre. She graduated with a business degree to help her pursue a business in baking but ended up in Greendale due to some bad financial decisions.
Yvette Nicole Brown currently stars in Disney’s sports comedy-drama Big Shot as the dean of an all-girls school and is a recurring guest star in HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show, which earned her an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Besides Big Shot, she is filming Disney’s Disenchanted, the sequel to the 2007 film Enchanted, co-starring with the original cast Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, and Idina Menzel.
Ken Jeong
Señor Chang still stands as one of the best characters of Community due to his various eccentricities. Not only that, his unconventional approach to delivering his lines has made some of the funniest moments and episodes in the series. Besides his role as Señor Chang, Ken Jeong is also known for his role as Leslie Chow (or Mr. Chow) in The Hangover series, a role which catapulted him into the mainstream.
Besides doing comedy roles in films and television, Jeong is a current panelist on the reality singing show The Masked Singer and the host of the musical game show I Can See Your Voice. In 2019, he released his first comedy special on Netflix titled You Complete Me, Ho, which heavily focused on his relationship with his wife, Tran Jeong. His latest role as a guest star in one of the episodes of Netflix’s comedy murder-mystery series Murderville is as a trainee detective to Will Arnett’s character Terry Seattle.
Chevy Chase
Pierce Hawthorne is the oldest member of the Greendale Community College study group who was once a C.E.O of his own company, Hawthorne Wipes. He had seven failed marriages and, as a result, had over thirty step-children. He stayed in Greendale for over ten years before graduating in 2013.
His role in the series was supposedly a comeback role for Chevy Chase after not being in any major projects since his fame in the 80s. However, as most Community fans might know, Chase’s character as Pierce Hawthorne was cut short in Season 4. Chase had disagreements with the series creator Dan Harmon over decisions about his character. Since leaving the show, Chase has only done minor roles in films and voice acting roles, with his last one as King Karoth in Panda vs. Aliens.
Jim Rash
Who could forget the Dean? He is an upbeat, positive, and dalmatian-obsessed personality who can’t get enough of Jeff Winger and tries too hard to be part of his study group to spend more time with him. His on-screen introductions are of him dressed up in crazy costumes, followed by his use of "Dean" puns.
Rash is known for his impeccable writing, having won awards for films such as The Descendants and The Way, Way Back. As for his current projects, he has an upcoming movie, Bros, which will be released in September this year. The film is written by Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s director Nicholas Stoller and Billy On The Street’s Billy Eichner. Also, does anyone remember that he was the nervous passenger on the last episode of Friends?