Brick cast and character guide: Who plays whom in the neo-noir mystery thriller movie?

Brick is a film in the neo-noir mystery thriller genre, and it marked the directorial debut of Rian Johnson. After its premiere at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the film was released theatrically on April 7, 2006, by Focus Features. Johnson wrote the script while the film was produced by Ram Bergman and Mark G. Mathis. Here is the official synopsis as per Letterboxd,

"A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend."

Let us look into which actors play which characters in this film.

Brick cast and character guide

1) Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan Frye

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the role of Brendan Frye, who is studying in high school. He used to live a lonely and quiet life, which was disrupted after his girlfriend went missing. This pulls him into the crime world of high school. Joseph has done several critically and commercially successful films like 50/50, 500 Days of Summer, Looper, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises.

2) Nora Zehetner as Laura Dannon

Nora Zehetner plays the role of Laura Dannon, a teenager studying in the same high school as the protagonist. Her loyalty keeps on tilting in different directions throughout the film. Nora has appeared in films like It Happened In L.A., Monster Summer, and Imperial Dreams, among others.

3) Lukas Haas as The Pin

The Pin is first mentioned at the beginning of Brick when Brendan's ex-girlfriend Emily Kostich is asking for help. She mentions certain words on the call, including The Pin. He is a man with physical disability and has connections with the high school crime ring. Lukas Haas has acted in films like The Revenant, Inception, and First Man.

4) Noah Fleiss as Tug

Tug is another name Emily mentions during the call. This character, played by Noah Fleiss, is an enforcer who is the henchman of Pin. All of them are part of a large crime ring in the high school. Fleiss' acting credits include Joe the King and Josh and S.A.M.

5) Other cast members of the film

Matt O'Leary as The Brain
Emilie de Ravin as Emily Kostich
Noah Segan as Dode
Richard Roundtree as Assistant Vice Principal Trueman
Meagan Good as Kara
Brian White as Brad Bramish

More about Brick

Brick is written and directed by Rian Johnson, while Mark G. Mathis and Ram Bergman produced it. The film was shot by Steve Yedlin, and Johnson himself also served as its editor. On January 21, 2005, it had its world premiere at that year's Sundance Film Festival.

In a 2019 Vulture interview, Johnson revealed that he wrote Brick right after college.

"I wrote the script right out of college, and I did a couple tweaks to it over the next eight years, but I didn’t change it that much. What I was really doing all that time was just trying and failing to get it made. I can tell you the things that we got over and over from people who had money: Everyone asked if we could set it in college. The fact that it was high school, with this amount of violence in it, was not appealing."