BROOKE ENCE as YELENA GORGO

Yelena is the daughter of decorated pro wrestler and mixed martial artist Spiral (birth name Niels Gram). She came to America to exact a manner of revenge against those who contributed to her father’s downfall while using a career as a wrestler as cover. UPRISING star Jack Moreau, born Nathan Gray, is her half brother.

Prior to his death, her father gave her a list of names and an accounting of their sins against him with one simple request: kill them all. Meanwhile she has forged careers as both a professional wrestler and CEO/Chair of her father’s non-profit, the Niels Gram Foundation.

Inside her head are splintered aspects of her personality. In The Woman Who Laughs the two dominant identities living in her mind are revealed. The first is primarily known as the Other Me, as well as her Darker Half and her Dark Self. In Ascension /chapters/twelve/ an eight year old Yelena sees the Other Me for the first time, who since has often been referred to as Yelena’s protector. The Other Gorgo is always seen smiling and her voice is deep and raspy, similar to actress Shohreh Aghdashloo’s with a tinge of Pazuzu from the Exorcist.

Yelena and the Other Me’s personalities can merge into one, becoming the entity known (mostly out of character) as THEYlena. They refer to themself in the third person and are the projection of Yelena’s most violent urges and psychotic tendencies. She eventually realized that the theater of professional wrestling would allow her to show this side of her under the guise of being a gimmick.

In A Death in the Family it was revealed that YOU, the reader, are a silent character who has been residing in her mind for her entire life. You are a silent observer whose role has not fully been revealed as of yet.

There are more voices in Yelena’s head. In Face the Music we learn that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of Yelena’s locked away in her mind, but they are kept quiet and behaved by Yelena’s Other Me.

For a more detailed account of her publicly known history, please visit her Wikipedia page.

MADS MIKKELSEN as SPIRAL

Born Neils Gram, Spiral was a professional wrestler who later expanded to less-than-legal cage fighting. His career began in the late 90s and over his two decades in the spotlight he held numerous championships and accolades in dozens of companies. He was married once to a woman named Jacqueline Moreau who took her own life by suicide in 2007.

In late 2010, Spiral was publicly accused of having killed Jacqueline by New Orleans homicide investigator Alexandra Dupin and the City Attorney. It was never proven in a court of law, but he was committed twice to Ascension Asylum, a notorious psychiatric hospital in Louisiana. Some still believe he might have killed her, mostly true crime junkies and conspiracy theorists, but without any compelling evidence most deny it.

He has been the subject of several books as well as a documentary. Two years before his death, he poured most of his family’s wealth into philanthropy. He found the Niels Gram Foundation with a three hundred million dollar endowment. In late 2019 he was diagnosed with inoperable glioblastoma. He died less than a year later.

ANDREJA PEJIĆ as ANGEL GLAZKOV

Angel is a transwoman from Chișinău who has known Yelena for over fifteen years. She is Yelena’s closest confidant and an accomplice. When she was young, her family moved into the house next door and she became Yelena’s only friend. Angel’s father would beat her for wearing dresses and makeup or acting effeminate in any way. After Yelena discovered he was locking Angel in the crawl space as punishment. That night a fourteen year old Yelena returned wearing her father’s lingerie. She murdered Glazkov in his bed with a knife, after which she freed Angel. They have been inseparable ever since. Their relationship is strictly sexual, with both free to pursue others as they wish.

In January of 2025, Yelena financially backed Angel’s dream of opening a nightclub. The Black Rainbow opened to rave reviews. It features a two floor avantgard disco, as well as a speakeasy in the basement with its own password protected entrance.

ANA CHERI as MARISOL VILARO

Yelena first met the Fitness Queen in UPRISING. Though at first they were rivals, Yelena was instantly attracted to Marisol, both sexually and professionally. Marisol, it turned out, was the daughter of Brad Jackson, the chief rival of Spiral. Marisol was unaware of this, and simply assumed Jackson was helping her wrestling career because he believed in her. Yelena was instrumental in exposing this secret and in doing so earned Marisol’s friendship. They quickly became best friends.

Slowly Yelena tightened her hold on Marisol, becoming more entrenched in her life. Yelena staked Marisol’s expansion into VilaroFIT, a luxury gym and clothing company based in Florida. Marisol has grown more ruthless and ambitious since personally and professionally becoming tied to Yelena. This corrupting influence culminated in the events of What’s New, Pussycat? when Marisol asked Yelena to kill her grandfather who had arrived from Spain to sabotage her business.

Later, both Marisol and Yelena became targets of private investigator Ari Katz. During this time, Marisol developed feelings for Yelena and later professed her desire to be together. In Heart Marisol showed up on Yelena’s doorstep to profess her love. Unfortunately her timing was not great, as Yelena already had plans to deal with Ari Katz that night. Marisol went with her to the motel where the private investigator was staying. In Loose End Marisol becomes an accessory to murder when Yelena forces Katz to hang himself after his daughter’s life is threatened.

ALEX HØGH ANDERSEN as NATHAN GREY

Nathan, also known as Jack Moreau, is the only son of Spiral and Jackie Moreau. As a baby, Jackie gave him up to distant relatives to raise as their own in order to hide him from his real father. He didn’t learn who his real parents were until Spiral’s death, after which the estate released a statement stating that Nathan Grey was his son and heir to his fortune. He himself suffers from schizophrenia, for which he has to take medication. During his first entry into UPRISING he was not doing so, leading to bizarre and troubling behavior. He recommitted himself to his mental health and changed his in-ring name to honor his mother after winning the UPRISING championship to prove he was not his father’s son. He remained unaware of Gorgo’s existence until she signed with UPRISING, and even still, did not know they were blood related.

In November, 2022, Nathan, heavily under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs, stepped in front of a bus in downtown Las Vegas. He suffered several life threatening injuries but survived, if you can call it that. He is now wheelchair bound and unable to communicate without aid of an eye-tracking computer or letterboard.

He eventually regained the ability to speak but remained bedridden. His doctor, under the direction of Gorgo, withheld treatment for his schizophrenia, leaving him locked in a near constant state of hallucinations and delusions. In January of 2025, Nathan suffered a stroke. He never regained conciousness. Yelena consented to removing him from life support.

AMY LEE as JACQUELINE MOREAU

A former wrestler, Jackie died by an apparently self-induced gunshot wound in 2007. It was ruled a suicide but some members of New Orleans law enforcement believed her husband, Spiral, killed her and staged the scene, most notably Alexandra Dupin. Jackie was the mother of Nathan Grey, who now goes by the name Jack Moreau in honor of his mother. After he was born, she quickly gave him up for adoption to a distant relative in Arizona in order to hide him from Spiral. She told her husband that she lost the baby while he was on tour in Europe.

On his deathbed, Spiral gave Yelena a list of names of men and women who had harmed him over the years. His request was simple: become the agent of his vengeance and fulfill his vendettas against them. Below are the targets who have been identified thus far.

HENRY ROLLINS as BRAD JACKSON

Jackson was Spiral’s greatest rival and more often than not came out on top in the ring. Spiral, in his own twisted way, loved Jackson like a brother but tormented him, often violently, for his own amusement. This love/hate dynamic was the centerpiece of their entire relationship and it frequently would affect those close to Jackson, as Spiral was never shy about including loved ones in his plots and schemes.

Jackson, however, was the one name on the List that Spiral strictly forbade killing. He wanted Jax to live a long, miserable life, and so Yelena focused her energy in tearing him down. In Chokehold Yelena learns that Marisol Vilaro was secretly Jackson’s daughter, a fact that he kept from her while using his position as the owner of UPRISING to push her career. Yelena used this information to poison Marisol against him, robbing him of any relationship with his daughter. She then orchestrated the events that led to UPRISING, his company, closing its doors. Jackson has since retreated from public life.

VIGOR MORTENSEN as TIBOR PETROV

Petrov was a Russian mobster who ran The Circuit, a worldwide underground fighting league that catered to oligarchs and the wealthy elites who had grown bored with the humdrum of normal life and desired to see men and women beat one another to near death for blood money. He was later captured and convicted by INTERPOL, after which he turned witness. Spiral in particular blamed Petrov’s testimony as one reason for his imprisonment at Ascension. Fearing reprisal, Petrov attempted to have Spiral assassinated on two separate occasions but failed both times.

Petrov was given asylum in the United States in return for his work as a CIA asset. In A Downward Spiral Yelena posed as a Ukrainian prostitute in order to gain access to his suite and, once inside, cut his throat using her father’s straight razor.

PARKER POSEY as ALEXANDRA DUPIN

Former New Orleans homicide detective turned true crime author Alex Dupin crusaded against Spiral ever since Jackie died. She still does not believe it was a suicide and has spent considerabe effort trying to convince the world that Spiral was the definition of evil. In the weeks following his death she released a nonfiction novel presenting what she believed happened between Spiral and Jackie. The book itself was successful, even briefly appearing on the NY Times bestseller list, but many critics came out to condemn the book, claiming it to be a smear campaign over sour grapes by members of the New Orleans law enforcement community. Her follow up book, Pretty Little Thing, was a flop, leaving her desperate for a familiar subject to write about and willing to risk everything to get it.

Prior to revealing herself as the daughter of Spiral, Yelena attended a book signing disguised as a Russian lawyer representing a mobster named Maxim Gorodetsky, Tibor Petrov’s former boss. As told in Pretty Little Things Yelena used one of her father’s notebooks to seduce Alex into following her to Spiral’s old house which was only a few blocks away. In the following story, His House, Dupin was lured into his underground vault. Yelena stabbed her in the stomach and left her to die alone in the dark.

ELIZABETH HURLEY as VANESSA BYRNE

Byrne was a former wrestling executive who most notably was the majority owner of the promotion Valor Pro. For a short amount of time, Spiral was contracted to work for Valor. It didn’t end well, with her using her authority to sever his contract and withhold his royalties. He chose not to fight her in a court of law, instead preferring to take a more extreme measure of revenge down the road. After cancer robbed him of the opportunity, he passed on her name to his daughter.

In Toxic Yelena and Angel brainstorm how to kill Byrne without raising suspicions. This led to Yelena having the idea of using palytoxin. In White Rabbit Yelena attends a costume party at Vanessa’s San Francisco home. The two meet on a balcony and talk. It quickly turns sexual. Vanassa excuses herself to use the restroom, leaving behind her cigarettes. Yelena spikes one with the palytoxin and then leaves. Days later, Vanessa becomes critically ill with symptoms similar to COVID. She died shortly after. The medical examiner marked coronavirus as the cause of death.

IAN MCNEICE as DR. WILLIAM CORSO

Dr. Corso was the head of psychiatry at the infamous (and now closed) Ascension Asylum for the Criminally Insane, a maximum security hospital that was located halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. During Spiral’s two forced stints at the hospital, he was the focus of repeated experiments by Corso, including but not limited to regular electroshock treatments, unnecessary and debilitating medications, and long periods of forced isolation.

In January of 2024, Yelena kidnapped Corso and brought him to the abandoned Ascension hospital where he was strapped to a table in the old surgical theater, as depicted in Ascension. She administered a paralytic, then when he was unable to move, applied LSD drops in his eyes. Once he was under the effects of the drug, she applied a constant current of electricity to his brain with a modified ECT machine. He survived the procedure but was left with severe physical and mental trauma. He was later found lost in a nearby town, babbling about needing to get to work and asking how to get to the hospital. He now resides in an assisted living facility with very little memory of who he was or what was done to him.

HIROYUKI SANADA as SHŌGUN FUKUYAMA

A mysterious figure with connections to the Japanese Yakuza, the Shōgun became entangled with Spiral in 2019 over the dispute with Valor Pro. The Shōgun was a minority investor in the company and was in support of Vanessa Byrne’s sacking of Yelena’s father. In Takuhatsugasa, when Yelena joined Miracle Galaxy Pro, the Shōgun demanded a meeting, during which he threatened to block her from competing in Japan, as well as refusing to allow VilaroFIT’s Osaka expansion to occur. Coincidentally, he wanted Vanessa Byrne eliminated because she stole a large amount of money after Valor closed.

After dealing with Byrne, Yelena was once again summoned to meet with the Shōgun in The Proposal. He offered his support in getting VilaroFIT’s Osaka location approved, but in return he wanted Yelena to kill several of his enemies as payment. She agreed, believing he would soon be dead by her hand anyway. Unfortunately matters were complicated when Miracle Galaxy Pro closed without warning. With no reason to stay in Japan, she returned to the US. With her access to the Shōgun gone, he remains alive, for now, but things always have a way of coming back around.