Caucasian female. 18 to play 15. A thoughtful, emotionally intuitive teenager who appears calm and mature beyond her years. She works hard to stay composed, but small moments can easily unsettle her. At five, she lost her father, Léo, and although her memories are fragmented, the emotional impact of his death continues to shape her. Louise often feels like an outsider in her own family. She senses that the adults, especially her mother, are hiding the truth about her father, and this unspoken tension fuels her quiet frustration and anger. Haunted by a recurring nightmare connected to his death, Louise carries unresolved grief she doesn’t yet know how to name. Quiet, observant, and emotionally layered, Louise is already moving toward the heart of the story, without fully understanding what she is about to uncover.

Age 30s. John carries a quiet intensity that draws people in. He is warm, observant, and deeply empathetic, often communicating more through silence than words. His stillness feels alive, charged with thought and feeling beneath the surface. Physically intuitive, John needs movement to process emotion, hanging, climbing, or engaging his body as a way to stay connected to the world around him. His emotional range is subtle but rich: tenderness that slips into melancholy, moments of lightness that reveal unhealed wounds, calm that conceals inner turbulence. This role requires an actor who can express depth with minimal dialogue, a grounded physical presence, emotional restraint, and an instinctive, embodied performance.

The same actor will portray a younger version of the character. David is grounded, warm, and deeply practical. He provides emotional stability in a family shaped by loss, offering reassurance through patience, consistency, and quiet humor. His presence feels steady and calming, often diffusing tension without drawing attention to himself. Empathic and emotionally intelligent, David understands when to listen and when to gently lighten the moment. His warmth and understated comedic timing bring relief amid strain, making him a stabilizing force across timelines. This role requires an actor who can project natural warmth, subtle humor, and emotional reliability, someone whose grounded presence feels reassuring without ever becoming performative.

The same actress will portray a younger version of the character. Fanny carries a rich, contradictory emotional life shaped by love, grief, and long-unresolved trauma. She presents as grounded, capable, and fiercely maternal, yet beneath her composure lives a woman who has never fully processed the loss of the man she loved. Her strength is real, but so are the cracks beneath it. This role requires an actress who can embody resilience and maternal warmth while revealing the emotional weight and inner unrest beneath the surface.

Age 20–26. Ben is a warm, steady presence with a gentle strength that puts others at ease. A young father, he is loving, reliable, and emotionally grounded, moving through life with calm attentiveness rather than overt expression. His emotional life is quiet and internal, carried in posture, listening, and restraint rather than dramatic outbursts. Beneath his stability lies a subtle, unresolved shadow, an inherited confusion tied to a past no one ever fully explained to him. Ben has grown up protecting others before fully understanding himself, and traces of unprocessed emotion surface in moments of stillness and reflection. This role requires an actor who can convey depth with minimal dialogue: tenderness, patience, and quiet protectiveness, alongside the understated weight of something unfinished. Emotional nuance, naturalism, and the ability to communicate inner life through silence are essential.

Claire is an elegant, intelligent woman who carries herself with restraint and quiet authority. Her emotional life is subtle but deeply felt, often expressed through silence rather than speech. Composed and thoughtful, she speaks with warmth and gentleness, even as fear, regret, and unspoken memory live just beneath the surface. She is protective by nature, carefully choosing what to reveal and what to withhold. Nostalgia shapes her presence, occasionally overwhelming her when memories resurface, memories she actively avoids confronting. Small shifts in expression can move her from confidence to discomfort, revealing emotional fault lines she works hard to keep contained. This role requires an actress with strong command of stillness and nuance, someone who can sustain emotional tension in silence and communicate layered inner life through minimal gesture and restraint.

Dr. Yeung is calm, composed, and quietly authoritative, with a grounded presence that immediately feels safe. She leads with empathy and intellectual clarity, listening more than she speaks. When she does speak, her words are measured, intentional, and reassuring. Beneath her professional control lives genuine warmth and concern. As Louise’s situation becomes more complex, subtle shifts, worry, doubt, and restrained fear, begin to surface through her eyes and pauses, even as she maintains stability and composure. She holds the delicate balance between rational psychological explanation and an emerging sense that something lies beyond what can be easily named. This role requires an actress capable of restraint and nuance, someone who can project confidence and care while allowing quiet emotional tension to register beneath the surface.

Léo is a loving, devoted father who is slowly collapsing under the weight of something he cannot name. Sleep-deprived and emotionally drained, he moves through the world with growing confusion as a recurring nightmare begins to overtake his waking life. His emotional range shifts from deep tenderness toward his young daughter to quiet panic and mounting fear. He struggles to maintain rational control, but beneath his composure, obsession and exhaustion erode his sense of self. Léo is not volatile, his unraveling is gradual, internal, and painful to witness. This role requires an actor who can balance warmth and vulnerability: someone able to convey fragility, mental and physical fatigue, and creeping dread, while preserving the humanity of a man still trying to protect his family as he falls apart.