Teddy Daniels / Andrew Laeddis
Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshal investigating a disappearance, is the alter-ego of Andrew Laeddis, an Ashecliffe patient who has been trapped in a delusion for two years. In his former life, Laeddis was an alcoholic who neglected his suicidal wife Dolores Chanal, even after she burned down their apartment. Laeddis is committed after he kills Dolores for drowning their three children, and invents the "Teddy Daniels" persona as a way to dissociate from his past traumas, which Ashecliffe's doctors help him perform. Teddy is likely lobotomized at the end of the film.
Chuck Aule / Lester Sheehan
Chuck Aule is the name used by Dr. Lester Sheehan when posing as Teddy's U.S. Marshals partner during his and Dr. Cawley's "role-play" experiment. Chuck—in fact Teddy's primary psychiatrist—helps Teddy piece together bits of his imagined conspiracy while keeping him safe from physical harm. After Teddy attacks a patient in Ward C, Chuck tries luring him back to Ashecliffe by showing him Laeddis's intake form, but raises Teddy's suspicion by mistakenly saying he is from Seattle, rather than Portland. Like Cawley, Sheehan wants to save Teddy from being lobotomized.
Dr. John Cawley
Dr. John Cawley is the chief medical director of Ashecliffe. Cawley is a physician who believes in rehabilitating patients naturally using long-term therapeutic methods, rather than using invasive surgical procedures and strong prescription pills. Cawley withholds Teddy's chlorpromazine and uses him as a test subject in order to see if he can cure his delusional and violent behavior through "radical role-play" alone. Although Cawley enlists colleagues and patients at Ashecliffe in a group performance to help Teddy "break through" his delusions, he still ends up having to pressure Teddy into acknowledging his repressed trauma.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring
Dr. Jeremian Naehring is a colleague of Dr. Cawley and a member of Ashecliffe's medical board. Naehring is first seen listening to Gustav Mahler while asking Teddy philosophical questions like if he is a "violent" man and whether or not he believes in God. At first, Teddy seems suspicious of Naehring because of his German heritage, which Teddy associates with the possibility of Nazi mind control experiments being conducted on American soil. After Teddy attacks Naehring with a hypodermic needle, Naehring is one of the doctors who recommends that his lobotomy procedure be carried out.
Dolores Chanal
Dolores Chanal is Teddy Daniels's deceased ex-wife, who appears repeatedly in his dreams throughout the film. In his former life as Andrew Laeddis, Teddy was married to Dolores, who is implied to be suicidal, and responsible for burning down their apartment in Boston. After moving to a lake-house in the Berkshires, Teddy arrives home one day to find that Dolores has killed their three children. Dolores's presence anchors Teddy to his hallucinations, and symbolizes the guilt he feels for ignoring her worsening condition and allowing her to kill their children.
Rachelo Solando #1
Dr. Cawley has a female nurse pose as the first Rachel Solando, supposedly an escaped Ashecliffe patient, in order to provoke Teddy into remembering the circumstances of his family's death. The nurse, as Rachel, tells Teddy that she sent the children to school and went for a swim in the lake—two key details that Teddy will later remember from the day that his wife Dolores committed a triple homicide. Teddy wakes up at the end of the film and sees the nurse that played the first Rachel Solando back in her normal uniform.
Rachel Solando #2
The second Rachel Solando is completely a fabrication of Teddy's delusional mind. Teddy, whose conversation with the second Rachel Solando happens in a cliff late at night, is likely imagining her while he is dreaming overnight. The second Rachel Solando confirms the most extreme details of Teddy's conspiracy theory, causing him to become even more intensely paranoid. Rachel's parting words to Teddy are indicative of the paranoid mindset: "You have no friends." Teddy only learns that he imagined the second Rachel at the end of the film.
George Noyce
George Noyce is a patient housed in Ward C whom Teddy attacks for calling him "Laeddis" before the film begins. Teddy's violent attack on Noyce is what causes the medical board to vote to lobotomize Teddy, prompting Cawley and Naehring to take action and try out their experimental "role-play" method first. In Teddy's delusions, Noyce is a leftist college student subjected to torture at Ashecliffe whom Teddy interviewed as a U.S. Marshal. Noyce tries warning Teddy that his investigation is fake and that he may face a lobotomy, but Teddy refuses to believe him.
Deputy Warden McPherson
Deputy Warden McPherson is the first person that Teddy and Chuck speak to upon arriving at Ashecliffe. Cawley orders McPherson to help maintain the ruse that Teddy is in fact a U.S. Marshal. McPherson describes the campus of Ashecliffe to Chuck and Teddy as if they are visitors, and asks that they hand over their weapons, even though he knows they are toys.
Bridget Kearns
Bridget Kearns is the second patient that Teddy interviews after investigating the first Rachel Solando's empty cell. Mrs. Kearns looks visibly uneasy having to perform in her interview with Teddy, given that he is a fellow patient who has been given free rein at Ashecliffe. Mrs. Kearns can be seen later in the film when Teddy returns from his night in the cave, looking anxious at his presence.
