Mae Holland
Mae is a recent graduate whose internship is neither mentally stimulating nor financially rewarding. She needs to bring home more money because her parents are in need of help; her father has multiple sclerosis and her mother is his primary caregiver, and so they are reliant upon Mae for additional income. She takes the job at The Circle without knowing much about the company other than the fact that her friends Annie and Mercer work there and seem happy.
Mae is a smart girl, and learns quickly, but she is easily caught up in the hype of SeaChange. Her need to catch the eyes of her employers, and to shine at company meetings, seems to override her good sense. At first, she would no more surrender her privacy to "big brother" than you or I, but soon, after a life-changing near catastrophe on the water, she decides that since SeaChange effectively enabled her life to be saved, she wants to go transparent and have her entire existence on camera.
Soon Mae is blind to the needs of those she cares about and they therefore distance from her. Her life becomes a giant paradox; her loved ones do not want to be close to her anymore, but a world full of random strangers are always watching.
Eamon Bailey
Bailey is the founder of The Circle and now works as its C.E.O. He is a hands-on leader who gathers the whole company together every week for a meeting. He likes to give the impression that there is no "them" and "us" at his company and that the newest intern is at the same level as he and his chief operating officer, but this is not really the case, as can be seen by his reluctance to be the only person not viewed all the time by SeaChange.
Bailey is clearly a genius and has the narcissistic personality necessary for him to believe that he can take over the world.
Ty Lafitte
Ty likes Mae, which is surprising because he usually takes an instant dislike to the new, overly-keen members of staff who try to single themselves out with over-enthusiasm at meetings. He is an unassuming genius who has created one of the world's most all-encompassing and successful social media platforms. He does not brag about this, and is actually concerned that in its current form it bears no resemblance to the program he created and its intentions are not those that he had at the time of its inception. Lafitte is beginning to grow concerned and suspicions about The Circle and wants to make sure that its leaders are as transparent as the rest of the world is now required to be.
Tom Stenton
Stenton is the Chief Operating Officer of The Circle. It is his job to implement all of the programs and oversee the finances of the corporation. He is cut-throat and not a man to be crossed but he is also loyal to both the company and its founder. He is in some ways a sidekick to Bailey. Stenton does not believe that he should be subjected to the same rules of transparency as everyone else and is barely able to hide his anger when confronted by Mae at the company meeting and invited to go transparent.
Annie Allerton
At the start of the film, Annie likes her job at The Circle. She enjoys the work, she believes in the mission and she likes her co-workers. She is delighted when her best friend, Mae, comes to work there too - possibly the only thing that could make her day better is working alongside her. As time goes on, though, she becomes less convinced that the work they are doing is helping the world, and more concerned about the gross invasion of privacy that she is helping to inflict on humanity. She takes time away from work after Mercer's death and discovers that she is actually happier when she does not have to be at The Circle offices. She distances herself from Mae as the film goes on because she feels that Mae sacrificed everyone else's freedoms and privacy without their consent.
Mercer Regalado
Mercer is also one of Mae's friends although he is less happy to see her start work at The Circle than Annie is. Mercer is somewhat of the renegade employee. He loves privacy and owns a cabin in the woods, as far away from other people and from civilization as it could possibly be. After he is shown on camera carving a pair of deer antlers, he receives vitriol and threats from strangers who do not like that he engages in the cruelty of deer hunting. This fractures his relationship with Mae whom he believes to have taken away his privacy by sacrificing her own. He takes refuge in the woods but is traumatized when pursuers find him thanks to the SeaChange camera that Mae is operating at The Circle. After a car chase he overturns his vehicle and is killed going off the side of a bridge.
Bonnie and Vinnie Holland, Mae's Parents
The Hollands are good, hard-working people who are proud of their daughter. They are currently struggling with finances and with life in general. Vinnie has multiple sclerosis, which is debilitating and has left him unable to work, or do much unaided. His wife is his primary care-giver, and consequently the couple rely on Mae financially.
Initially a closely-knit family, they drift apart from their daughter when she goes transparent and they feel that too much of their own lives is being seen on camera.
