For decades, body swap movies have shown what might happen if two people got to experience each other’s lives, often by mystical means. The subgenre has, typically, focused on only two characters encountering this strange scenario, but the new 2023 Netflix movie, Family Switch, is changing things up.
Now available to stream with a Netflix subscription, this fantasy comedy from director McG follows a family who wake up in each other’s bodies. Specifically, the mom and teenager daughter switch, the father becomes his teenage son and vice versa, and they all notice that their infant boy and dog take on each other’s characteristics as well. A star-studded ensemble is bringing this fun, fresh take on the body swap genre to life, so let’s take a look at who plays who in the Family Switch cast and what else you may know them from.
Jennifer Garner (Jess Walker)
Jess Walker — who finds herself trapped in the body of her own daughter — is, technically, not Jennifer Garner’s first body-swap victim. She previously played a woman inhabited by her younger self in the 2004 friends-to-lovers rom-com, 13 Going on 30. Family Switch is also only her latest Netflix original movie, having starred in a more grounded comedy called Yes Day in 2021 and reunited with Mark Ruffalo in the time travel adventure, The Adam Project, the following year.
Garner rose to prominence in her Emmy-nominated role as double agent Sydney Bristow on ABC’s Alias. This earned her more ass-kicking roles such as Elektra (whom she is rumored to be reprising in Deadpool 3) in 2003’s Daredevil and her self-titled 2005 spin-off, Janet Mayes in 2007’s The Kingdom, and a vengeful wife and mother in 2018’s Peppermint. She has also had a few Oscar winners under her belt (2007’s Juno and 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club), even more family-centered films (including the coming-of-age LGBTQ+ romance movie Love, Simon), and, also in 2023, she led Apple TV+’s limited mystery thriller series, The Last Thing He Told Me.
Ed Helms (Bill Walker)
Jess’ husband, Bill — who switches bodies with his teenage son — technically counts as Ed Helms’ first body-swap role. However, he also helped pilot a spaceship resembling a human body in Meet Dave, voiced a man hypnotically inhabited by a superhero alter-ego in 2017’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, and would take on some characteristics of Michael Scott (fellow The Office cast member, Steve Carell) when Andy Bernard became Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch manager. Also, we imagine his role in the Hangover cast, Stu, wishes he could be anybody else whenever the iconically bromantic trio, the Wolfpack, get into trouble.
Helms has also appeared in (and sometimes produced) various Netflix originals — including Coffee & Kareem, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, and the surreal sketch comedy series Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun, to name a few. He has also done a few family comedies that are not very family-friendly — 2013’s We’re the Millers and the Vacation requel in 2015 — but does have some other animated family movies under his belt — namely The Lorax and Ron’s Gone Wrong. His other notable comedies include Cedar Rapids or Father Figures, but he has also branched out into drama with Jeff Who Lives at Home and Chappaquiddick.
Emma Myers (CC Walker)
Jess and Bill’s daughter CC is played by Emma Myers, whose character in Netflix’s Wednesday cast, Enid Sinclair, did experience a major bodily change in the Season 1 finale of the Addams Family reboot in 2022. That hit series was not her first spooky role — having previously appeared in a Snapchat original series called Dead of Night and the 2021 Lifetime original true crime thriller, Girl in the Basement, which is unsettling enough to count as horror.
Myers’ credited feature-length debut was a more lighthearted Lifetime movie — a 2020 holiday rom-com called A Taste of Christmas — and she more recently starred in 2023 music biopic called Southern Gospel. She started out with an uncredited role in 2010’s Letters to God, a guest spot on the prematurely cancelled TV show, The Glades, and short films like Crooked. Coming up, she will return for Wednesday Season 2 and is also starring in a series adaptation of the book A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder for BBC.
Brady Noon (Wyatt Walker)
As CC’s brother, Wyatt, we have Brady Noon, who made his acting debut alongside his own real-life twin sibling, Connor, when sharing the role of Tommy Darmody on the first four seasons of Boardwalk Empire. The brothers later appeared together in the 2022 rom-com, Marry Me, after Brady made his feature-length film debut in the raunchy comedy, Good Boys, in 2019.
Soon after, he played a good boy trying to survive middle school in two animated Disney+ original movies based on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and, between them, starred in the streaming platform’s The Mighty Duck: Game Changers cast as Evan Morrow. He also had an uncredited role in Disney+’s coming-of-age, sci-fi adventure movie, Crater, in 2023 — the year when his voice acting career really began to take off when he joined the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem cast as Raphael. He is set to reprise said role in Nickelodeon’s upcoming series spin-off, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in 2024.
Rita Moreno (Angelica)
Angelica — a mysterious woman responsible for the Walkers suddenly walking in each others’ shoes — is played by Rita Moreno, who is also no stranger to Netflix originals. She starred on the platform’s reboot of the hit sitcom, One Day at a Time, before lending her voice to the recent Carmen Sandiego series (having voiced the title role in the original ‘90s cartoon), the limited series Maya and the Three, and the film My Father’s Dragon from 2022.
Of course, Moreno is best known for the roles that made her an EGOT winner — including her Oscar-winning role in 1961’s West Side Story which Steven Spielberg later remade and cast her in. Highlights from her 70-plus years as a performer also include other classic movie musicals liked Singin’ in the Rain and The King & I, the long-running children’s show, The Electric Company (which earned her a Grammy), her role in the Oz cast, and hit 2023 movies 80 for Brady and Fast X.
Matthias Schweighöfer (Rolf)
Rolf — a dog trainer living next door to the Walkers — is only the latest of many Netflix original movie characters played by Matthias Schweighöfer. His working relationship with the streaming giant started in 2021 when he joined Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead cast as safecracker Ludwig Dieter — a role he reprised in a prequel called Army of Thieves (which he also directed) and is set to voice for the upcoming animated series spin-off, Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas. In 2022, he starred in a sports biopic called The Swimmers and appeared alongside Gal Gadot in the Heart of Stone cast the following year.
Schweighöfer is even more famous in his native country of Germany for writing, directing, and starring in movies — such as the 2011 rom-com What a Ma — and TV shows, like Amazon Prime’s action thriller You Are Wanted, which he also composed the music for. He made his English-language debut in FearDotCom, later starred in Valkryie opposite Tom Cruise, and more recently appeared in another World War II-era drama when he joined Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer cast as theoretical physicist, Werner Heisenberg. Also in 2023, he is playing record producer Frank Farian in an upcoming Milli Vanilli biopic called Girl You Know It’s True.
We also wanted to make sure we mentioned Lincoln and Theodore Sykes as the Walker’s baby, Miles, and Oliver as their dog, Pickles. The Family Swtich cast also includes the likes of Top Gun: Maverick cast member Bashir Salahuddin, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino from Netflix’s One Piece cast, comedian Fortune Feimster, comedian and podcast host Paul Scheer, Andrew Bachelor from McG’s The Babysitter, and comedian Pete Holmes, among others.
