All Those Loving Laughing “L Word” Cast Members: Where Are They Now?

While holding court at BlogHer last week, Ilene Chaiken once again blessed her flock with promises of eternal life & salvation via The L Word Movie, which she is currently writing. Also, BETTY, the band responsible for that horrid song, is playing the Highline Ballroom in September. Now that we’ve gotten the people we don’t care about out of the way, what’s the rest of the cast up to these days? Autostraddle has the answers. [Sidenote: if you see that we left something out, comment and let us know!]

ilene is in a straightjacket

Ilene Chaiken in a Straightjacket of Her Own Doing

The Cast of The L Word: Where Are They Now?


jenniferbealsJennifer Beals (Bette Porter)

Photography Book documenting her time on The L Word to be released December 1, according to tibette.com.
TV: Returning to Lie to Me on FOX in the fall in a recurring role as Lightman’s ex.
Movie: Jennifer has a small role in The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington to be released Jan 2010.
Interview: Runner’s World, May 2009 – I’m a Runner.”
Out & About: Attended Stonewall anniversary at the White House w/Obama on June 30 (photo). Also at Marlee Matlin’s Hollywood Square dedication ceremony (below).

Jennifer Behind the Camera at Marlee Matlin's Hollywood Stars ceremony

Jennifer Behind the Camera at Marlee Matlin’s Hollywood Stars ceremony

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Kate Moennig (Shane McCutcheon)

katemoennig
Movie: Plays “Jilly” in Everybody’s Fine with Robert DeNiro, Kate Beckinsale, Melissa Leo and Drew Barrymore, coming out in December ’09.
Interview: Appeared on final episode of This Just Out with Liz Feldman; aired July 20, where she met Liz’s Mom who has a gigantoid crush on her.
Twitter: @katemoennig.
Television: Leading role in a new show, Three Rivers on CBS in the fall. Kate will play “Miranda Foster,” (more about her character here) a feisty and fearless and slightly damanged doctor at an organ transplant clinic named or her late father, where she will be looking sexy/dramatic and emoting slightly formulaic lines about “the good of the patient” while wearing scrubs, and, it appears, a lot of puffy jackets. Filming for Three Rivers will begin in August in Pittsburgh Los Angeles (according to inside sources, the show is filmed in LA and the Pittsburgh shooting is just for exteriors/B-roll) though exact dates have not yet been set. From what we’ve seen of the new script it would seem that Miranda’s character is slightly less hot-blooded than she was in the original pilot except where the patient is concerned and then she is very passionate.
ETA 8.1.09: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does a set visit and discusses the re-shooting of the pilot, which will star Alfre Woodard rather than Julia Ormond (We love Alfre Woodard and are actually slightly more excited for the show now). Interesting tidbits include: “Odd, clingy scrubs that resembled “Star Trek” uniforms in the Pittsburgh pilot have been discarded in favor of more normal-looking scrubs.”
– Updates per always are at the kate moennig fansite.

Kate in "Three Rivers," Shane would hate this haircut

Kate in “Three Rivers,” Shane would hate this haircut

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miakirshnerMia Kirshner (Jenny Schecter)

Television: guest starred on A&E’s The Cleaner on July 14 as “April May,” a “talented, troubled, rebellious and slightly immature singer, who has difficult managing her new status as a hot mess paparazzi bait.” (photo from The Cleaner, right)
Radio: will become a permanent guest commentator on Air America’s new radio show Hollywood! CLOUT, which combines politics with Hollywood. Hosted by Richard Greene from 9-11pm daily, Mia will appear as the “social and international issues” commentator every Wednesday
Giving Back: In conjunction with the publication of her book I Live Here, which examines the lives of refugees and displaced people in four corners of the world with all profits benefiting relief efforts, Mia hosted an Operation USA fundraising event in June and continues to work with visibility and relief organizations.

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Laurel Holloman (Tina Kennard)

laurelholloman
Out & About: Last public appearance was at the Bravo A-List Awards in April, accepting the award for best sex scene for Bette & Tina.
Television: She will appear in an episode of Castle airing September 21st for a one-episode spot as “Sandy Allen”:

[SANDY ALLEN] Female, late 30s, she is informed by the police that her husband has been murdered. She lives on the Upper East Side in a middle-class co-op.

– Interview: Told Netscape Celebrity that she is taking some down-time after The L Word to be with her daughter: “My baby is still a year old. I want to be with her all the time, but I’m out there looking for the right thing. We’ll see what happens. I think when you’re on a series for a long time, it might need to die down for a little while. I think it’s easy to get worried about what’s going to come up and then you take the wrong thing so I’m trying to be smart.”
Online: The new officially endorsed LaurelHolloman.net fansite has launched! You can ask Laurel questions, donate to Doctors Without Borders and look at her beautiful face there whenever you want!
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Leisha Hailey (Alice Pieszecki)leisha

Television: Appeared in a small role in the Lifetime mini-series, Maneater (Carly recaps here)
Twitter: Leisha & Cam both use twitter @uhhuhhermusic
UHH: working on the next Uh Huh Her album right now (yay!) (lots of photos on myspace!)
-playing the Bumbershoot Festival September 5th in Seattle, Washington.
– Latest Leisha updates can always be found at Uh Huh Her fan.
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FNAC_forum_dedicace_p072Rachel Shelley (Helena Peabody)

– Life: Also pregnant — if she was 5 months preggers in March, I think that means she must be giving birth right about now?
– Magazines: Writes a monthly column for Diva magazine: in August she wrote about how all the girls from The L Word are pregnant and in July covered the joys of working with women and in May discussed attitudes about sex. Also in May, Rachel Shelley interviewed Alex Hedison in Diva Magazine: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.
– Out and About: Will be appearing at The L Word Down Under convention in January 2010, in Australia!
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Sarah Shahi (Carmen de La Pica Morales)sarah shahi

– Movie: Plays “Carla” in Untitled Beatle Boyin Project – in production, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, release date: 2010
– Television: Her show, Life, on NBC was recently cancelled after 2 seasons
– Life: Married long time boyfriend, Steve Howey, in Vegas recently.
– Life: Is pregnant and due in Summer 2009 (on facebook says she had a baby boy on July 9th – William Wolf Howey, but this hasn’t been confirmed).
Out & About: Photo from May 27th, 2009 at the Giggles n’ Hugs Mommy & Me event in California.
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NEXT: Papi, Dawn Denbo, Jodi Lerner, THE LYNCH and more continue to do no wrong …

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3164 articles for us.

30 Comments

  1. On Kate, you forgot she has a movie coming out in Dec. with Drew Barrymore & Kate Beckinsale and some old man. Oh yeah, Deniro.

    • Got it — looks like Dorothy announced that just today on AE. I’ve updated accordingly. Thanks!

  2. WHERE IS JAMES?!?!?!?!?!?
    i like to think of him as jennifer beals’ assistant in real life.

  3. what about Marina??? and the Manny?

    and what the eff IS James doing???

    also, there’s no way I’m watching Three Rivers. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stomach a straightified Kate.

    • Yes Marina! hah! ok I added Marina! I will look into Dallas Roberts, maybe I should add Eric Mabius too. I didn’t know if there would be interest in the dudes.

    • I actually did look up the Manny, and he wasn’t doing anything – just as James, as of right now

  4. Oh Shane…because she has no other name.
    This hair situation is not working out for me. Neither are the scrubs. I hate CBS for doing this to me.

  5. sometimes i find BETTY to be highly inspirational. as in like “wow, people know who they are?! i can do anything!”

  6. That picture of Kate could be an after picture for one of those de-gayfication places. Quite frightening. Alternative lifestyle haircut stat.

    • I don’t think I would recognized her if it hadn’t sayd “Kate Moennig” underneath. Instead of watching the show I’m just going to assume Kate/Shane is having sex with every woman who has 3 seconds or more of screen time.

      Sidenote, I wrote “sayd” instead of “said” but it’s kind of funny so i’m leaving it.

      • I feel like that was accidentally a photo from the “before shane” archives. Like that’s what she looked like before she got Gayed Over. I feel like that’s a wig. Even pre-Shane Kate was always so wispy. There’s just a lot of things about it that make me feel weird. The weirdest part though is the excruciatingly formulaic script. I might bang my head against the wall praying for a carnival flashback.

        • maybe. maybe sarah chalke will guest star as elliott reid and all my dreams can come true.

  7. In Kate/Shane’s defense, her hair looks a little … tiny bit better actually on screen. Maybe I can trick myself to believe her hair looks like that because she slept with every woman not in the ICU. Sex hair if you will, youknowwhatimean? I just didn’t see any bowchicawowow, that’s all. Also, every time she carries around a cooler containing some sort of “organ”, I will imagine it is beer.
    —–
    *sigh* It’s just so bad…
    —–
    On a happy note new UHH album. Yay! I must see them live at least once in my lifetime.

  8. I am so unhappy about Kate Moennig’s hetro haircut. And all the hetero baby bumps. The L Word is well and truly over!

  9. Thanks for the updates. Ms. Shahi is the only one who matters to me, though! Love that little ~straight~ bitch!

  10. Pingback: #wherearetheynow | L Word Cast I L Word Actresses I Where Are They Now? | Autostraddle

  11. I am 100% confident Erin isn’t pregnant anymore. Rachel Shelley probably isn’t either. New babies all around!

  12. Is it possible just to pretend it never ended, who wants to move on from the L word to a bunch of lame straight people who are 99% less sexually undesirable. I will keep these characters and sex scenes locked on video and in my dreams.

  13. I wish The L Word could’ve gone on forever. I can never picture these pretty ladies with a man. Ah, it hurts my heart. ahaha

  14. c’mon, don’t knock Betty. Tolerable band. And live they’re better – which isn’t the case with most these days.

Comments are closed.