List of New Girl characters
New Girl is an American television sitcom created by Elizabeth Meriwether. The show, set in Los Angeles, depicts the interpersonal adventures of offbeat teacher Jess (Zooey Deschanel) after her spontaneous move into an apartment loft with three men: Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Winston (Lamorne Morris). Jess' best friend Cece (Hannah Simone) and their former roommate Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.) regularly visit them. The show also features a number of characters that appear as love interests, acquaintances, or family members for the characters in multiple episodes in a season or across multiple seasons.
Caroline (), Nick's ex-girlfriend at the start of the series. She and Nick hook up briefly near the end of season 1, and Nick is about to move into an apartment with her.[27]
Mary Elizabeth Ellis
Paul Genzlinger (), a music teacher at Jess' school whom Jess takes a liking to.[28] The guys remark that he is quirky and emotional like a male version of Jess. Jess thinks he makes a funny face when he cries. He later becomes engaged to Jenn, who Jess thinks is like an Asian version of her.[27] In a season 4 episode "Walk of Shame", it was revealed that he and Jenn had broken up, and that he had been working as a clown entertainer for kids' birthday parties, but Jess convinces him to quit that and move forward with his life.
Justin Long
Gina (), Schmidt's boss and the Vice President at Associated Strategies. She is described as "tough, domineering, unpleasant".[29] She has a baby shower in season 1 which Schmidt gets himself invited to.[n] She has a son named Elvin whom Winston befriends at the holiday Christmas party,[o] and whom Winston watches over as a nanny prior to his radio show job.
Michaela Watkins
Sadie (), Jess' friend who is a lesbian gynecologist.[30] She is pregnant in the second season. Her partner is Melissa, who is played by series writer Kay Cannon.[31]
June Diane Raphael
Kim (), Schmidt's other boss and the CFO at Associated Strategies. She has dark blonde hair.[32] Some of her tasks seem like double entendres to Schmidt.[p]
Gillian Vigman
Remy (Jeff Kober), the creepy landlord of the apartment building that the guys wanted to avoid using whenever possible. When Jess befriends him, he assumes she wants to flirt with him. He is also OK with having a threesome with Nick and Jess.[37]
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Julia Cleary (Lizzy Caplan), Nick's girlfriend in a story arc in season 1. At first she appears to be the perfect girl to Nick, but later it is revealed she has anger management issues.[28] She is a lawyer who has a contrasting personality to the bubbly Jess.[k]
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Russell Schiller (Dermot Mulroney), appears in the episodes "Fancyman" as the divorced father of one of Jess' students. He dislikes that his daughter did a weird art project and wanted to pull her out of Jess' class. Jess' boss reveals that Russell was the third largest donor in the city, and the episodes show that he has a fancy car and house, but that he is very generous and kind to Jess because he likes her.[r] Mulroney described his role as being a person half-generation older, but that he had a blast working with the group. Mulroney's role was initially for three episodes but was extended to a fourth episode and also included guest star Jeanne Tripplehorn who played Russell's ex-wife.[39] In the season 7 premiere, Russell says that he had remarried and divorced twice in the three years since Jess and Nick got back together, and has a toddler that is in the same gym class as Ruth. He hires Jess to work at his education-based non-profit.[40][41]
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Joe Napoli (), a sports radio personality who hires Winston as his research assistant. Hendrie himself is a radio personality.[42][43]
Phil Hendrie
Nadia (), a Russian model and one of Cece's roommates. On Cece's prompting, she and Schmidt have a date, but it results in an awkward sexual encounter, in which Schmidt injures his penis and has to be hospitalized. Reid auditioned when the show was looking for fashion models that would serve as "intimidatingly taciturn roommates for Cece", and that the character was originally going to just say five words but her role got extended to three episodes. Reid said that she had met Russian models who acted like that.[44] In the season 4 episode "Girl Fight", she has a baby shower.[45]