Major characters
- Tod Hackett - an Ivy-League-trained artist who comes to California to find inspiration for his painting and experiences a violent re-visioning of the painting in a literal sink or swim moment that nearly claims his life during the mob scene outside Mr. Kahn's Pleasure Dome. Tod is hired by the movie studio to paint and decorate sets.
- Homer Simpson - a former accountant at a hotel in Iowa who comes to California at the recommendation of his doctor to restore his health. Soft mannered, sexually repressed, and socially ill-at-ease, Homer's almost constant inner turmoil is expressed through his huge hands which have an uncontrollable and detached nature to them.
- Faye Greener - an aspiring Hollywood actress who realizes that she has the face and body for Hollywood, but can't admit that she lacks a significant talent and struggles to compete for even extra parts.
Secondary characters
- Abe Kusich - a little person bookmaker/hustler and friend of Faye and Harry Greener.
- Claude Estee - a successful but very cynical screenwriter.
- Earle Shoop - a fake California cowboy/stud who makes a scant salary working at a western wear and novelty shop. He camps out in the hills above Los Angeles. Earle and Faye have a sexual relationship.
- Miguel - a Mexican-American who plays a native-American Indian, and Earle's sidekick at the store. Miguel enjoys cockfighting. Faye sleeps with Miguel to make Earle jealous.
- Mrs. Jenning - runs an escort service and pornographic film parlor.
- Harry Greener - Faye's father, a third-rate vaudevillian from the East who is chronically ill. When he can't get a performing gig he peddles home-made silver polish, but it's more of an opportunity to work his schtick than to provide a meaningful income.
- Adore Loomis - a precocious child actor who teases Homer until he snaps. Homer's stomping Adore to death coincides with the eruption of mob violence outside the blockbuster debut.
West's characters are intentionally shallow, stereotyped, and "derive from all the B-grade genre films of the period" (Simon, 523). They are what Light calls "grotesques". Tod Hackett's first name is a derivative of the German word for death, and his last name refers to a common epithet for Hollywood screenwriters and artists, who were pejoratively called "hacks." In the first chapter of the novel, the narrative voice announces: "Yes, despite his appearance, Tod was really a very complicated young man with a whole set of personalities, one inside the other like a nest of Chinese boxes."
