There is truly no other TV detective quite like the titular hero of Monk — creator Andy Breckman’s hit dramedy which ran on USA from 2002 to 2009. The police consultant is blessed with a remarkable ability to notice little-seen details that help him solve a case faster than the average investigator, but also cursed with several OCD tendencies that makes everything else in his life a challenge.
Having earned him three Emmy awards, Adrian Monk is widely considered to be the definitive role of Tony Shalhoub, who would reprise the character alongside most of the Monk cast in the Peacock original movie, Mr. Monk’s Last Case, in 2023. If you are curious about what else these actors have been up to since the original series ended, take a look below.
Tony Shalhoub (Adrian Monk)
Following his acclaimed eight-season run leading the Monk cast, Tony Shalhoub reprised his role in Pixar’s Cars as Luigi in two more feature-length adventures and also lent his voice to producer Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies as Splinter and Apple TV+’s Central Park in dual roles. He was also a regular on a few short-lived live-action series — namely We are Men and BrainDead — before finding success with his Emmy-winning role on Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as Abe Weissman.
Before showing a glimpse at Adrian’s life post-Covid in Mr. Monk’s Last Case, he showed a glimpse at his life during Covid in Peacock’s The At-Home Variety Show in 2020.
Traylor Howard (Natalie Teeger)
Playing Natalie Teeger — who provides Monk with much-needed help on cases and in every other aspect of life — is Traylor Howard, who previously found small screen success on the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl. Also, in the same year she joined the Monk cast, the actor starred in one of the least beloved sequels of all time, Son of the Mask.
As she told co-star Jason Gray-Stanford on The Randy Disher Podcast, Howard stepped back from acting after Monk ended to spend more time with her children, but would also reprise Natalie in the aforementioned Mr. Monk’s Last Case and The At-Home Variety Show.
Bitty Schram (Sharona Fleming)
Before Natalie was hired to mind Monk, the task was held for three seasons by Sharona Fleming — played by Golden Globe nominee Bitty Schram, who was previously best known as Evelyn Gardner (the right fielder that Tom Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan scolds about “crying in baseball”) in A League of Their Own.
After leaving the Monk cast — reportedly due to the USA Network’s decision to “go in a different creative direction” (via Today) — the Schram took on guest roles in shows like Kitchen Confidential and Ghost Whisperer and movies like 2016’s Moment of Clarity, which is her final acting credit to date. While she would make a guest appearance in Monk’s final season, she was missing from the Mr. Monk’s Last Case cast.
Ted Levine (Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer)
Before playing Leland Stottlemeyer — captain of the San Francisco Police Department’s Homicide Division — Ted Levine was best known for playing one of cinema’s most frightening serial killers, Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb in the Best Picture Oscar winner, The Silence of the Lambs.
However, after Monk ended, cop roles became a notable recurrence in his career — such on FX’s The Bridge and TNT’s The Alienist — when he wasn’t playing more bad guys like Ken Wheatley in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, that is. Levine most recently reprised Stottlemeyer in Last Case and has joined the cast of the upcoming horror TV show, Mayfair Witches Season 2.
Jason Gray-Stanford (Lt. Randy Disher)
Stottlemeyer’s sometimes absent-minded and mistake-prone partner, Randy Disher, is the best-known role of Jason Gray-Stanford, who has done everything from voice acting to podcasting in his 30-plus-year career, which also includes appearing in the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind with his friend, Russell Crowe.
Highlights of his post-Monk career include guest appearances on series like Justified and The Boys and movies like Earth to Echo and an underrated horror movie called Summer of ’84. Gray-Stanford — who underwent a heart transplant in 2020, according to People — recently appeared on Disney+’s Percy Jackson series and is set to appear in Season 2 of NBC’s The Irrational.
Emmy Clarke (Julie Teeger)
In the recurring role of Natalie’s daughter, Julie, we have Emmy Clarke, who had previously made her acting debut in 2003’s HBO movie, My House in Umbria, which she followed with 2006’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.
In 2014, she starred opposite Jeffrey Tambor, Will Forte, and Megan Mullally in Apartment Troubles and, in 2020, reunited with Jason Gray-Stanford by lending her voice to an episode of The Strange Adventures of Gravemind the Warlock — a web series created using footage of World of Warcraft play.
Melora Hardin (Trudy Monk)
The one case that haunted Monk for most of his career was the tragic murder of his wife, Trudy, who was played in flashbacks and some fantasy sequences by Melora Hardin, who also appeared in one episode as an actor posing as Trudy for a sting operation. The actor is even better known today for her recurring role in NBC’s The Office cast as Jan Levinson and as Jacqueline Carlyle on Freefrom’s The Bold Type. Reprising Trudy in Mr. Monk’s Last Case was also her most recent credit, but she has told The Sun that she is open to also reprising Jan in a feature-length Office spin-off.
Stanley Kamel (Dr. Charles Kroger)
As Monk’s longtime therapist, Charles Kroger, we have Stanley Kamel, who unfortunately succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 65 in 2008. His career started in the late 1960s with guest appearances on shows like Mission: Impossible before landing a starring role on Days of Our Lives and guest appearances on classic crime shows like Kojak and Columbo, to name a few.
Kamel also had recurring parts on both Melrose Place and Beverly Hills, 90210 (each in different roles) and starred in movies like Tony Scott’s Domino in 2005 and the terrifying David Lynch movie, Inland Empire, from the following year.
Needless to say, we continue to be obsessed with the Monk cast.
