The Empire Records Cast, 30 Years Later: See Where the Stars Are Now

Liv Tyler as Corey Mason

After appearing alongside Alicia Silverstone in the music video for “Crazy” by Aerosmith (her father Steven Tyler’s band), Tyler stepped into the role of Corey Mason in Empire Records. She played the witty “good girl” with a secret drug problem, whose look became instantly iconic: a cropped, fuzzy baby blue sweater, plaid skirt and combat boots.

“What I do remember is that we had a different outfit planned as our favorite look. Then, the night before we started filming, the studio called and said they wanted me in a plaid skirt and a sweater,” Tyler told Vogue in October 2015.

She continued, “I was like, ‘What!?’ I was so pissed and didn’t understand at all, so we gave them a plaid skirt and a sweater, but with a little f— you thrown in there.”

The added boots were her own, which she called “very loved and worn in.”

Tyler rounded out the ’90s, appearing in Heavy (1995), Stealing Beauty (1996), That Thing You Do! (1996), Armageddon (1998) and Cookie’s Fortune (1999). She then kicked off the 2000s playing half-elven queen Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and later as Betty Ross in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk — a role she reprised in Marvel’s 2025 installment Captain America: New World Order. Tyler has also had recurring roles on The Leftovers, Gunpowder, Harlots and 9-1-1: Lone Star.

The former model and actress is a supporter of UNICEF and the Women’s Cancer Research Fund, for which she has collaborated with her mother, Bebe Buell, and grandmother, Dorthea Johnson. Tyler and Johnson also co-authored Modern Manners: Tools to Take You to the Top, a contemporary handbook on etiquette.

The star married Spacehog rocker Royston Langdon in 2003 and welcomed a son, Milo William, a year later. The couple split in 2008, and Tyler got engaged to sports manager Dave Gardner in 2015. She and Gardner share a son (Sailor Gene) and a daughter (Lula Rose).

Renée Zellweger as Gina

After appearing in two other classics — 1993’s Dazed and Confused (1993) and 1994’s Reality Bites — Zellweger starred in Empire Records as Corey’s wild-child best friend, Gina.

“It’s so weird to think that it was sort of at the tail end of an era. It didn’t seem like that at the time, that it was going to change so profoundly in just a matter of, I don’t know, maybe five years,” Zellweger said during a career retrospective for SAG-AFTRA in January 2020. “It was just an adventure at the time. It was special because the actors were a lot of fun, and I felt like we were at Warhol’s Factory or something.”

Post–Empire Records, Zellweger starred in Jerry Maguire (1996), Chicago (2002) and the Bridget Jones franchise. In 2004, she took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Cold Mountain. Zellweger took a six-year hiatus from acting after she was cast in the 2010 dramedy My Own Love Song.

She returned to the screen in the 2016 films The Whole Truth and Bridget Jones’s Baby before captivating audiences in her first leading TV role on Netflix’s thriller series What/If and on the silver screen as Judy Garland in the 2019 eponymous biopic Judy, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and scored a Grammy nomination for best traditional pop vocal album.

In 2022, Zellweger starred in and served as executive producer for The Thing About Pam, and since 2025, has had a recurring role as Camila White on Only Murders in the Building.

Balancing acting and activism, she has supported the 2005 HIV prevention campaign of the Swiss Federal Health Department as well as The GREAT Initiative, a gender equality organization. In 2011, the actress partnered with Tommy Hilfiger to design a purse to raise money for the Breast Health Institute.

Zellweger and TV personality Ant Anstead started dating in 2021 after meeting on Celebrity IOU: Joyride.

Anthony LaPaglia as Joe Reaves

Before the Australian-born Anthony LaPaglia played Joe — the Empire Records owner who wrangles his employees to save the store — he had appeared in 1993’s So I Married an Axe Murderer and 1994’s The Client.

In the years since Empire Records, LaPaglia continued to build his résumé: He appeared in Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam (1999), Company Man (2000), A Good Marriage (2014) and Annabelle: Creation (2017), as well as his Emmy-winning stint on TV shows like Frasier, Murder One, Without a Trace (for which he won a Golden Globe), Florida Man and Boy Swallows Universe.

He has also made a name for himself as a voice actor, lending his talent to 2006’s Happy Feet and its 2011 sequel, as well as 2010’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole and 2011’s All-Star Superman.

Onstage, LaPaglia appeared in Broadway productions of The Rose Tattoo in 1995 and Lend Me a Tenor in 2010. In 1998, he took home the Tony Award for best actor in a play as Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.

The actor shares a daughter, Bridget, with his ex-wife, Gia Carides, whom he divorced in April 2015 after 17 years of marriage. In 2018, he married German actress Alexandra Henkel.

Robin Tunney as Debra

Robin Tunney shaved off her real hair to play edgy store clerk Deb, and that rock and roll spirit helped her have fun on set with the rest of the cast.

“It was a full-on party,” Tunney said during the 90s Con panel in March 2025. “There was a party every day. We all lived on the beach. Johnny lived below me, and we rehearsed for a month and did nothing but mess around and become friends.”

As a result of her buzz cut, the actress had to wear a blonde wig in the 1996 flick The Craft. Tunney went on to appear in Niagara (1997), End of Days (1999), Vertical Limit (2000), The Burning Plain (2008) and Looking Glass (2018). She also starred alongside Juliette Lewis and Mamoudou Athie in the 2025 body swap psychological drama By Design.

However, Tunney is best known for her TV roles as FBI Agent Teresa Lisbon on The Mentalist and as lawyer Veronica Donovan on Prison Break. In 2019, she starred on ABC’s legal drama The Fix as Maya Travis, a former assistant district attorney investigating a murder.

Tunney has been engaged to interior designer Nicky Marmet since 2012, and the couple shares two children: Oscar Holly and Colette Kathleen.

Ethan Embry as Mark

Embry played the head-banging Empire Records store employee Mark, and had a lot of wild adventures behind the scenes.

“I took so much acid during that period because we were living on the beach,” he said during 90s Con before adding, “I was 16 and there was a carnival down the street, so I’d get it at the ticket counter.”

Following the release of the 1995 film, he went on to appear in That Thing You Do!, Vegas Vacation (1997), Can’t Hardly Wait (1998), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Vacancy (2007), First Man (2018) and Christy (2025). He is set to star in Scream 7, scheduled for release in 2026.

Embry also stood out on the small screen, playing Rhode Island state trooper Declan Griggs on Brotherhood; the real Pete Murphy in Sneaky Pete and Coyote Bergstein, one of Frankie’s (Lily Tomlin) sons, on Grace and Frankie.

He married actress Amelinda Smith in 1998, and they welcomed a son, Cogeian Sky, the following year. Embry and Smith divorced in 2002, and he married actress Sunny Mabrey in 2005. They divorced in 2012 but remarried in 2015.

In 2017, Embry opened up in a since-deleted post on X (formerly Twitter) about his opiate addiction and encouraged others to seek help when needed. He revealed he had been drug-free for six years.

Rory Cochrane as Lucas

When he played Lucas — the clerk who gambles (and loses) a day’s worth of profits — Rory Cochrane was already a familiar face from his role as stoner Ron Slater in Dazed and Confused. He was not only featured alongside future Empire Records costar Zellweger in Dazed, but also in the 1994 crime thriller Love and a .45.

Cochrane went on to appear in A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Argo (2012). In 2015, he played mobster Stephen Flemmi in Black Mass, a biographical drama about infamous crime boss Whitey Bulger (Johnny Depp). Cochrane was then featured as Detective DeLine in Hulu’s Boston Strangler (2023), starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon.

The actor made a splash on TV with his turn as Det. Timothy “Speed” Speedle on several episodes of CSI: Miami, followed by recurring stints on The Company, 24, Reprisal and Yellowstone. Cochrane is set to star alongside Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen in the upcoming Paramount+ limited true crime series Unspeakable: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey.

Johnny Whitworth as A.J.

Johnny Whitworth looked snug in his oversized cardigan as A.J. — the store employee who was seriously hung up on Corey — and has expressed how proud he is of the film’s legacy.

“Being part of a time capsule is kinda wild. I’ve come to really appreciate it, but it was bizarre to me. I didn’t even know that it had a following until just before the 20th anniversary,” Whitworth told TooFab in September 2020. “Being part of something like that has — I mean, the filming was fantastic, but now you don’t even get rehearsals, you wouldn’t get three months to shoot that film, they wouldn’t even make that film, and it’s like, record stores? What are those?”

After Empire Records, Whitworth scored a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker (1997) and portrayed Vernon Gant in Limitless (2011). Whitworth also played Marvel supervillain Blackout in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012).

On the small screen, Whitworth landed recurring roles on CW’s The 100, NBC’s Blindspot and on the CBS procedural CSI: Miami (alongside former Empire Records costar Cochrane).

Brendan Sexton III as Warren

Brendan Sexton III played the would-be shoplifter who notoriously claims his name is Warren Beatty. Before his role, Sexton had only appeared in the 1995 indie fave Welcome to the Dollhouse.

He went on to appear in John Waters’ Pecker (1998), Boys Don’t Cry (1998) and Black Hawk Down (2001). Sexton was also cast on AMC’s The Killing as Belko Royce, Netflix’s Russian Doll as Horse and Amazon Prime Video’s Ballard as Anthony Driscoll.

Sexton owns and runs a New York City-based independent record label: Big Bit of Beauty.

Maxwell Caulfield as Rex Manning

For a different generation, Maxwell Caulfield is best known for leading the cast of the 1982 sequel Grease 2 as Sandy’s cousin Michael Carrington. For ’90s kids, however, Caulfield will forever be Rex Manning — the washed-up ’80s idol of “Say No More, Mon Amour” fame who makes an ill-fated appearance at the store.

What fans may not realize, however, is that a scene of his was removed from Empire Records.

“There’s a scene that got cut from the movie that you can find online that I did with Coyote Shivers, who plays Berko, who’s a musician himself on screen and off,” Caulfield said during the ’90s Con panel. “And it’s quite a poignant scene, after Rex has stormed out or is tossed out of the fabulous record store — which, by the way, was established in 1959, which is the year I was born, so there’s a little secret in there — but there’s a scene and you get to see the other side of the character, the human being.”

The actor has continued to rack up film and TV credits since 1995. Other features include Submerged (2000), Dragon Storm (2004), Love Accidentally (2022) and The Merry Gentlemen (2024). Caulfield has also appeared on episodes of Castle, Modern Family, Emmerdale, Pam & Tommy and The Bay.

No stranger to the stage, Caulfield is a regular in Broadway, Off-Broadway and West End productions, including Chicago, Cactus Flower and Hangmen.

Since 1980, Caulfield has been married to actress Juliet Mills, daughter of actor Sir John Mills and sister of former child star Hayley Mills. He’s the stepfather to Juliet’s two children, Melissa and Sean.

Debi Mazar as Jane

A longtime friend of Madonna, Debi Mazar already had an impressive résumé before joining the cast of Empire Records as Jane. Career highlights included appearing in several of Madonna’s music videos (“True Blue,” anyone?) and bit parts in Goodfellas (1990) and Batman Forever (1995). Her real breakout moment, though, was on ABC’s Civil Wars in the early ’90s.

While Mazar’s Empire Records cameo was memorable, she revealed she “didn’t have a great time shooting” it.

“It was one of those situations where I wasn’t connecting with the director. We had different ideas of who the character was, or who we thought she was at the beginning, and then he changed it,” she told Tudum in May 2022. “I’ve never seen Empire Records. I had such a weird experience [that] I never even wanted to watch it. Ironically, it’s one of the most iconic movies.”

After the 1995 film, Mazar played Jackie on CBS’ That’s Life and received positive reviews for her roles as Shauna Roberts on Entourage, as Maggie Amato on Younger and as Medusa on KAOS.

Since 2002, she has been married to celebrity cook Gabriele Corcos, with whom she created and hosted the Cooking Channel series Extra Virgin. The couple shares two daughters, Evelina Maria and Giulia Isabel, and has since relocated to Italy.