Hugo Baker

Hugo Baker works in communications at Waystar Royco, which mostly means managing disasters before they become headlines. He's a company man to his bones, quick with a reassuring word and quicker to align himself with whoever seems to be winning. He and Tom Wambsgans form an uneasy, needy little alliance amid the executive knife-fighting.

Fisher Stevens plays him as pure institutional flop-sweat, a man whose entire personality has been shaped by decades of absorbing blame so richer people don't have to. He's funny in a wincing way, and the show uses him to show what happens to the people who serve power without ever holding any themselves.