George Clooney's Forgotten 6-Part War Series Has An Impressively Stacked Cast

George Clooney's big break on the small screen came via NBC's ER, while the greatest critical acclaim he has received over the course of his career came from films like Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck. One of his best projects has been largely forgotten, however, despite his work as a cast member, director, and executive producer. Hulu's Catch-22 was not only a solid miniseries when first released in 2019, but the cast is also even more impressive now that even more actors became stars in their own right.

Catch-22 was an adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Joseph Heller and published in 1961. The satirical war novel had already been made into a movie back in 1970, featuring a cast that included Alan Arkin, Jon Voight, Art Garfunkel, and Orson Welles, among others. Thanks to the show's format as a six-episode miniseries, Hulu's version could tell more of the original story than was possible in the two-hour film from nearly 50 years earlier.

The series follows the exploits of a US air squadron in Italy during the course of World War II. The story is about much more than just pilots and bombardiers targeting Axis powers in the 1940s, thanks to the ranking officer continually raising the number of missions that his men would have to fly. The real problem facing the soldiers in the comedy isn't the enemy closing in, but rather the convoluted bureaucracy of the military.

The famous "Catch-22" from the title of the book (and then the show) ruled that one doesn't have to fly their missions if that person is crazy. In order to want to be relieved of duties, however, one has to be sane, and therefore fit to fly. The book is full of memorable characters, so it only made sense when George Clooney's adaptation found a talented cast to surround him.

Catch-22's Cast Is Even More Impressive 7 Years After The Miniseries' Release

The main players of Catch-22 were Christopher Abbott (Captain John Yossarian), Kyle Chandler (Colonel Cathcart), Lewis Pullman (Major Major Major Major), Austin Stowell (Nately), Gerran Howell (Kid Sampson), Hugh Laurie (Major de Coverley), and George Clooney (Brigadier General Scheisskopf).

Prior to the Hulu miniseries, Abbott had accumulated notable credits, including James White (2015), It Comes at Night (2017), 13 episodes of Girls, and the first season of The Sinner, which also starred Bill Pullman, the father of his future Catch-22 co-star. George Clooney was, of course, a major Hollywood star before coming on board Catch-22, and Fox's House had made Hugh Laurie a household name on the American side of the pond after he'd found success in the U.K. Kyle Chandler had a fanbase of his own after playing Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights, followed by Bloodline.

Other cast members weren't quite stars just yet when Catch-22 premiered in 2019. Lewis Pullman became widely known after his role in Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and Thunderbolts* (2025), and his TV roles like Apple TV's Lessons in Chemistry and Prime Video's Outer Range were memorable as well. Austin Stowell followed Catch-22 up with some guest roles on the small screen, and is currently the lead of CBS' successful NCIS: Origins.

As for Gerran Howell, most of his work prior to Catch-22 was in the U.K., but he's well known now to American audiences as Dr. Dennis Whitaker on The Pitt. Howell has even been nominated for an Emmy for his work on HBO Max's medical drama.

Catch-22 Is Still George Clooney's Only Appearance In A Streaming Show

Despite an influx of movie stars heading to streaming TV over the last decade, such as Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren for 1923, Meryl Streep for Only Murders in the Building, and Wynona Rider for Stranger Things, George Clooney hasn't appeared in any streaming series other than Catch-22. In fact, other than two minor returns to ER, Clooney has rarely gone back to his television roots as an actor in the years since he left the medical drama as a series regular in 1999.

Clooney has worked as an executive producer and director for TV projects over the years, including K Street, Unscripted, and Memphis Beat. Somehow, the star has never delved into streaming television since Catch-22 in 2019, nor did he do so before he came on board Hulu's adaptation of the book. It remains to be seen if Clooney will ever come back to TV on a streaming platform; for now, fans will have to check out the miniseries to see him on the small screen.