The main recurring characters in the TV series Spooks include (principals shown in bold):

These fictional UK cabinet ministers managed the team or have been characters in some episodes.

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959), known as Hugh Laurie (/ˈhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director. He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.

From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and six Emmy nominations. As of August 2010, Laurie is the highest paid actor in a drama series on US television. He has been listed in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor ever in a TV Drama—earning US$ 700,000 per episode in House—and for being the most watched leading man on television.

Laurie was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The youngest of four children, Laurie has an older brother named Charles and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). His father, Ran Laurie, was a medical doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.

Catherine Ann Keener (born March 23, 1959) is an American actress. She has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Being John Malkovich (1999) and Capote (2005). She also appeared in the critically acclaimed Into the Wild.

Keener was born in Miami, Florida, the third of five children of Evelyn and Jim Keener, a manager of an automotive store. She is of Irish descent on her father's side and of Lebanese descent on her mother's. Keener was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools. Her sister Elizabeth Keener is also an actress.

Keener attended Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts, where she lived with an aunt in order to save on room and board, feeling out of place among her more privileged peers.^{[citation needed]} Keener majored in English and history, enrolling in a theater course only when she was unable to get into a photography class.^{[citation needed]} Her first theatrical production was the Wendy Wasserstein play, Uncommon Women and Others, during her Junior year at Wheaton.^{[citation needed]}

Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE (born Chan Kong-sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong-born Chinesestuntman, actor, and director whose perilous acrobatic stunts and engaging physical humour made him an action-film star in Asia and helped to bring kung fu movies into the mainstream of American cinema. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1960s and has appeared in over 100 films.

Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons, and video games. An operatically trained vocalist, Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. In addition to acting, Chan pursued a career in the Hong Kong music industry, releasing a number of original albums beginning in 1984. He founded the Jackie Chan Charitable Organization in 1998, which, among other projects, offers scholarships to Hong Kong youths, and he worked as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.