The Butterfly Effect cast: The Butterfly Effect cast and character guide: Who plays whom in the sci-fi thriller

The universe has already laid a path for us and no matter what awaits us on that path, we must walk it. Eric Bress's 2004 critical disaster and commercial success The Butterfly Effect plays out on this concept and tells us the consequences of fiddling with the universe's path.

It includes the element of time travel, where one guy, who has gone through a lot of mental suffering throughout his life, tries to change the future by trying to change certain events in the past. However, things don't turn out to be as he intended, so he has to do that again, but there's always something unintended.

Ashton Kutcher is in the lead alongside Amy Smart, William Lee Scott, Elden Henson, and more. Let's take a look at who plays whom in the movie. The film is one tangled thread, so this list is intended to untangle it as best as it can.

The Butterfly Effect cast

Ashton Kutcher as Evan

Ashton Kutcher is the main man, Evan, in The Butterfly Effect, and holds this ability to time travel by reading his journals, which he maintains as his coping mechanism. Interestingly, the main character is the one who shouldn't be in the film, as revealed in the director's cut, and things would've been easier for others if he wasn't born.

Like him, his friends, Lenny Kagan, Tommy Kagan, and Kayleigh Miller, have suffered traumatic experiences during their childhood and now their lives have become a disaster. This is the reason Evan chooses to time travel to make his friends' lives better.

John Patrick Amedori plays 14-years-old Evan
Logan Lerman plays 7-years-old Evan

Amy Smart as Kayleigh

Amy Smart at SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations Presents "Rally Caps" (Image via Getty)

Kayleigh is sort of Evan's love interest, but their lives begin with both of them forced into child pornography by Kayleigh's own father. Because of this, she takes her own life. Evan prevents this by traveling back in time and ends up changing the future.

Now, they are a couple in this new reality. But there are consequences. This leads Evan to time travel again in The Butterfly Effect, which creates a new reality and now Kayleigh is not his wife here. There's also a reality where she is a drug-addicted prostitute.

Irene Gorovaia plays 14-years-old Kayleigh
Sarah Widdows plays 7-years-old Kayleigh

William Lee Scott as Tommy

Tommy is Kayleigh's brother in The Butterfly Effect. (Image via New Line Cinema)

Tommy is Kayleigh's brother in The Butterfly Effect, and when Evan time traveled for the first time, which resulted in him ending up with Kayleigh, he was the one who ended up with the share of Kayleigh's trauma. Here, Tommy is more violent and is killed by Evan in an act of self-defense.

Evan had to go back in time to change this. He did change this but Tommy is killed in a different way. Following this, Evan finds himself in a new reality again and gets killed himself. Again, he wakes up in a new reality where Tommy has become the exact opposite, a religious person.

Jesse James plays 14-years-old Tommy
Cameron Bright plays 7-years-old Tommy

Elden Henson as Lenny

Elden Henson recently appeared in Daredevil: Born Again. (Image via Marvel Entertainment)

Before we saw Elden Henson's Foggy dying in Daredevil: Born Again and giving us the heartbreak of the year, he played traumatized Lenny, one of Evan's friends in The Butterfly Effect.

In the reality where Tommy becomes religious, Kayleigh ends up with Lenny. And in the one where Tommy is killed, it is Lenny who is responsible.