‘The Fabulous Brody Boys’

By Ricardo D. Rebelo

The Jaws film series is packed with memorable characters and quotes. But how many people remember the only two characters who appear in all four films? Mike and Sean Brody—sons of Police Chief Martin Brody—form a loose thread of continuity throughout the franchise, though they’re played by six different actors.

Mike Brody, first played by Chris Rebello in Jaws (1975), is introduced as a playful young boy who jokes that he was “bitten by a vampire.”

After his mother, Ellen Brody, patches him up, Mike becomes one of the series’ emotional anchors—both enamored with and haunted by the ocean. One of his memorable lines, “Aw, Dad, the pond’s for old ladies,” foreshadows his close brush with death during a shark attack. He survives, but not before witnessing a man in a rowboat devoured by the shark—a turning point that finally convinces Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) to confront Mayor Vaughn and authorize hiring Quint.

Sean Brody, played by Jay Mello in the original film, doesn’t get much screen time but steals a key scene by mimicking his father’s gestures at the dinner table—a small but powerful moment of intimacy.

He’s mostly seen building sandcastles on the beach but returns in the sequels with increasing prominence.

In Jaws 2 (1978), Mark Gruner now portrays Mike. He’s a teen sailor involved in a regatta that ends in disaster thanks to a new great white. Sean, now played by Marc Gilpin, blackmails Mike into letting him come along—only to be traumatized by watching a woman killed by the shark while clinging to a capsized boat.

Again, the Brody boys come dangerously close to death but survive.

Oddly, despite witnessing gruesome shark attacks up close, neither Mike nor Sean is ever shown struggling with PTSD. By Jaws: The Revenge, Mike is a full-fledged marine biologist, and while he’s more brooding than before, he’s still drawn to the sea.

In Jaws 3-D (1983), Dennis Quaid now plays Mike.  The film moves away from Amity Island to a SeaWorld-style marine park in Florida. Mike works as an engineer, not a biologist. This pivot in setting and character career tracks was partly due to Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss refusing to return for sequels. Quaid, an emerging lead actor at the time, stepped in to carry the franchise forward.

Sean, played here by John Putch, is a secondary character whose main role is to provide some continuity. He dates a character played by Lea Thompson (in one of her first film roles), but doesn’t contribute much to the plot. Other than Quaid, Thompson, and Louis Gossett Jr., few actors from this entry went on to notable careers.

Quaid’s Mike Brody is arguably the most charismatic version of the character, and it’s a shame he didn’t return for Jaws: The Revenge (1987).  That role went to Lance Guest, known for The Last Starfighter. In this final installment, Mike Brody is now living in the Bahamas and working as a marine biologist.

Sean Brody, played by Mitchell Anderson, has followed in his father’s footsteps as the chief of police on Amity Island—until he’s killed by a great white shark in a bizarre revenge plot that suggests the shark has a psychic connection to the Brody family.

Ellen Brody (played again by Lorraine Gary) is convinced of this supernatural link and heads to the Bahamas, where she takes matters into her own hands. After the shark attacks Mike in a mini-sub and kills a woman on a banana boat, Ellen steals Mike’s research vessel to confront the creature. She’s joined by Michael Caine, Mario Van Peebles, and others in a finale that ends with the shark being impaled and then blown up using a strobe device.

And with that, the saga of the Brody boys ends—six actors, four films, countless traumatic encounters with sharks, and a ton of tonal inconsistency. Still, there’s something endearing about their presence across the series. While only the first film is a cinematic masterpiece, the sequels offer their own kind of popcorn charm.

If the series had built a more coherent narrative around Mike and Sean, they might have become the emotional core of the franchise. Instead, each film was made to cash in on the success of the last, not to deepen the story. Yet, two of the actors who played Mike—Dennis Quaid and Lance Guest—went on to have successful careers, and their performances stand out.

Maybe someday, an older, saltier Mike Brody will return—grizzled, skeptical, and reluctantly ready to face the water one last time.

ABOUT RICARDO D. REBELO
Ricardo D. Rebelo is a horror writer whose work can be found in various anthologies and magazines, such as *Monsters in the Mills* and *Dead Girls Walking*. Additionally, he has directed award-winning PBS documentaries including *Island of My Dreams* and *Lizbeth, a Victorian Nightmare*.