It's like this.

• Margot Helen Tenenbaum - A playwrighting prodigy, Margot once ran away from home for two weeks and came back with half of one of her fingers missing. She is shown moping in her bathtub, watching television, ignoring her husband. She smokes, unbeknownst to anyone else in her family as she is infamously secretive. She is also adopted, as Royal is quick to point out. Margot is not only a playwright, but also a book critic; she wrote a negative review of Eli Cash's latest book despite the fact that she and Eli are lovers.
• Richie Tenenbaum - A tennis prodigy, Richie is secretly in love with his adopted sister, Margot. While successful in his tennis career, Richie has a nervous breakdown on court in front of thousands of fans (the film implies his breakdown was because Margot and Raleigh were married the day before) and loses his desire to play tennis soon after. At the beginning of the film, he has been living on an ocean liner for several months. He drinks Bloody Marys with pepper throughout the movie, so much so that he carries a capped pepper shaker in his jacket pocket. The character of Richie is loosely based on former champion tennis player Bjorn Borg. Borg shocked the tennis world by retiring at age 26 and wore the same style headband and trademark Fila polo as Richie and was rumored to have attempted suicide in the years after his exit from the game.