Josh Charles
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Joshua Aaron Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on '' Sports Night; ''
Will Gardner Will Gardner is a character of CBS television series ''The Good Wife'' and was portrayed by Josh Charles for the first five seasons of the show's run. For his performance, Charles received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations as well as a Golden ...
on '' The Good Wife'', which earned him two
Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
nominations; and his early work as Knox Overstreet in '' Dead Poets Society''.


Early life

He is the son of Allan Charles, an advertising executive. He's
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
on his father's side and has described himself as Jewish. He began his career performing comedy at the age of nine. As a teenager, he spent several summers at
Stagedoor Manor Stagedoor Manor is a performing arts training center located in Loch Sheldrake, New York. Since its opening, it has trained thousands of young actors, many of whom have gone on to success in film, television, and theater. Stagedoor Manor is ...
Performing Arts Center in New York, and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts.


Career

Charles' film debut was in fellow Baltimore native John Waters' '' Hairspray'' in 1988. The following year, he starred alongside
Robin Williams Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and come ...
and Ethan Hawke in the Oscar-winning '' Dead Poets Society''. Subsequent film roles have included '' Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead'', ''
Threesome In human sexuality, a threesome is commonly understood as "a sexual interaction between three people whereby at least one engages in physical sexual behaviour with both the other individuals". Though ''threesome'' most commonly refers to sexu ...
'', '' Pie in the Sky'', '' Muppets from Space'', '' S.W.A.T'', '' Four Brothers'', ''
After.Life ''After.Life'' is a 2009 American psychological horror- thriller film directed by Agnieszka Wójtowicz-Vosloo from her original screenplay. It stars Liam Neeson, Christina Ricci, and Justin Long. Plot Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) owns a funeral h ...
'', '' Crossing the Bridge'' and ''
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men ''Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'' is a short story collection by the late American writer David Foster Wallace, first published in 1999 by Little, Brown. According to the papers in the David Foster Wallace Archive at the Harry Ransom Center ...
''. On television, Charles played sports anchor Dan Rydell in
Aaron Sorkin Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. Born in New York City, he developed a passion for writing at an early age. Sorkin has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, five Primetime ...
's
Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
-winning '' Sports Night'', which ran for two years (1998–2000) on ABC and earned Charles a
Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to me ...
nomination. In 2008, Charles played the role of Jake in season one of HBO's '' In Treatment''. In 2009, he returned to network television in the CBS drama '' The Good Wife''. For his work on the series, he was nominated for a
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series This is a list of winners and nominees of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. In early Primetime Emmy Award ceremonies, the supporting categories were not always genre, or even gender, specific. Beginning ...
in 2011 and 2014. In 2022, Charles starred in '' We Own This City'', an HBO limited series from David Simon. In 1986, Charles headlined a production of
Jonathan Marc Sherman Jonathan Marc Sherman (born October 10, 1968) is a contemporary American playwright, poet, and actor. He submitted plays for several years to Young Playwrights Inc.'s National Playwrights Competition before they did a staged reading of his one-a ...
's ''Confrontation''. In 2004, he appeared on stage in New York in a revival of Neil LaBute's ''The Distance From Here'', which received a
Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. F ...
for Best Ensemble Cast. In January 2006, he appeared in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's ''The Well-Appointed Room'' for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, and followed this with a run at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, portraying the cloned brothers in
Caryl Churchill Caryl Lesley Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non- naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes.
's ''
A Number ''A Number'' is a 2002 English play by Caryl Churchill. The story, set in the near future, is structured around the conflict between a father (Salter) and his sons (Bernard 1, Bernard 2, and Michael Black) – two of whom are clones of the first ...
''. In 2007, he appeared in Adam Bock's ''The Receptionist'' at the Manhattan Theatre Club. In 2011, Charles was the narrator of the debut episode for NFL Network's ''
A Football Life ''A Football Life'' is an American documentary series of 116 episodes, developed by NFL Films and aired on NFL Network that documents the lives of select National Football League (NFL) players, coaches, owners, and teams. Friends, teammates, famil ...
'' on
New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...
head coach Bill Belichick.


Personal life

In September 2013, Charles married ballet dancer and author
Sophie Flack Sophie Flack (born August 8, 1983) is an author, freelance writer and editor, and former dancer with the New York City Ballet. Early life and education Flack was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, to a family of Jewish background. She moved to ...
. On December 9, 2014, Flack gave birth to the couple's first child, a son named Rocco. On August 23, 2018, Charles revealed on his Instagram that Flack gave birth to their second child, a daughter named Eleonor. He is a fan of the
Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
and
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...
. In a few films, he donned an Oriole baseball cap.


Filmography


Film


Television


Awards and nominations


References


External links

* * *
People Weekly 1989 interview

Josh Charles on ''The Daily Show'', April 13, 1999

Rob Neyer interview 2003
{{DEFAULTSORT:Charles, Josh 1971 births 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American male actors American male film actors American male stage actors American male television actors Jewish American male actors Living people Male actors from Baltimore 21st-century American Jews