Josh Charles

Josh Charles is an American actor born Joshua Aaron Charles on September 15, 1971, in Baltimore, Maryland. The son of Allan Charles, an advertising executive, and Laura Peyton, he is Jewish on his father's side and identifies as Jewish. Charles began performing comedy at age nine and, as a teenager, attended summer programs at Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Center in New York. He completed his formal education at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where his classmates included Jada Pinkett and Tupac Shakur.

Charles entered the film industry in 1988 with a role in John Waters's Hairspray, a production set in his hometown of Baltimore. The following year he appeared alongside Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke in Dead Poets Society, playing Knox Overstreet. Subsequent film credits include Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Threesome, Pie in the Sky, Muppets from Space, S.W.A.T., Four Brothers, After.Life, Crossing the Bridge, and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

On television, Charles is recognized for two long-running roles in particular. From 1998 to 2000, he played sports anchor Dan Rydell on Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night, a performance that earned him a Screen Actors Guild nomination. In 2008 he appeared as Jake in the first season of HBO's In Treatment, and in 2009 he joined the cast of the CBS drama The Good Wife, portraying Will Gardner. His work on that series brought him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, in 2011 and 2014. Also in 2011, he narrated the debut episode of NFL Network's A Football Life, which focused on New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. In 2022, Charles starred in the HBO limited series We Own This City, which was set in Baltimore. In 2024 he appeared in Taylor Swift's music video for "Fortnight" alongside his Dead Poets Society co-star Ethan Hawke. In May 2025, it was announced that Charles would star in Best Medicine, an American remake of the British series Doc Martin, set to air on Fox in the 2025–2026 television season.

Charles has maintained an active stage career alongside his screen work. His earliest recorded theater credit dates to 1986, when he headlined a production of Jonathan Marc Sherman's Confrontation. In 2004 he appeared in a New York revival of Neil LaBute's The Distance from Here, which received a Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble Cast. In January 2006 he took part in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's The Well-Appointed Room at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, and later that year he appeared at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in Caryl Churchill's A Number, portraying the cloned brothers. In 2007 he was part of the cast of Adam Bock's The Receptionist at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Immediately preceding his Broadway debut, he appeared off-Broadway in Annie Baker's The Antipodes at the Signature Theatre in 2017. Charles made his Broadway debut in 2018 in Young Jean Lee's Straight White Men at the Hayes Theater.

In his personal life, Charles married ballet dancer and author Sophie Flack in September 2013. The couple's first child, a son, was born on December 9, 2014, and a daughter followed on August 23, 2018. The family resides in New York City. Charles has remained publicly connected to Baltimore throughout his career, and his family continues to live there. In 2011 he participated in a Human Rights Campaign video in support of same-sex marriage and also supported Maryland's 2012 same-sex marriage referendum. He supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016. In August 2014 he was among Hollywood signatories of an open letter condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel during the 2014 Gaza War, and in October 2023 he signed a letter urging President Biden to work toward the release of Israeli hostages following the October 7 attacks.