Joshua Malina

Joshua Charles Malina, born January 17, 1966, in New York City, is an American actor whose career spans Broadway, film, and television. He is best known for his roles as Will Bailey on the NBC drama The West Wing, Jeremy Goodwin on Sports Night, U.S. Attorney General David Rosen on Scandal, and Caltech President Siebert on The Big Bang Theory. Malina grew up in New Rochelle, New York, where his parents, Robert and Fran Malina, were founding members of Young Israel of Scarsdale. His father worked as an attorney, investment banker, and Broadway producer. Malina has noted in interviews that his surname, Czech in origin and derived from the word for "raspberry," is frequently mistaken for the Spanish surname Molina, leading many to assume he is Latino rather than Jewish. He attended Westchester Day School for middle school and the Horace Mann School for high school before earning a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Yale University, where he was a member of the a cappella group The Spizzwinks alongside fellow actor Noah Emmerich.

Malina's Broadway career began in 1989 with Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men, in which he made his professional acting debut and later moved into a more prominent role as the production continued its run. His connection to Sorkin came through family ties: his parents, aware that Sorkin had been a high school classmate and friend of Malina's cousins, encouraged him to make contact when he first arrived in New York City. The cousins had spoken favorably of Malina to Sorkin, who invited him to audition. Malina has joked that his continued casting in Sorkin projects may be partly attributable to an incident during the A Few Good Men run in which he performed the Heimlich maneuver on Sorkin after the writer began choking on a hamburger at a bowling outing with the cast. His Broadway credits also include Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt, in which he took over the lead role of Hermann Merz in March 2023. His Broadway work spans from 1989 to 2022. In 2024, he performed in London in What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank at the Marylebone Theatre.

Before his on-screen career began, Malina worked as a production assistant on the Chevy Chase film Fletch Lives. His first on-screen appearance came in the 1992 film adaptation of A Few Good Men, where he had a small role. He subsequently appeared in Sorkin's The American President as an assistant to Annette Bening's character. On television, he played two separate characters across four episodes of The Larry Sanders Show, first appearing in 1993 as a fictional Entertainment Weekly reporter named Robert Brody and returning five years later as Kenny Mitchell, a network executive who displaces the show's host in favor of Jon Stewart. From 1998 to 2000, Malina starred as Jeremy Goodwin on Sorkin's Sports Night, a character who began as a research analyst and was promoted to associate producer by the second season. The show was canceled after two seasons, though it retained a devoted following; Malina has observed that the number of people who approach him about Sports Night rivals those who reference The West Wing.

Malina joined The West Wing in 2002, playing Will Bailey through the series' end in 2006. His character was initially perceived by some as a replacement for departing star Rob Lowe, though Malina consistently argued in interviews that the two characters were too different to be compared in that way. During production, he was known among the cast for elaborate pranks, including coating telephones with Vaseline, resetting producer Alex Graves's iPod to display menus in Mandarin Chinese, and using stolen letterhead from Bradley Whitford's stationery to send a Valentine's Day bouquet to season-six cast addition Jimmy Smits. In response, Whitford wrote a line into an episode requiring Malina's character to say "I can't act. I'm a terrible actor." Following The West Wing, Malina sought the lead role of Danny Tripp in Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but the part went to Whitford. In 2007, Malina starred in the ABC dramedy Big Shots as Karl Mixworthy, a pharmaceutical executive whose wife and mistress become friends after the mistress attempts to expose him. From 2011 to 2019, he appeared as university president Siebert on The Big Bang Theory, and beginning in 2012 he played David Rosen on Scandal, initially in a recurring capacity before being elevated to series regular in the second season.

Beyond acting, Malina co-created and produced the Bravo series Celebrity Poker Showdown, an interest rooted in his longtime passion for poker. Early in his career he used poker winnings to cover rent, and he organized a cast-and-crew game that ran for the entire duration of Sports Night. The concept for the television series grew out of a weekly high-stakes game hosted by Hank Azaria that Malina and friend Andrew Hill Newman regularly attended. Malina also co-hosted the podcast The West Wing Weekly alongside Hrishikesh Hirway, which ran from March 2016 to January 2020. In 2004, he participated in a national television advertising campaign supporting donations to Jewish federations, which featured film and television personalities including Greg Grunberg, Marlee Matlin, Kevin Weisman, and Jonathan Silverman. In his personal life, Malina met costume designer Melissa Merwin in 1992 through her sister Jennifer and Jennifer's then-husband, actor Timothy Busfield. The couple married in 1996 and have two children. Merwin filed for divorce in August 2024, citing irreconcilable differences.