Background and career
Joshua Aaron Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American film, television, and theater actor best known for playing Will Gardner on The Good Wife, a role which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He also appeared in Sports Night, Dead Poets Society and Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
Joshua Aaron Charles was born on September 15, 1971 to Allan Charles, an advertising executive, and Laura Peyton. He is Jewish on his father's side and identifies as Jewish himself. He began his career performing comedy at the age of 9. As a teenager, he spent several summers at Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Center in New York. He attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he was a classmate of Jada Pinkett and Tupac Shakur.
Charles's film debut was in John Waters's Hairspray in 1988. The following year, he starred alongside Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke in Dead Poets Society. He had also appeared in 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.
Charles played sports anchor Dan Rydell in Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night (1998–2000), for which he was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2008, Charles appeared in season one of HBO's In Treatment. He played a recurring role in The Good Wife, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award twice; once in 2011 and another in 2014. In 2011, Charles narrated the debut episode for NFL Network's A Football Life based on New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. In 2022, he starred in the HBO limited series We Own This City. In May 2025, Charles joined the cast of the American remake of the British series Doc Martin called Best Medicine.
Charles headlined a production of Jonathan Marc Sherman's Confrontation in 1986. In 2004, he appeared in the revival of Neil LaBute's The Distance from Here which received a Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble Cast. In January 2006, he appeared in Richard Greenberg's The Well-Appointed Room at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago and Caryl Churchill's A Number at the American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco. In 2007, he appeared in Adam Bock's The Receptionist at the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City. Charles appeared in the off-Broadway production of Annie Baker's The Antipodes at the Signature Theatre in 2017. He made his Broadway debut in Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee at the Hayes Theater in 2018.
Charles appeared in Taylor Swift's music video for "Fortnight" in 2024, alongside his Dead Poets Society co-star Ethan Hawke.
