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Joshua Charles
Birth name	Joshua Aaron Charles
Born	September 15, 1971 (age 35) Baltimore, Maryland
Notable roles	Dan Rydell on ABC's Sports Night

Joshua Aaron Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American stage, film and television actor. His father, Allan, is an advertising executive and his mother, Laura, was a gossip columnist for the Baltimore Sun newspaper. He has a brother, Jeff.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Charles allegedly began his career performing stand-up comedy from the age of 8. As a teenager, he spent several summers at the noted Stagedoor Manor performing arts program in New York. His film debut was in fellow Baltimore resident John Waters’s Hairspray (1988), followed in 1989 by a classic performance as Knox Overstreet in Dead Poets Society.

In 1998, Charles was cast in the leading role of sports anchor Dan Rydell in the acclaimed TV comedy/drama Sports Night, created by Aaron Sorkin. The program ran for two years on ABC in the USA and has since been syndicated worldwide.

Early in his career (1986), Charles received a Festival Week Award for Best Actor for the Stagedoor Manor production of Confrontation, in which he portrayed Brian, opposite Renee Weldon. 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 for Best Ensemble Performance. In January 2006 he created the role of Mark in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's The Well-Appointed Room for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, following this with a short run at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, portraying the cloned brothers in Caryl Churchill's A Number.

He is a fan of the Baltimore Orioles (baseball) and Baltimore Ravens (American football) teams. In 2004/5 and again in 2005/6 he championed a fantasy football draft on the NFL Network. [1]

• Six Degrees (2007) (TV) - Ray Smith (episodes unaired)
• In Treatment (in pre-production late 2006) (TV) - Jake
• Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (filming late 2006) - #2
• United States Army 'Army Strong' Commercials - Voice Over (2006)
• Fast Track (2006)
• The Darwin Awards (2006)
• Four Brothers (2005) - Detective Fowler
• Stella: Meeting Girls (2005) (TV) - Jeremy
• Seeing Other People (2004) - Lou
• S.W.A.T. (2003) – T J McCabe
• Our America (2002) (TVM)) - Dave Isay
• My Father's House (2002) - Coach (scenes deleted, but included on DVD release)
• Zog's Place (2001) (documentary) - Himself
• Meeting Daddy (2000) - Peter Silverblatt
• Muppets from Space (1999) - Agent Barker
• Sports Night (1998-2000) (TV) - Dan Rydell
• Little City (1997) - Adam
• The Underworld (1997) (TVM) - Ehrlich
• Cyclops, Baby (1997) - Brush Brody
• Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996) (TVM) - Eddie Jordan
• Pie in the Sky (1996) - Charlie Dunlap
• Crossworlds (1996) - Joe Talbot
• The Grave (1996) - Tyn
• Coldblooded (1995) - Randy
• Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) - Bruce (uncredited)
• Threesome (1994) - Eddy
• Cooperstown (1993) (TVM) - Jody
• Crossing the Bridge (1992) - Mort Golden
• Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) - Bryan
• Murder in Mississippi (1990) (TVM) - Andrew Goodman
• Dead Poets Society (1989) - Knox Overstreet
• Hairspray (1988) - Iggy

• Josh Charles at the Internet Movie Database

• People Weekly 1989 interview
• Rob Neyer interview 2003