“It’s the kind of movie I would die to be in because it’s just so Baltimore. “ Diner is one of my all-time favorite movies,” he says. He knows exactly what kind of film he’d like it to be, too. Can you talk to somebody about that for me?” he quips. “I haven’t filmed anything in Baltimore since and am not happy about that fact. Though visits keep him connected to his roots, Charles hopes to eventually return to Baltimore to work. I just jump right on the Acela and two-and-a-half-hours later I’m at my parents house.” “Now, I come back a lot throughout the year. “Living in L.A., it’s harder to get to Baltimore a lot,” he says. Plus, as an added benefit, the New York location lets him visit Baltimore more often. “I had never played a lawyer before so I thought it would be kind of interesting to research that,” he says. The New York Times says the show, “imaginatively explores how one scorned spouse struggles to get past a life-shattering scandal.” (Charles’s take on the whole wronged-wife-standing-by-her-man phenomenon is succinct: “I just can’t believe so many of them do,” he says.)īeyond the provocative premise, Charles says he was attracted to the project for all the usual actorly reasons: great cast, good script, and an interesting character to play. Charles plays an old friend of Alicia’s who offers her a position at his law firm. The Good Wife‘s ripped-from-the-headlines premise follows Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick, a political wife getting on with her life after her husband was caught in a sex-scandal. Now, Charles has returned to network television in another well-regarded program. for various roles in TV and film including the critically-praised Aaron Sorkin-created dramedy Sports Night, which ran for two seasons on ABC. “It was really special to shoot my first movie in Baltimore and with John.”įrom there it was on to Delaware to shoot Dead Poets Society and then to New York and L.A. “He could handle himself in just about any adult situation.”Ĭharles’s big break came in John Waters’s Hairspray, in which he played Iggy, a regular dancer on The Corny Collins Show.įilming his first movie in his hometown was an “ideal situation,” he acknowledges. “He was amazing and the crowds loved him,” he recalls. Proud papa Allan says he had total faith in his son. “When I look back on it, I definitely was precocious enough that you might want to smack me at times,” he cracks, “but it got me feeling comfortable performing at a young age, on a stage, in front of an audience.” If the thought of a 9-year-old Charles mimicking Richard Pryor is too much cognitive dissonance to bear-Charles is, after all, probably best known for portraying shy Knox Overstreet in Dead Poets Society-he says the move made perfect sense to him at the time. “I thought he was kind of brilliant, a hero of mine. “I snuck some Richard Pryor records somewhere, and I used to listen to them a lot-all the dirty jokes” he chuckles. “I did comedy at the Charm City Comedy Club, which was in Harborplace.”Įven more surprising is his comedic inspiration. “I used to go to open mic nights when I was ,” he says. “Anyone who knows me, knows that being from Baltimore is a big part of who I am.”Ĭharles, 38, grew up surrounded by Baltimore luminaries (father Allan Charles is the chairman and creative director of advertising and public relations firm Trahan Burden & Charles mother Laura was the longtime gossip columnist for The Sun and Boogie Weinglass, the basis for Mickey Rourke’s character in Diner, is an old family friend) and got his performing start here, albeit in an unlikely form. “I love Johnny Unitas and I hate the Redskins, you know? Things you just can’t help if you’re from Baltimore,” he says, speaking by phone from the New York City set of his new, hit CBS drama The Good Wife. Washington boy at heart, religiously following the O’s and the Ravens and sometimes satiating his craving for crabs with transcontinental deliveries from Obrycki’s. A working actor since he was 15, Charles left his hometown to work when he was 16, but remains a Mt. Josh Charles is living proof that you can take the boy out of Baltimore, but you can’t take Baltimore out of the boy.
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