Josh Holloway Biography

Josh HollowayActor Josh Holloway grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, then moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, and had to lose his southern accent. Now filming the television show Lost in Hawaii, he has had to pick the accent up again to portray the character of Sawyer.While his natural accent makes him seem like a born and bred Georgia boy, Holloway was actually born in Silicone Valley on the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, July 20, 1969. His family, including three brothers, moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Free Home, Georgia, when Holloway was just two. It was in those early years that he developed a fondness for movies, with his favorite being The Shining. His first job was picking up dead chickens on a farm.After spending just two semesters at the University of Georgia, Holloway quit the university life to pursue modeling, becoming very successful in North America and Europe. After appearing as Alicia Silverstone's purse snatcher in the video for the Aerosmith song Cryin , the joy of acting pulled him into moving back to California. Finding some parts available to him limited because of his Georgian accent, Holloway worked to tone it down some.Holloway's first movie was the thriller Cold Heart, which had him appearing alongside Nastassja Kinski. He then appeared in Moving August, followed by Mi Amigo and the SciFi Channel's Sabretooth, the latter of which he starred in with David Keith, Vanessa Angel, and John Rhys-Davies. He also guest starred on a few television series at this time. Among them were Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris; The Lyon's Den, starring Rob Lowe; and an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.Eventually hitting it big, Holloway landed a lead role in Lost, a show that follows the survivors of a plane crash. His costars include Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, and Evangeline Lilly. Along with going back to his southern roots for his accent for the part of Sawyer on Lost, Holloway has also had to keep his hair grown out to a longer length. While he admits the look is somewhat cool, he's not very fond of it. Nevertheless, it got him chosen as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine.Holloway has been married to Yessica Kumala since October 1, 2004. Just a year after they were married they were robbed at gunpoint in their home in Hawaii. The thief made off with cash, credit cards, and Holloway's Mercedes-Benz. The authorities believe that the thief didn t know he was robbing a celebrity, and that it wasn t Holloway specifically that was being targeted.Being offered the role of Gambit in X-Men: The Last Stand, Holloway turned it down, feeling it was too close to the character of Sawyer on Lost. It's a good guess that this won t be the last offer to come his way. He's come a long way since those days of picking up dead chickens.