Josh Lucas

Josh Lucas was a working actor for over a decade -- which included scene-stealing performances in Alive (1993), You Can Count on Me (2000), and The Deep End (2001) -- before he shot to stardom with high-profile roles in A Beautiful Mind (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), and The Hulk (2003). Born in Arkansas, Lucas moved with his family to over a dozen U.S. cities before settling in Gig Harbor, WA. There, he joined his high school's competitive acting team and went on to win the state title for dramatic interpretation in both his junior and senior years. After graduation, Lucas moved directly to California where he made guest appearances on Fox's True Colors and Parker Lewis Can't Lose, ABC's Life Goes On, and CBS' Jake and the Fatman. The actor made his feature-film debut in the Ethan Hawke vehicle Alive (1993), before appearing opposite Patrick Swayze and Halle Berry in Father Hood (1993). That same year, he returned to television to portray a young Custer in the television film Class of '61 and relocated to Australia for a brief stint as Luke McGregor in The Family Channel series Snowy River: The McGregor Saga. Upon returning to the States, Lucas joined Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies, and the infamous Ginger Lynn Allen in the cast of the video game Wing Commander II: The Heart of the Tiger. He also continued to act on the big screen in independent films -- such as True Blue (1996), Restless (1998), Drop Back Ten (1999) -- and appeared opposite Anson Mount in the Manhattan Theater Club's production of Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi. Soon enough, formidable parts as a banker in American Psycho (2000), roughneck deadbeat dad in Kenneth Lonergan's award-winning You Can Count on Me, and a doomed gay night-club owner in The Deep End put Lucas in the public eye. He went on to earn rave reviews as Russell Crowe's nemesis-turned-friend in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, before securing the plum roles of Reese Witherspoon's backwoods husband in Andy Tennant's Sweet Home Alabama and Bruce Banner's (Eric Bana) romantic rival in Ang Lee's much-anticipated adaptation of The Hulk. - Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide