What happened to Josh Holloway after the whirlwind success of Lost came to an end?
What does an actor who once struggled to book guest roles do after the gleam of his big
break wears off?
We've got the whole story for you right here.
Holloway was born in 1969 in San Jose, California, the second of four brothers.
When he was two, he moved with his family into a trailer in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
His acting career got a huge break in 1993 in the form of the Aerosmith music video for
"Cryin,'" when he played a thief who tries to snatch Alicia Silverstone's purse.
He eventually started grabbing TV guest roles on shows like Angel and CSI.
His most significant pre-Lost project was perhaps the 2002 Sci-Fi original movie Sabretooth,
in which he fights to survive the rampage of a prehistoric cat.
But he was struggling so much that he almost quit acting to become a realtor in 2004.
Later that year, though, his career really took off into the stratosphere.
In TV's streaming age, it's hard to convey just how big a deal Lost was in its heyday.
Averaging over 15 million viewers a week during its first season, it inspired the sort of
obsessive fan culture that makes even Game of Thrones viewers blush.
In the modern media era where nerd culture reigns supreme, it might be difficult to appreciate
how uniquely dedicated Lost's fanbase was.
As loveable rogue James "Sawyer" Ford, Holloway instantly shot into stardom in a way he probably
never imagined possible.
"You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Sawyer."
"You're incredible, Sawyer."
One might think becoming a household name overnight would do wonders for Holloway's
acting career, but that actually wasn't the case, at least not at first.
During Lost's 2004 to 2010 run, the only outside projects he worked on were just a few low-budget
films.
It isn't hard to see why this was the case, as he and his family spent most of the year
in Hawaii while he was shooting the the ABC series.
Holloway also had to turn down some major roles because of his grueling shooting schedule,
perhaps most notably the part of Gambit in the X-Men films.
Even after Lost ended, it seemed as if bad luck would curse Holloway into becoming a
has-been pretty quickly.
At one point he was considered for the part of Crossbones in Captain America: The Winter
Soldier, and he even turned down the CBS series Person of Interest because he didn't want
to move his family across the country.
He would eventually work his way into more acting opportunities, but it's hard to look
past what could've been if a couple of these chances had broken in his favor.
"I was thinking about Lost today and how much I miss it and I’m sure you’re sick of
it with that stuff"
“I’m not because my wife tells me that often.”
"She does?"
"She does."
After struggling to get a serious film career off the ground in the immediate years after
Lost, Holloway returned to the small screen in 2014 as the main character in the CBS series
Intelligence.
The show was a cyber-themed action-adventure thriller that unfortunately for Holloway only
aired 13 episodes before getting the axe.
He starred as Gabriel, a tech-enhanced man designed to tackle major threats while working
for U.S. Cyber Command.
With Intelligence, CBS wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel, and there's something to be said
for easy-to-digest thrillers where the good guys are Capital-G Good and the bad guys are
shady beyond belief.
Alas, it never lived up to the network's expectations, nor was it ever given a full chance to find
a real audience.
Holloway eventually found another winning project in 2016 in the form of Colony, a sci-fi
drama that ran on USA Network for three seasons.
Though it never managed to capture a significantly large audience, it was a cult hit that was
generally well-regarded by critics.
It even managed to garner three straight Saturn Award nominations for Best Science Fiction
Television Series.
Colony was set in a dystopian version of Los Angeles, where residents live under military
occupation by the Transitional Authority, an organization serving an extraterrestrial
group referred to as the "Hosts."
Holloway starred as a former U.S. Army Ranger and FBI Special Agent who was trying to save
his missing son.
"How do you live with this job?"
Coming off the heels of Colony, Holloway landed a role in the upcoming third season of Paramount
Network's Yellowstone.
The show stars Kevin Coster as billionaire John Dutton, the patriarch of a family that
controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States.
The Duttons are under constant attack by those around them, and show co-creator Taylor Sheridan
wants the show to be a look at a violent world separated from typical media scrutiny.
Sheridan has said,
"The show is both timely and timeless.
As much as it explores themes painfully relevant to the world today, it explores the very essence
of family, and how the actions of one member can alter the course of generations."
Holloway has signed on for a season-long arc as a charming hedge fund manager with ambitious
plans in Montana.
With a string of regular TV roles over the last several years, it's safe to say that
the future is now looking bright for Josh Holloway.
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