Joshua Charles Malina (born January 17, 1966) is an American film and stage actor. He is perhaps most famous for portraying the character Will Bailey on the NBC drama The West Wing.
Malina was born and raised in New Rochelle, New York. His parents, Fran and Robert Malina, were founding members of Young Israel of Scarsdale. His father was an attorney, investment banker and Broadway producer. Malina graduated from the Horace Mann School and Yale University with a B.A. in Theater. He made his acting debut in the Broadway production of Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men and has since appeared in nearly every Sorkin film and TV show other than "Charlie Wilson's War" (A Few Good Men, Malice, The American President, Sports Night, The West Wing). Malina is married to Melissa Merwin, a costume designer. The two have two children, Isabel and Avi.
From 1998 – 2000, Malina starred as character Jeremy Goodwin on Sorkin's Sports Night. The critically acclaimed show was unable to find a large fan base and was canceled after two seasons. Malina played Will Bailey on The West Wing from 2002 to 2006. During his tenure on The West Wing, Malina was known to the rest of the cast as a tireless prankster. It is said he coated telephones with Vaseline and reset producer Alex Graves's iPod menus to Mandarin Chinese. It is also said he stole some of Bradley Whitford's letterhead stationery and used it in an elaborate prank. With the help of co-star Janel Moloney, Malina sent a Valentine's Day bouquet to season six newcomer Jimmy Smits which included a card crafted on Whitford's stolen letterhead stating: "Dear Jimmy, Working with you has been a delight. Be my Valentine."
Malina is a co-creator and producer of Bravo's cable TV series Celebrity Poker Showdown.
Malina played two different characters over four episodes on the show on the Larry Sanders show:
He played Robert Brody, a reporter for an entertainment magazine that was there to write an article about the show. In the episode, the usual chaos ensued. John Ritter played himself and was very upset about being bumped when Larry asked Warren Zevon to play a 2nd song during his set, which was "Werewolves of London". Ritter then gave the reporter a scathing interview and the show received a not-so-nice review in the magazine. The magazine was Entertainment Weekly.
The second character that he played was Kenny Mitchell, a network exec who helped push Larry out and Jon Stewart in, which led to the very real demise of the Larry Sanders show, both in real life and on the t.v. show.
