Josh Henderson
Josh Henderson is an actor, born 1981.
A reality-television singing contest is an odd door into a soap dynasty, but it is the one Josh Henderson walked through. Born in Dallas in 1981, he won a place on The WB's Popstars 2 and joined the group assembled from it, Scene 23. The group did not last. The acting did.
What followed was a decade of the parts a tall, handsome twentysomething gets offered: guest turns on One on One, Do Over, She Spies and Rodney, a jock with a couple of lines in The Girl Next Door, Brett Dolan in Step Up, and a stint on Desperate Housewives as Austin McCann. The most interesting piece of the early work is Over There, where he played Pfc. Bo Rider in an Iraq war series that took its ensemble seriously.
Then TNT revived Dallas and handed him John Ross Ewing III, and the casting made most of the argument for him. Playing J.R.'s son on a show named after his own home town gave him a character built entirely out of charm deployed as a weapon, and he was better at it than the revival's reputation suggests: the smile arriving half a second before the threat, then staying put. He worked the same seam as Kyle West in The Arrangement, a movie star whose romance is a contract, and has since drifted back toward smaller features.
Movies (6)
TV (7)
Where to start with Josh Henderson
Dallas is the whole case for him and the only sensible starting point. Across its 2012 to 2014 run he plays John Ross Ewing III as a man whose warmth is a negotiating tactic, and the show is happiest when it lets him scheme. Follow it with The Arrangement, which recycles the same register in a glossier setting and is more fun than its premise deserves.
Before that, keep expectations modest. Over There is the most serious thing he appeared in early on, and worth a look for the series rather than for him. Step Up is where most people first registered the face, The Girl Next Door gives him about a line, and April Fool's Day and Swelter are for completists only.