Josh Lucas stars as Jake Broderick on NBC's "The Mysteries of Laura."

Born to young, radical, politically active parents in Arkansas in 1971, Lucas spent his early childhood nomadically moving around the southern U.S. The family finally settled in Gig Harbor, Washington, where Lucas attended high school, which had an award-winning drama/debate program. Lucas won the state championship in Dramatic Interpretation and competed at the 1989 National Championship. Brief stints in professional theater in Seattle followed before Lucas moved to Los Angeles.

After receiving breaks playing a young George Armstrong Custer in the Steven Spielberg-produced "Class of '61" and Frank Marshall's film "Alive," Lucas' career toiled in minor television appearances. Frustrated, he decided to start over and relocated to New York City.

In New York, Lucas studied acting for years under Suzanne Shepherd and worked in smaller theater productions, such as "Shakespeare in the Parking Lot," before receiving another break in 1997 when he was cast in Terrence McNally's controversial off-Broadway production "Corpus Christi." The play led to his being cast in the films "You Can Count on Me" and "American Psycho." These films were followed by performances in the Oscar-winning "A Beautiful Mind" and the box office hit "Sweet Home Alabama." Soon after, Lucas gave strong performances in Ang Lee's "Hulk," David Gordon Green's "Undertow," "Secondhand Lions," "Wonderland" and Lasse Hallström's "An Unfinished Life."

In 2005, Lucas gained nearly 40 pounds to play legendary basketball coach Don Haskins in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced "Glory Road." He followed this up with his Broadway debut in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie." The unexpected box office performances of "Stealth" and "Poseidon" forced Lucas to take time and refocus on his original passion for smaller projects and producing films. Lucas' first producing project, the intensely personal Boaz Yakin film "Death in Love," was released in 2009.

In the past few years, Lucas has appeared in "The Lincoln Lawyer," "Daydream Nation," "Peacock," "J. Edgar" and the massive Australian hit "Red Dog," for which he won Australia's best actor award (the IF Award). He also played beat generation legend Neal Cassady in "Big Sur."

Lucas can most recently be seen in Sara Colangelo's "Little Accidents," which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Also in 2014, Lucas will star in Kevin Connolly's "Dear Eleanor" and John Magary's New York independent film, "The Mend."

Lucas recently finished production on Francois Girard's independent film, "Boychoir," in which he will star opposite Dustin Hoffman. The film chronicles the story of a troubled and angry 11-year-old orphan from a small Texas town who ends up at a boy choir school on the East Coast after the death of his single mom.

Lucas has always remained fascinated by documentaries and, over the past few years, has done voice work for Ken Burns on "The War," "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," "Prohibition" and a number of Burns' other projects. He was involved in the Oscar-nominated "Operation Homecoming," and appeared in the National Board of Review's award-winner "Trumbo," the Los Angeles Film Festival's award winner "Resolved," and Barry Levinson's documentary "PoliWood."

Other theater credits include the award-winning off-Broadway production "Spalding Gray: Stories Left Untold" and "Faultlines."

Lucas currently resides in New York City.