What Happened To The Actor Who Played Sawyer After Lost?

Josh Holloway had acted before "Lost" — he'd been on one-off episodes of shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Walker, Texas Ranger" — but it was his role as James "Sawyer" Ford on the instant-smash plane-crash drama that made him a star. Sawyer was a bad boy you loved to root for, a long-haired, sweaty con man with a Southern drawl worth swooning over. Over six seasons on ABC, after Sawyer survived the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 that stranded him on a mysterious island, fans watched Sawyer find love and lose it, try to escape on a raft, get blown up, shot at, stabbed, slapped, and more.

"They've thrown everything at me," Holloway reflected to Vanity Fair as the series drew to a close. "As an actor, to be able to experiment and grow and be pushed, it's been phenomenal for me and it's given me confidence to move forward."

The cast of "Lost" has changed a lot since 2004, but you're likely to spot many of them still working steadily. Holloway himself has gone on to roles in mega-budget blockbusters, several more well-received television shows, and a fair amount of success in his personal life, too. There have also been struggles, times when he wasn't sure what was next and had to find ways to move on from the role that seemingly defined his career. Here's what the actor who played Sawyer did after "Lost."

By the time "Lost" went off the air, Josh Holloway and his castmates had been living and working in Hawaii for many years. This was quite the action-packed show, and Sawyer was involved in most of the show's major plotlines, meaning Holloway's role had been very physical. That's not to mention the media frenzy that surrounded "Lost," making it one of the most popular and influential shows in the world and turning its cast into household names.

In other words, after he filmed the "Lost" finale, Holloway was ready for a well-earned break. Besides, as he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, he'd stowed away a fair amount of his "Lost" cash. "Luckily, my wife is like the CIA of finance so I can make artistic decisions and hold back," he said.

Holloway explained that he planned to keep his homes in Hawaii, Los Angeles, and Colorado. "I'm going fly fishing in the Rockies. I've really gotten into fishing and fly fishing," he reflected. "I finally got to where I can catch, net the fish, and release them without hurting them. It takes a while to get all of it down. Fly fishing is gentle fishing. You don't want to hurt them." Like Sawyer, who was often seen on "Lost" caring for a golden retriever named Vincent, Holloway himself seems to have a soft spot for animals.

Though Josh Holloway leaned into his time of rest and relaxation after "Lost," he also told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he was looking forward to making the jump to film. "It's a little bubbling of excitement and nervousness," he confessed.

Hollywood came calling quite quickly for Holloway, and he was able to choose a project that really excited him. "Lost" aired its final episode in 2010, and in 2011, Holloway starred alongside Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol." He told ScreenSlam that he was a fan of the series, grinning, "I'm thrilled that they have, you know, come to the big screen, and that I'm in one. Are you kidding me? It's pretty awesome. It's a fantasy, for sure."

His character in "Ghost Protocol" was an IMF agent, part of the Impossible Missions Force that employs Cruise's iconic Ethan Hunt. It seems that Holloway's action-star boot camp on "Lost" prepared him well for the thrilling spy film. "You get to shoot things, and things blow up, and you're jumping off of buildings?" he crowed. "It's insane ... You get to dress cool, and you're in a movie with Tom Cruise! Come on!" Holloway, it seems, is happy to ignore the same strange things everyone ignores about Tom Cruise.

By 2014, Josh Holloway was once again leading a sci-fi-tinged show on television. He starred as Gabriel Vaughn, an intelligence agent who gets a supercomputer implanted in his mind; the CBS show was, fittingly, called "Intelligence." If that genre seems like a shift for an actor who'd played a rough-and-tumble con man on "Lost" so well, Holloway himself was as surprised as anyone. As he told The Television Academy, "It's shocking that they chose me for this role 'cause I barely get the internet."

Holloway quickly found Sawyer's heart on "Lost," endearing him to millions of fans, so it makes sense that he focused on his "Intelligence" character's all-too-human characteristics. "[H]e hasn't been enhanced in any way physically. Which is very interesting," he clarified to Entertainment Weekly. "He can get shot, he can get killed just as easily as you and me. That was appealing to me too — I didn't want him to be this super human that you can't hurt or Robocop, who is more machine than human."

The role also required a big change for Holloway: he chopped off his signature long hair. "I couldn't wait to get rid of that wig!" he told ET. It was his real hair, he said, but he called it "the wig" because he'd been forced to keep it for so long. Unfortunately, "Intelligence" wasn't the hit that CBS likely hoped for. After one 13-episode season, the show was canceled, and Holloway once more had to figure out what he'd do next.

Beginning in 2016, Josh Holloway had yet another sci-fi leading role on TV. Thankfully, this time, the show was a hit; we're not saying it's because he grew his hair long again, but we're not not saying that, either. "Colony" ultimately ran for three seasons on the USA Network, putting Holloway once again in a role that required him to scowl a lot and carry a gun. He starred as Will Bowman, a father in Los Angeles trying to keep his family together amid an alien invasion and a crackdown by a government that was perfectly fine with separating families.

The show resonated with people in part because those were some pretty uncomfortable real-world years, as Holloway explained to Variety. "We have this administration in office now, and it's crazy," he said, bemoaning the way everyone seemed happy to refuse to work together toward a common goal like saving the planet from the effects of the climate crisis. "We get so close to the same goal and then we blow up and we're back to square one and back to danger and the possibility of destroying our world," he said. "It's scary, the parallels of this show. We start building walls and putting dictators in positions."

Still, Holloway said that his show took care to show less-stressful moments, too. "Even in the middle of tragedy, we find moments of humor, moments of tenderness, of simple happiness," he said. "The show needs a breath, the audience needs a breath."

The family storyline in "Colony" really resonated with Josh Holloway; he's a father in real life, too. "[I]t's tough to stay on the positive side of things," he told Variety. "I'm a father and I have to do that and the same on 'Colony,' I'm the father and we have to more forward, keep going, have to have optimism."

Holloway met his wife Yessica Kumala at a bar in Los Angeles before he'd been cast on "Lost." They fell for one another hard. "He asked me to marry him when he did the 'Lost' pilot," Kumala told People, and they married in Hawaii right after the show got picked up. They now have two kids together, a daughter named Java and a son named Hunter. Holloway, it seems, loves being a dad; whereas lots of parents complain about the lack of sleep that comes with raising small children, Holloway welcomed the experience. "At home, we all sleep in the same room," he told Women's Health (via People), "so I wake up thinking about how beautiful my children are, lying there sleeping."

In 2023, he shared an adorable snapshot on Instagram that showed him wrapping his two kids in a big bear hug. "I love my Dad hugs!" he wrote in the caption. "I squeeze 'em up any chance I get — fills my whole day with joy."

After "Colony" was canceled in 2018, Josh Holloway found himself once again without work. This time, the offers really seemed to dry up, and he joked to The Hollywood Reporter that he must've done something wrong. "I must have thrown the penny over the wrong shoulder and broke a mirror while I did it, because I had a hard seven years," he confessed. He filled his time in new ways. "I had to focus on my family. I learned piano," he said. "I did all sorts of different things." Meanwhile, his agents sent him scripts for anything and everything; he passed on some of it because the offers were just that bad, but he took as much as he could.

Finally, an offer to lead a new HBO show came through — more on that below — but then the pandemic came, and the show was delayed for many years. "I was like, 'I want to stretch and breathe,'" Holloway told Esquire. His body tired from years of martial arts, he took up yoga to stay fit. "I got into it for the physical part, but now I've been actually learning to breathe and be present," he said.

On Instagram in 2024, he shared a photo of himself striking a peaceful pose in front of a stunning, snowy landscape. "one of the many things i love about yoga, is where you can practice it," he wrote, adding the hashtag #havematwilltravel.

Starring on a massive hit show like "Lost" won Josh Holloway a considerable fan base, and in the years since audiences visited the island for the final time, Holloway has tried to point that fan base toward doing good. In 2018, for example, he shared an announcement on Instagram that "Lost" and "Colony" producer Carlton Cuse was auctioning off memorabilia to raise money for a good cause. "I Have A Dream Foundation helps students in underserved Los Angeles communities succeed & have the opportunities for higher education," Holloway wrote.

He's also supported friends who lost a daughter named Gwendolyn Strong to a genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy. Posing in a shirt printed with the words "Never Give Up," an initiative of the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation, Holloway wrote on Instagram, "She made a remarkable impact on so many and her parents have worked hard to change SMA, the disease she was born with, creating treatments and helping families."

Holloway has tried to motivate his followers to pay attention to issues that involve race, too. In 2018, as the country was embroiled in the controversy that was the first Donald Trump administration separating immigrant families from their children, Holloway shared a message of support on X. "My fam is my everything. Families belong together," he wrote. "Join me in supporting @raicestexas to help fund legal services for separated families." 

During that rough period when Josh Holloway had to take just about any role he was offered, he managed to land an arc on "Yellowstone," adding one more name to the long list of "Yellowstone" actors who are gorgeous in real life. On the show's third and fourth seasons, he played Roarke Morris, a wealthy investor who comes to town looking to buy up the Duttons' land. In a behind-the-scenes video for the show's original home on Paramount Network, Holloway revealed, "This was my favorite show on TV before I booked this, so I was super excited." He especially enjoyed playing an antagonist, joking, "It's fun to play a villain. I was like, 'Taylor [Sheridan], this is the best job I ever had! Keep writing!'"

Unfortunately, as fans of "Yellowstone" well know, the character met a memorable, if unfortunate end that had fans up in arms. Holloway himself argued with Sheridan about his character's fate — which we won't spoil here — insisting that it wasn't scientifically accurate and that it didn't make sense that he'd die so quickly. "He said that it's drama, and it looks better this way. Do it," Holloway complained to USA Today. "And it did come out great."

When Josh Holloway starred on "Lost," his character Sawyer frequently got into arguments with the other castaways. At the end of the first season, however, Sawyer teamed up with Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), launching a daring escape plan that required them to build a raft to sail out over the open ocean in hopes of rescue. Holloway bonded strongly with Perrineau and Kim, and the trio have remained close in the 15 years since the show ended. In December 2022, for example, Kim posted a photo to Instagram of the guys hanging out in a hallway seemingly filled with Christmas decorations. "Season's Greetings from the rafties!" he wrote, referring to a nickname the fans developed for the characters who sailed on the raft.

"The three of us are really the three amigos," Perrineau told People, revealing that all three of the actors' children were friends when they were kids and still stay in touch. "We do catch up more than anybody else."

In 2024, that meant Perrineau and Holloway reunited at a fundraiser thrown by former "Lost" showrunner Damon Lindelof. Perrineau shared an Instagram snap of himself and Holloway posing with Kamala Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, who helped out on her presidential campaign. Sharing a similar photo on his own Instagram, Holloway wrote, "We cannot allow women's basic human rights to be systematically stripped away — our wives, sisters, and daughters, are not second class citizens."

Many years before Josh Holloway finally returned to a leading role in the HBO Max series "Duster," his phone rang. "He called me out of the blue and immediately was like, 'You got a minute?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think I got a minute, J.J. Abrams!'" It was the famed director who had created "Lost" all the way back in the day, ready to pitch Holloway on a new show in which he'd play a Mafia man in the 1970s. Holloway told The Hollywood Reporter that he was in, immediately ... and then they had to wait. Between the COVID-19 pandemic and HBO itself changing hands, it wasn't until 2025 that "Duster" made it to air. "It was very difficult, quite honestly, because you're cocked and ready. It's like you're in a starting block for five years. It was [the] longest limbo I've ever been in," Holloway recalled.

Thankfully, once the show got going, Holloway had a blast. He also enjoyed revisiting a character with a persona not unlike the one that first brought him to fame. "I'm a bit of a criminal — I bend the rules that I think are technically wrong, but not morally wrong," he confessed. "I like that side, and I like being a man. I like flirting."

After the long delay, "Duster" finally premiered to glowing reviews. Unfortunately, the show was canceled after just one season. "No one has contacted me about it," Holloway told Esquire before the decision came down. "So I just go: 'You know what? That was some of the most fun TV I've ever filmed.'"

We live in a world where any property that still has name-recognition seems like it gets mined for reboots, remakes, sequels, and spin-offs. As of press time, there hasn't yet been anything else set in the world of "Lost," more than two decades after the show first crashed into living rooms everywhere. While some actors dislike revisiting their most iconic roles, it seems that Josh Holloway doesn't mind at all.

In 2025, Holloway appeared in a documentary called "Getting Lost," which revisited the phenomenon that was the show. He even gamely agreed to wear a shirt for the filmmakers that said, in big bold typeface, "I WAS ON LOST." As for reviving the property in an official capacity, though, Holloway told The Hollywood Reporter that he doesn't see it happening. "I don't have any feelings about it because I don't believe they would do that," he said. Still, he added, "I would be in — of course, why not?"

Whether or not he ever goes back to the island, Holloway is glad the show lives on and that new people discover it all the time thanks to streaming. People tell him that they watched it two decades ago and that they're now introducing it to their children, which he likes hearing. "I always love it when you can find moments with your kids to share something with," he said. "Mine have never seen 'Lost,' and they don't give a damn."