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James Badgett Dale was born on May 1, 1978, in Manhattan, New York City, to actress and singer Anita Morris (1943–1994) and actor and dancer Grover Dale (born 1935). He is their only child. He attended Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon neighborhood. At age ten, he was chosen from his fifth-grade class to audition for the role of Simon in the 1990 film Lord of the Flies. After spending five months filming in Jamaica, he returned to his studies at Wonderland.
Dale’s early career highlights include playing Simon in Lord of the Flies (1990) and Chase Edmunds in the third season of 24, a role he later reprised in 24: The Game. He also appeared in CSI: Miami and CSI: NY as serial killer Henry Darius. In 2006, he portrayed Trooper Barrigan in The Departed and later starred as intelligence analyst Will Travers in AMC’s political thriller Rubicon, which follows a man uncovering a shadowy organization manipulating global politics. He went on to play U.S. Marine Robert Leckie, one of the main characters in HBO’s acclaimed miniseries The Pacific (2010).
In 2013, Dale appeared in several major films, including Iron Man 3 as Eric Savin, World War Z as Captain Speke, The Lone Ranger as Dan Reid, and Parkland as the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald. The following year, he starred in the off-Broadway play Small Engine Repair and later reprised the role in the 2021 film adaptation. His subsequent performances include a firefighter captain in Only the Brave (2017), a former police militia member in The Standoff at Sparrow Creek (2018), and a grieving ex-cop in the 2020 supernatural horror The Empty Man.
From 2020 to 2024, Dale played the lead role of a troubled, sex-addicted detective grappling with the opioid epidemic in the Starz series Hightown. In 2022, he appeared in a comedic guest role on Hulu’s Ramy and featured in three episodes of Paramount+’s 1923. In 2024, he starred in the action film King Ivory—drawn by its strong writing—and the revenge thriller Violent Ends. He is set to appear in a recurring role in the Apple TV miniseries The Savant, premiering in September 2025.
Dale married actress Emily Wickersham in September 2024. The couple has two children—a son born in 2021 and a second child born in October 2024.
