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Brian Van Holt

Brian Van Holt has built a screen career that moves easily between feature films, guest appearances and long-running television work. Born in Waukegan, Illinois, on July 6, 1969, he was raised in Huntington Beach, California. He later graduated from UCLA in 1993 with a major in sociology and a minor in psychology. Van Holt’s acting career began on screen with A Very Brady Sequel in 1996. Television appearances followed in Beverly Hills, 90210, Spin City, Homicide: Life on the Street, Martial Law and Sex and the City, giving him a varied run of roles early on. His film work expanded through Black Hawk Down, Windtalkers, Confidence, Basic and S.W.A.T., followed by Man of the House and House of Wax. He also appeared in the CBS series Threshold. One of his more distinctive television roles drew on the surfing background of his Huntington Beach upbringing. In David Milch’s HBO series John from Cincinnati, Van Holt played Butchie Yost, the son of surfer Mitch Yost. He later appeared as Kyle Hobart in Sons of Anarchy, guest-starred on CSI: Miami and played himself—an actor taking the role of a firefighter—in two fifth-season episodes of Entourage. His longest sustained television role came with Cougar Town. From 2009 to 2015, Van Holt played Bobby Cobb, the ex-husband of Jules Cobb and father of their son, Travis. As one of the show’s seven main characters, he appeared across six seasons before leaving near the beginning of its final season. His work on the series also extended behind the camera: he directed the fifth-season episode “Like a Diamond,” which aired in January 2014. That mix of ensemble film work, recurring television characters and occasional directing defines Van Holt’s career: steady, adaptable and spread across very different corners of American film and television.