God’s gift to women enters the Four Seasons clutching a generic baseball cap. Presumably it’s an emergency disguise just in case a fan riot breaks out.
“From time to time, it seems like I have a pretty strong reaction from the ladies,” actor Jesse Metcalfe says. “I guess that’s not a bad thing.”
Ever since the 27-year-old created a sensation as gardener John Rowland on “Desperate Housewives,” playing boy-toy to Eva Longoria, Metcalfe has been put true north on the sex compass.
He thought he was used to frantic female fans after four years–most of them shirtless–on NBC’s soap “Passions.” “But ‘Desperate Housewives’ made me a household name, upped the ante and multiplied everything,” he says.
Metcalfe’s film debut is only going to splash gasoline on his fiery image. In “John Tucker Must Die,” a teen comedy that opens Friday, he plays a high school stud athlete–a cross “between an Abercrombie model and a Greek god”–who is working his way through the prettier part of the student body.
In reality, Metcalfe is a one-woman man. He currently dates Nadine Coyle, an Irish singer with the pop group Girls Aloud. Every time Metcalfe is photographed with another female, the feisty Irish press flies into a frenzy with rumors that he is two-timing Coyle.
“You’d have to be a fool to go out with another person that has some fame and cheat on them because you’re definitely going to get caught,” Metcalfe says.
Metcalfe’s looks always have attracted attention.
“Unfortunately, it was something that I’ve always been made aware of,” he says. “When you’re a young guy going through adolescence, you don’t want to be too good-looking. … I would dye my hair crazy colors and wear weird clothes and definitely try to play it down.”
After four years on “Passions,” Metcalfe left, eventually landing on “Desperate Housewives.”
“My role was kind of a dream,” he says. “I got to roll around with Eva every day. ” Still, Metcalfe hasn’t yet committed to a third season on Wisteria Lane.
“They haven’t made an official offer, and I haven’t officially accepted,” he says. “I don’t want to get stuck playing John the gardener, because he can be a little limiting.”
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