In front of the actor Jesse Metcalfe has develop into a household name because the shirtless hunk on “Desperate Housewives” and a Hallmark regular, he was a Little League vagabond in Nutmeg State who idolized Yankee great Don Mattingly.
“I had a pretty idyllic childhood,” he told me this week on an episode of Renaissance Man, adding: “Connecticut is a good spot to grow up. I studied in public school, I played sports.
Baseball and basketball were his passions, as were the Bronx Bombers.
“My favorite baseball player growing up was Donnie Baseball. I used to be a huge Yankees fan growing up,” he said. “And as many individuals know, should you live in Connecticut, between Massachusetts and New York, there’s a big Red Sox-Yankees rivalry happening. So I had a lot of fun with it when my friends were growing up.”
Jesse’s favorite show was The Wonder Years, but he also became all for the comedy Three’s Company. And let’s be honest, the theme song was pretty good too. He needed to smuggle episodes in as his mother thought the show was “sexist and a bit too grown up for me on the time”.
Nevertheless it was a trip to the flicks along with his father to see The Breakfast Club that sparked his interest in acting. He later attended NYU where he studied craftsmanship.
Now playing inOn the wing and prayeralongside Heather Graham and Dennis Quaid. The film, which premieres Friday on Amazon Prime, is predicated on true family history who needed to land their small plane after the pilot died mid-flight. Jesse plays Kari Sorenson, an authority on this particular plane who helps save the world.
“The icing on the cake was that it was a true story. And satirically, I can be playing a character from Danbury, Connecticut, my home state. I’ve done a lot of research on his real life. He lost his father and stepfather in a plane crash. And as an alternative of coping with this survivor’s guilt, he just wrapped it up,” he said. “He took out a lot of those unresolved feelings on his better half. While helping to avoid wasting Doug White and his family, he experienced some extent of healing. It was a cathartic experience for him.”
Jesse is a fan of one other high-flying movie, Top Gun, and whilst his career takes off, he still loves the cinematic comforts of his childhood. There’s “True Genius” and all of the John Hughes movies like “Pretty in Pink”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Sixteen Candles”. Anything from the Brother Pack.
“I actually love ’80s comedies. I assumed they were incredibly well written,” he said. “I liked how irreverent they were, and I assumed the actors of that era were incredibly talented.”
He starred in his own teen classic John Tucker Must Die – and the 2006 film stays his favorite role.
“I feel like this movie was on my shoulders. Although we had a great solid and although the film was criticized on the time, it became a cult classic of adlescent comedy and I believe it has stood the test of time.
And he has some advice on how you can stand the test of time as an actor or, so to talk, borrowed wisdom from a Hollywood icon.
“I believe it’s best to just eat and sleep and breathe acting and develop into the perfect actor you’ll be able to be,” Jesse said. “And as Eddie Murphy once said in an interview, ‘Keep your mouth shut.’