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By Mike Szymanski
Zap2it.com
The movie makers had to come up with a guy who could come across as a big star and audiences had to believe that guys would envy him and girls would scream over the chance to "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"
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After a lot of talented actors -- known and unknown -- auditioned for the part, Josh Duhamel won the part, even though he was only really known as Leo du Pres, an "All My Children" regular who ended his three-year stint by falling off a bridge with his fictional mother.
Today, the 31-year-old, 6'3 actor with deep brown eyes and a flashy smile swaggers into an interview with his blue shirt opened halfway down his chest and filled with the air of a confident movie star. He's happy with his new NBC series "Las Vegas" (which he thinks will get picked up again in May) and he's thrilled that he and his fianci Kristy Pierce will be tying the knot "sometime soon."
"I'm just a dude who got real lucky, and I really don't know what I'd do if I wasn't doing this," he tells Zap2it.com, trying to list his other talents. "I can fart the Pledge of Allegiance, do you want to hear?"
Duhamel's grades weren't good enough to get into dental college, but he was handsome enough to get into fashion magazines as a model, and then land a role on a soap opera which ended with his body never being found, so he can always mysteriously return. He won a daytime Emmy for the role, and is miffed how soap stars get a bad rap.
"I'd put it up against any acting training school; it's a great opportunity to hone your craft, learn about how the cameras get into position, get into the rhythm of the scenes and work on becoming a good actor," he says, pointing out that Alec Baldwin was on a soap for three years like him. "It's fine as long as you don't stay in it too long and develop bad habits."
Sure, he'd go back to "All My Children" if things don't work out, and he was offered a stint on "As the World Turns," but right now he's dabbling at being a movie star.
As Tad Hamilton, he plays a bad-boy superstar who needs to improve his image, so his manager and agent (Nathan Lane, Sean Hayes) concoct a contest where he dates a small-town girl (Kate Bosworth), who has a guy who likes her already (Topher Grace). Hamilton becomes infatuated with the girl and ends up moving to Fraziers Bottom, W. Va. and buying a farm, thinking that it will help him get closer to her.
"I've not met any of these arrogant stars yet, but I'm sure someday I will," Duhamel says of his character. "I haven't had the chance to meet that many celebrities."
Yet, one of the ways he won the role was with video footage of an ABC Daytime Television fan appreciation day event at Disney World where everyone knew him. "It was a microcosm of what it was like to be Tom Cruise ... or Tad," he says.
He also participated on a date gimmick for Seventeen magazine where he escorted a girl from Alabama to her prom. "She was very sweet and I still keep in touch with her," says the guy who answers his fan mail on his official website ( joshduhamel.com ).
"We could have gone with a big actor, but that comes with some suitcases attached," says director Robert Luketic ("Legally Blonde"), who wanted a guy reminiscent of a young Jack Nicholson for the role. "The studio didn't give me a hassle about picking a soap opera actor, and I think Josh has the emotional complexity to pull it off."
Meanwhile, Duhamel is still dealing with his legacy as a soap star stud.
"Once an older woman sent a photo of herself in lingerie dressed as a cat. That was weird," he says. "Soap fans are loyal and intense, but I know they mean no harm. I'm happy that the people involved with this movie picked me and could see me beyond being that soap guy."
