AGE: 31 HOMETOWN: Minot, North Dakota
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WHO ARE YOU CALLING HOT?: Josh Duhamel, best known for his three-year run as Leo du Pres on the ABC soap All My Children, took his sudsy good looks to primetime this fall on NBC's drama Las Vegas and now hits the big screen in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! Duhamel stars as an A-list actor who falls for his small-town contest winner. Asked about playing the heartthrob, he winces, "Oh no, don't say that," he says. "Or hunk. I hate hunk." A better label? "A-list thespian." THE MAILROOM: Duhamel's initial dream was dental school-until he moved to L.A. and got interested in showbiz.Visiting a friend at work in the mailroom of a talent agency, he caught the eye of an agent who offered him representation, a fairy-tale encounter cementing his new career choice. Almost. "I was so bad in a couple of auditions they almost dropped me."
SMALL-TOWN ROOTS: In Tad Hamilton, Duhamel gets mobbed by star-crazed fans in the tiny town of Frazier's Bottom, West Virginia, a phenomenon very unlike the actor's trips back to his own modest Midwest hometown. "They don't give a shit," he says of his friends' reaction to his Hollywood job. "We just go to the bar, play pool and drink beers."
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Lauren Lyster