As Christopher, Rory Gilmore's charming but fly-by-night, absentee dad on the hit WB series Gilmore Girls, David Sutcliffe may not be around much (his role is recurring), but he sure knows how to make an impression. "It's especially nice because the fans are so hardcore," says the Gilmore guy, who returns for half a dozen episodes this season. "Young women really relate to Rory, so when they meet me, they're crying, they're shaking, they're freaked out. 'Why weren't you at her graduation?!'"
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Sutcliffe, late of the short-lived regular-Joe-dates-a-movie-star sitcom I'm with Her, relished the opportunity to break out of the "lightweight, sweet guy" parts he'd been getting by tackling the lead role in this month's indie dark comedy Testosterone; his character, Dean, is jilted by his boyfriend (Antonio Sabato Jr.) and tracks him down all the way to Argentina. The steamy bedroom scenes had Sutcliffe, 35, a little intimidated, but less for the man-to-man action--"I'd never kissed a guy before, but I wasn't afraid of it, or I wouldn't have signed up for it"--than stacking up against Mr. Former Calvin Klein Model. "He's got one of the most famous bodies in the world," says Sutcliffe, a self-avowed high school jock (basketball and hockey). "I'm an actor, I'm vain, you want to look good. But that's not my job in this movie. It's his job to look like the stud, to be the object of attraction, and it's my job to be a kind of psychopathic, obsessed, guilty lover."
Next, Sutcliffe does the "romantic leading man" thing opposite Heather Graham in Cake, and also plays gay again as part of the ensemble in Don Roos' Happy Endings, alongside Lisa Kudrow and Laura Dern. And despite his character's comic tribulations on I'm with Her, Sutcliffe--who describes himself as a "single man, in the city, looking for love"--isn't put off by the difficulties of dating a big star. "The reality is I meet a lot of actresses. They're wonderful, beautiful ladies. It's pretty hard to stay away from them. You know, there's worse problems to have."
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Andre Chautard