If we’re talking 2000s heartthrobs, we’ve gotta bring Jesse Metcalfe into the conversation.
He memorably starred in the 2006 movie John Tucker Must Die, and before that, in 2004, he appeared on Desperate Housewives as John Rowland, the teenage gardener who has an affair with Eva Longoria’s Gabby.
There’s no doubt that Jesse’s role on Desperate Housewives made an impact. So, as someone who’s watched all eight seasons of the iconic ABC comedy drama, it’s weird to think that he was only a significant character for just one season.
In a recent interview with Amanda Hirsch, Jesse recalled that he was actually “fired” from the show “after the first season” because “they didn’t really know where else to take my storyline.”
“Our creator, Marc Cherry, was kinda like, ‘Hey, this isn’t Desperate House-gardeners. This is Desperate Housewives. So, unfortunately, you know, you’re not gonna be a series regular moving forward on the show. We’re gonna bring you back intermittently,’” he recalled.
Given that he was only 26 and had already tasted success, Jesse said he wasn’t too upset by the decision.
“At that time, I had been offered John Tucker Must Die from 20th Century Fox. So I was like, ‘Hey, cool, no big deal, I’m gonna be a movie star,'” he said. “I did come back intermittently, but I wasn’t hit super hard…I took it in stride, because I thought, ‘This is only the beginning.’”
At another point in the interview, Jesse, now 47, talked about his acting career as a whole and why he feels like he’s “underachieved.”
“When you’re hitting, and when it’s all happening, it’s like, one opportunity after the next, you think it’s gonna last forever. You think you’re in control,” he said, quipping that his career may have panned out differently if social media had been a thing in the early 2000s.
“Now it’s like, [young male actors] are instantly on the cover of GQ. You do one show now, and you blow up so hard that it’s not like you have to do a couple hit shows, and then you get your first big movie, and then you’re on the cover of GQ,” Jesse explained, as he and Amanda discussed the young stars of shows like Heated Rivalry and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
“You have to be very strategic once you have that big break,” he added. “I don’t necessarily think I was that strategic.”