Jesse Metcalfe as
John Rowland Jesse Eden Metcalfe was born on December 9, 1978 in Carmel Valley, California. He is part-French, part-Italian and part-Portuguese. An only child, he was raised in Waterford, Connecticut and attended The Williams School in New London. After acquiring his diploma, he pursued his studies in film and acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Upon graduating, he relocated to Los Angeles and successfully tried out for NBC’s daytime drama,
Passions . He played the character Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald for 5 seasons, and left the show because he did not feel there was any more room for growth. While he was still in Passions, Metcalfe guest-appeared in the WB hit series,
Smallville , where he played Van McNulty.
Following his departure from Passions, Metcalfe became a cast member of the popular primetime drama/comedy series, Desperate Housewives. On the show, Metcalfe plays John Rowland, an attractive teenage gardener who gets involved with his married employer, Gabrielle Solis (portrayed by Eva Longoria). The role required him to appear shirtless on several episodes of the show’s first season, and his well-toned upper body was enough to convince USA Today to deem him a sex symbol in 2004, to which Metcalfe said, “Sometimes...that kind of objectification can wear on you a little bit but it's part of what I do, and I'm very comfortable with myself and if people choose to label me as a ‘sex symbol’ then there's nothing I can really do about it so...and there's worse things you can be called so, it's all good.”
Aside from acting, Metcalfe also spends his time playing the guitar and writing his own music. He has also taken part in “The Hollywood Knights,” a basketball team that raises funds for different high schools in Southern California. In 2007, he willingly admitted himself into a rehabilitation center in the hopes of treating his alcoholism and some time after, his relationship with Australian singer Nadine Coyle ended.