Arena UK
September 2003
Ian Somerhalder
Previous
The Rules of Attraction, Young Americans
Upcoming
U-Boat, Fearless
Somerhalder left behind a ten year modeling career (which included campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci) to star in the Dawson's Creek-esque TV show, Young Americans. This year you would have seen him as the flirtatious gay character, Paul Denton, in Arena contributor Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction. "I had to make conscious decisions to do things that Ian would never do. The kissing scenes with James [Van Der Beek] were funny - there's nothing that six cans of Heineken can't remedy. The only difficult scene was dancing in the mirror half naked with Avary barking at me to take off my underwear." There's more flesh baring in his next project, World War II drama U-Boat with William H. Macy and Scott Caan. "I was wet, freezing cold, naked and had Vaseline with mud caked into it smothered all over me. I had to have my shower professionally cleaned because all the dirt and grease clogged it up."