It’s a blistering summer afternoon in New York City: 98 degrees radiating off every surface, a day that makes even the most committed New Yorker wish he were anywhere, anyone, else. But Matt Bomer isn’t sweating. The 32-year-old actor has been shooting White Collar outside since 8AM, but breezing into an Italian bistro two blocks from the set, he’s the picture of cool. In a white V-neck T-shirt, gray shorts, boat shoes and a straw pork-pie hat, he’s in the seasonal uniform of the fashionable young urban dude, accessorized with thick-rimmed black glasses that evoke Clark Kent (ironic, considering that he was originally cast, then cast aside, as Superman in the most recent movie version of the franchise).

“Growing up in Houston gave me the wherewithal to withstand humidity,” he says with a grin, settling in for his first in-person magazine interview. In fact, Bomer seems well prepared to take the heat literally and figuratively, navigating with aplomb a path to stardom fraught with potentially devastating career setbacks—and relentless questions about his private life.

On USA’s White Collar, which airs through October, Bomer plays Neal Caffrey, an upscale criminal turned FBI agent. The show is a breakout, as is Bomer, who’s one of the most buzzed-about stars of the last few TV seasons. Named People magazine’s “Sexiest Newcomer,” he was also featured as the “Must List Summer Crush” in Entertainment Weekly—tipping a water bottle over his torso with pinup panache, his abs rippling through a soaked T-shirt. And he landed the cover of TV Guide in June. He modestly attributes all the attention he’s getting to the winning character Collar’s producers created for him. “We can all be con artists at one time or another,” he says casually, taking a hearty swallow of iced coffee.

In person, Bomer looks a bit ruddier and slighter than on screen, more regular-guy; he’s one of those performers who seem to conduct electricity in front of a camera. In conversation, he’s engaged and engaging, with an actor’s expansiveness—much animation, many hand gestures—and a screenwriter’s vocabulary (he calls living in New York City after 9/11 “a diaspora” and the People accolade “flattering, but not a meritocratic achievement”). Overall, his vibe is that of the high-school jock everybody liked, who sat in the back of the cafeteria drawing in his notebook. Which is essentially what he was.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Thanks MetEvaine for the tip!

Are your friends getting wary of you now that you’ve picked up the tricks of the trade?

Well, I just did a scene where I pick somebody’s pocket and the crew told me they don’t trust me any more, because I guess I’ve gotten good at it! No, I don’t know that my friends think I’m conning them. Most of my friends I’ve had for a long time, so I’ve been conning them for years! People just think it’s the same old Matt.

You sing as well, don’t you?

I do sing, yes. Well, uh, I mean, if I’m drunk and it’s karaoke, then that’s one range of songs that I’d sing. But, all kinds of stuff. I started out doing things like Spring Awakening and Broadway stuff.

What’s your favourite karaoke song?

Oh, Desperado by The Eagles. Anything by The Eagles. That’s where I take it. I wait until everybody gets nice and tipsy and I bring them down another notch.

You can read the entire article here.

Matt appears at 0:40 in the video below (Thanks sayiarly for the tip!).

Also, be sure to check out more photos taken by a fan here.

Matt was also interviewed by Just Jared.

JJ: How has your life changed since the success of White Collar?

MB: Well, to me, it’s so great that the people are responding to the character in the way they are and I’ve been working in the business for a long time playing lots of different roles, so there is obviously something about the writing and the role. Something that I’ve tapped into that thankfully people seem to be responding to. My life hasn’t really changed at all – I still put on the same t-shirt and jeans every morning and just go to work and do my thing. I think as an artist, you’re always hoping that people respond to the stories you are doing and I’m just grateful that people seem to be enjoying White Collar.

JJ: I think it has something to do with you wearing hats…

MB: (laughs) it probably does have something to do with the hats and the wardrobe as well.

JJ: Are you as fashionable as your character is?

MB: I’m not into shopping – I’m really more of a T-shirt and jeans kinda guy! I get out of the shower and go about my day. But spending so much time with Neal and getting to be dapper on a daily basis definitely rubbed off on me to a certain extent. I try to make an effort when I go out.

JJ: You just did the hot shoot for Entertainment Weekly, showing off quite a nice body. What are your workout rituals?

MB: My work out plan is get to the gym when humanly possible, which actually isn’t that often, I’m sad to say. I do about 70 hours a week on the show, so I just fit it in when I can and I try to eat healthy in the meantime.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Another video: The best part of waking up…. is !@%$#%@ Folgers in your cup!

Here are 2 Comic-Con star portraits from EW.com.

I also added 11 more HQ photos. Thanks again to Nadioz for donating 7 of them!

ANOTHER UPDATE

I added 6 more HQ photos courtesy of USA Network.

More links to videos, photos, and articles:
1. Televisionary (Video + Photo + Article)
2. The Futon Critic (Video)
3. Seat42F (Photos)
4. Hot Girls In Hollywood (Photos)
5. Laconic Ramblings (Photos + Article)
6. Just Jared (Photos)
7. Give Me My Remote (Article)
8. White Collar Panel: SDCC 2010 (Photos)

Thanks to all the Collars on Twitter who took photos of Matt and the cast of “White Collar” today! I have gathered the photos and the credit/link to each photographer is posted below the photo in the gallery. If anyone else has any other photos to share, please let me know! Wish I could have went, but I’m definitely planning on attending next year if “White Collar” is.

Here are some Comic-Con articles:
1. ‘White Collar’ stars address character’s death … sort of
2. USA Network’s Live Coverage (posted at White Collar Fans LJ Community)
3. Comic-Con: ‘White Collar’ comes to San Diego

Crayen added 17 more photos of Matt and Willie filming “White Collar” on the streets of Manhattan on July 12th.

Also, be sure to check out “White Collar” creator/executive producer Jeff Eastin’s interview with Collider.com.

“Some of the great directors will just let Tim and Matt just play, once they get the scene as it’s supposed to be. That’s the hard stuff. It’s really tough when you see all this extra stuff Tim and Matt have done and we can’t use all of it. Those are the things that I wish could be there, but that’s what DVD extras are for.”

Another interview: Matt Bomer on ‘White Collar’ & Dylan McDermott talks ‘Dark Blue’

 Over on the USA Network, a night of crime is a pretty good thing. “White Collar” returned for its second season Tuesday night, and drew 4.3 million viewers, down 20% from its series premiere but still 12% higher than its freshman season average. It seems a bank heist is what the viewers want!

Continuing the evening of good-looking television was the series premiere of “Covert Affairs,” starring Piper Perabo (“Beverly Hills Chihuahua”), which brought in 4.9 million viewers and is the highest-rated cable series premiere so far this year.

We’ve got a Q & A with Matt Bomer, who stars as “White Collar’s” charming con man Neal Caffrey, and Perabo, the newly minted CIA operative from “Covert Affairs.”

The twist: We’re not asking the questions. In between their hectic schedules — an appearance on the “Today” show (Bomer) and shooting a boat-hopping action sequence (Perabo), the actors wrangled some phone time (very) early Tuesday morning, as in 4:30 a.m. Pacific, to role play. Bomer pretended he’s a journalist, Perabo played herself, and we listened in. Time for you to eavesdrop:

Bomer: Let me pull out my copious journalistic notes. Piper, I know you’ve been asked hundreds of questions over the past week, so anything you don’t want to answer, just say ‘get lost’ and I’ll move on to the next one. First of all, you’re really incredible in this pilot. You nail the character, you look incredible and I thought the show was well cast. I’m really proud to have it come out after our show [on Tuesdays]; they complement each other really well. So tell me, how did the role of Annie Walker come your way?

Perabo: I was doing a play in New York and I was reading film script after film script. I couldn’t find anything … you know, I was really looking to play a hero. I read this script and I thought it was so incredible and I auditioned for it. It took a couple of auditions, actually, to get it.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Thanks Sab for the tip!

STUDIO CITY, Calif. – You can tell he’s a Texan by the way he opens the door for the woman whose arms are full of packages, shakes the hand of one of the drivers in the parking lot, and assaults the stairs to the deck of the coffee shop here.

But there’s no trace of the Texas drawl in actor Matthew Bomer, who’s about as far from the cunning conman he plays on “White Collar” as anyone could be.

Bomer says he learned the hard way when he was fresh out of Carnegie Mellon (he’d attended four years on a scholarship) and found himself penniless in New York City.

“I called my dad and said, ‘Can I borrow …’ He said, ‘Listen, I got you through college, you’ve got to figure it out now.’ It was tough love, but it was good for me,” he says, settling on a wooden bench at one of the busy tables.

“It made me realize, ‘OK, I’m my own man now. I’ve got to make my own way. It was hard. And I got upset, but I thought ‘OK, well, I may go out there and get my own gig because nobody’s going to make this happen but myself. I was staying at a friend’s apartment in New York. It was more the general thinking of him saying, ‘You’re cut off.’ But I think it was good for a man. I think tough love is good for boys.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

Here’s another interview as well: Tim DeKay and Matt Bomer on Season 2 of ‘White Collar’

Thanks Lynne for the tip!