Source: Elle Magazine
Date: March 1, 2010

In White Collar, USA’s popular new series about a ridiculously good-looking con man, breakout star Matt Bomer has us begging to be grifted.

Back in 2007, America clamored to learn more about the impossibly handsome newcomer on AMC’s Mad Men. Now we’re having another who’s-that-guy moment with Matt Bomer, channeling Rat Pack-era swagger as con-artist-with-a-heart on USA Network’s standout series White Collar. Thanks to an estimated $10 million-plus marketing campaign featuring the 32-year-old Texas native donning French cuffs and handcuffs on billboards everywhere, he’s become the face of a channel previously known for Tony Shalhoub’s OCD detective Monk. And what a face it is: all cheekbones and icy blues, radiating an otherworldly beauty.

In White Collar, now at the tail end of its debut season, Bomer plays a brilliant ex-con enlisted by his FBI nemesis to help solve impossible cases. Audiences and critics fell for the bromance between the G-man and the con man, and Bomer’s ability to play his character as perfectly cool – he looks like he was born wearing a fedora – makes female viewers fantasize about being his next mark.

While his looks surely helped Bomer score the soap opera roles that led to parts on NBC’s Chuck and Fox’s Tru Calling, they haven’t always been an asset. Bomer says that he’s been passed over for parts because he wasn’t “charactery” enough. “Those roles were for cops or a grittier type of guy who has to get his hands dirty,” which is a little unfair considering at 18 he spent the summer working on gas pipelines in the South and Midwest.

While Bomer hopes to parlay his new found fame into more TV work (“I’d love to do a spot on 30 Rock – have some laughs with Liz Lemon, maybe play Jack’s illegitimate son”), he’s still not comfortable talking about his personal life in interviews. “My favorite actors are people who I don’t know anything about, and I can project any character onto them,” he says. “They focus on their work and then go live their lives with the people they love.” Besides, what’s a hot bad guy without a little mystery?