NEW YORK — Chad Michael Murray is presently deep in thought. Together with his index finger firmly pressed in opposition to his chiseled jawline, he’s making an attempt to find out precisely what number of occasions he’s shirtless in “The Merry Gentlemen.” He can’t determine it out — it’s no less than 9 by my depend — however he’s certain it must be a sport.
“Every time Chad loses his shirt, have a sip of wine, beer or eat a cookie,” he laughs over Zoom, as one hand brushes his golden strands behind his ear.
Lounging behind a desk on the Plaza Lodge right here, Murray — who now rocks a little bit of scruff with a touch of grey — continues to be practically similar to his previous alter-egos, just like the charming protagonist Lucas Scott in “One Tree Hill” and Chilton bad-boy Tristan Dugray in “Gilmore Girls.” Now, 43, he has a little bit of a rugged edge — one thing that’s serving him properly in his newest position within the “Magic Mike”-meets-mistletoe flick “The Merry Gentlemen.”
Within the Netflix film, which premieres Wednesday, a dancer named Ashley (Britt Robertson) returns to her hometown and tries to avoid wasting her dad and mom’ nightclub by beginning a holiday-themed male revue. Murray performs Luke, a contractor-turned-entertainer who serves as Ashley’s romantic curiosity.
Netflix’s “The Merry Gentlemen” facilities on a dancer named Ashley who varieties a male revue to avoid wasting her guardian’s nightclub. From left: Ricky (Hector David Jr.), Rodger (Marc Anthony Samuel), Luke (Chad Michael Murray) and Troy (Colt Prattes).
(Katrina Marcinowski / Netflix)
“When you say Christmas, the first thing that typically comes to your mind isn’t strippers,” he quips.
Murray wasn’t nervous about baring his abs for the movie — it was the dancing that terrified him. He admits he might have even “peeked” at “Magic Mike” to prep for it. “It’s not that I don’t dance,” he clarifies, “I do, but at home and at weddings.”
However for the position of Luke, he obtained an expedited training. For six hours a day, as much as 4 days every week, Murray labored his method by nation western, hip-hop and jazz. Dancing 12 hours a day, half-naked in entrance of a crew was unexpectedly a “dopamine hit” for him. However nobody is extra stunned than Murray that he fell in love with dance.
When it got here to “The Merry Gentlemen,” it was no coincidence that Murray’s character was known as Luke, a reputation shared by a number of of his earlier characters, together with in “Mother of the Bride” earlier this yr. “When we got to the table on this one, I think his name was Bob or something, and he didn’t feel like a Bob,” he says. He supplied three names — one was Luke. Alongside the way in which, Murray, who’s a training Christian, found the identify Luke means “light.”
“It just felt kismet,” he says with a gravelly lilt. “That’s one of my main goals as an actor, to bring light to people’s life, enjoyment and entertainment, a departure, an escape from the mundane realities of day-to-day life.”
“That’s one of my main goals as an actor, to bring light to people’s life, enjoyment and entertainment, a departure, an escape from the mundane realities of day-to-day life,” Murray says.
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Instances)
That want for escapism has been Murray’s driving drive since childhood. The actor grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., with 5 siblings and was largely raised by his father. He says the household lived paycheck to paycheck or “sometimes worse.” For Murray and his siblings, TV grew to become an escape.
“When I was 6, 7, 8 years old, I used to dress up as Jim Kelly of the Buffalo Bills during the halftime shows,” he recollects. “I’d dress up in my old Buff helmet and my Jim Kelly jersey, and I’d do commentating like I was doing a mid-game interview.” That sparked his curiosity in tv and movie.
At age 15, Murray was hospitalized for greater than two months after his intestines twisted and he required an emergency resection that resulted in post-operative inside bleeding. Whereas recovering, he realized what he needed to do together with his life. His nurse, who was a mannequin, steered he get into modeling. Murray, nonetheless, needed to be an actor.
“She said, ‘Well, you can segue into acting [by starting out as] a model. You can do this. You’re getting out of this bed. I’m going to set you up as soon as you get out of here,’” he says, pausing for a second. “And she kept her word.”
Murray says that second modified every thing. When he was 18, he attended a modeling conference, met an agent who inspired him to relocate to Los Angeles and commenced modeling for manufacturers like Skechers, Tommy Hilfiger and Gucci.
By 2000, he had nabbed a recurring position on “Gilmore Girls” as Tristan — till his character was shipped off to navy faculty in North Carolina throughout Season 2. “They had asked me to stay and to become a regular at the end of Season 1, and I was young and I wanted the opportunity to kind of have my own thing,” Murray says. Shortly after, he landed a recurring half on “Dawson’s Creek” as womanizer Charlie Todd, who dates Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams).
Three years after his first stint on the WB, he landed the lead position of Lucas Scott within the soapy teen drama “One Tree Hill.” Throughout his time on the present, he married co-star Sophia Bush, however the couple divorced after simply 5 months in 2006. Whereas starring in “One Tree Hill,” he landed two different pivotal roles — as Jake, the motorcycle-riding, Britney Spears-singing crush of Lindsay Lohan’s Anna on “Freaky Friday,” and as star quarterback Austin Ames in “A Cinderella Story,” reverse Hilary Duff.
Murray landed his first lead TV position on the WB’s “One Tree Hill,” taking part in Lucas Scott within the teen drama.
(Fred Norris / The CW)
As Murray recollects, he was answerable for a pivotal plot change in “A Cinderella Story” involving Austin’s soccer workforce, the North Valley Frogs. “They were going to lose, and I wouldn’t have it, so I said, ‘Guys, look, he’s a stand-up human being. And I understand that he’s in love, [but] he’d give the ball to his best friend, Jake,’” he says.
With these roles, Murray catapulted into stardom, a heartthrob with a capital H. He grew to become a fixture of the tabloids and each teen lady’s crush, together with his profitable smile, bad-boy allure and tattoos. However Murray admits he didn’t deal with the highlight properly.
“There’s no playbook,” he says, “or at least there wasn’t then.” Murray provides that he didn’t know learn how to say “no” in a wholesome method and that he was burning the candle at each ends. The most important lesson he realized: “What does Chad want to do?” he dryly cackles, earlier than interrupting himself. “Yes, I just spoke in the third person about my past self.”
Right this moment, he doesn’t essentially need the highlight. Murray, who shares three youngsters — a son and two daughters — together with his spouse, actor Sarah Roemer, has totally different priorities now. “I want to be a dad but still work and service everybody else and help people make a great show so that everybody else can be happy,” he says.
That’s partly what drew him to vacation films like “The Merry Gentlemen” and Hallmark’s “Write Before Christmas,” “Love in Winterland” and “Road to Christmas.” Murray is hyper-aware of the roles he chooses and the way they could have an effect on his household.
“You kind of have to think about what’ll happen if you do Movie A versus Movie B and what your kids will have to go through,” he says, including that it’s one thing that he and his spouse at all times focus on intimately. Wherever he or his spouse is filming, they journey in a pack. (“They’re here in New York with me right now,” he says.)
His present position within the TV drama “Sullivan’s Crossing,” was, fairly actually, the reply to 2 years of prayers. “I wanted a show where I was not No. 1 on the call sheet,” he says of the Canadian present, which airs on the CW within the U.S. Now, he can coach his son’s soccer workforce, take his daughter to bounce and his youngsters to highschool. And for 5 months out of the yr, his household is fortunately settled in Halifax, Canada, the place the sequence movies.
Murray isn’t craving the highlight as he juggles fatherhood with work, which is why he took a task on the CW’s “Sullivan’s Crossing.” “I wanted a show where I was not No. 1 on the call sheet,” he says.
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Instances)
Subsequent yr, Murray might be seen reprising his character from “Freaky Friday” within the film’s sequel, “Freakier Friday.” In returning to the position, Murray requested himself, “Where the heck would Jake be?” Regardless of some prying, he’s coy about his character’s place within the narrative and as an alternative stresses how a lot time has handed between the movies. “We’ve had whole lives in between,” he says. “We got kids and grandkids. Jamie [Lee Curtis] got an Academy Award.”
However will he be dusting off his vocal chops for an additional pop cowl like within the first movie? He’s not ruling it out. “We will see,” he says. That second when Jake sings an off-key model of “…Baby One More Time” is “burned into my frontal cortex,” he says. The scene was an concept from director Mark Waters, who needed Murray to create his personal model of John Cusack’s boombox scene in “Say Anything.”
However he says they each agreed that bringing “One Tree Hill” again was good. “I want it for the fans,” he says. As if on cue, Lafferty texts Murray whereas we’re discussing the subject. “Speak of the devil,” he laughs, flashing his iPhone display screen on the pc digital camera for me to see.
However Murray isn’t too involved about what initiatives he might or might not do subsequent. He considers himself a laissez-faire man who believes within the butterfly impact, and with the profession path he’s helmed, he’s been in a position to star in his most fulfilling position — dad. And as soon as his youngsters are older, he might begin taking totally different elements — perhaps a psychological thriller or an indie movie. But when somebody approached him to star reverse Meryl Streep proper now, he’d leap on the alternative. “I would potentially pee down my leg,” he laughs.
For now, his future is a blur — and that’s OK with him.
“I truly feel like I’m just getting started,” Murray says.
