ARTICLES
Eonline Sizzling 16 of 1999
CREDIT: Eonline

Pleasantville was full of surprises, but perhaps the most pleasantly surprising thing about the '90s-meets-'50s flick was Paul Walker. In a cast that included Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon, Walker managed to stand out as a Wally Cleaver type with a Dylan McKay edge just begging to come out. A former child actor ("I was on just about every '80s sitcom," he says, "like Growing Pains, Charles in Charge and Who's the Boss"), Walker left the biz to concentrate on high school. "I wanted to play sports and chase chicks," he explains unapologetically. Now 25, Walker is ready for his coming-out party, and he's doing it in a big way, with three films for 1999. First up is the hit Varsity Blues, in which he tosses the football around with Dawson's Creek star James Van Der Beek. Then this summer, Walker appears as Claire Danes' stateside beau in Brokedown Palace. Also this year, Walker makes a bet with Freddie Prinze Jr. that it's not possible to turn a homely high-school girl (Rachel Leigh Cook) into a prom queen in She's All That. "I play the prick," he says. "You won't like me." Sorry Paul, it'll take more than that role to put us off.