Interview with a Celebrity Part II: Las Vegas Actor Josh Duhamel

I had been dying to do an article for the weekly newspaper on actor Josh Duhamel. His grandparents live here in Harvey, and Josh grew up in Minot, North Dakota. Josh was 'local enough' for me to write about, since all our stories in the paper have to have some tie to the county, but I needed something special to report.

Josh Duhamel's breakout role was as Leo du Pres on ABC's soap 'All My Children', who he played from 1999 to 2002. He's done a handful of movies: 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' in 2002, 'Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!' in 2004, 'Turistas' in 2006, and 'Transformers' in 2007. Perhaps Josh Duhamel is most well-known as Danny McCoy on NBC's television show 'Las Vegas'. He has been with 'Las Vegas' since 2003.

My opportunity for a Duhamel article arose when I caught Josh on the NBC game show '1 Vs. 100' one evening. I was so excited, since he was playing for a North Dakota domestic abuse organization, which also happens to be a pet cause of mine. This was the chance to write about Josh Duhamel!

I pitched the idea to my editor, who okay'd it immediately upon seeing my excitement. Within the next hour, I was on the phone with Josh's grandmother. I told her that I would like to do an article about her grandson, and I wondered if she could help me get in touch with his agent or publicist. She said she would call Josh and let him know.

About a week later, Josh's grandmother called me back. She said she'd gotten in touch with Josh, and that he had asked her, "She wants to talk to my publicist? She doesn't want to talk to me?" I explained to his grandma that I would love to talk to him, but that I didn't want to be too pushy. She took down my phone numbers and said she would pass them along to Josh.

I waited on pins and needles for Josh Duhamel to call me. After missing his call at my office, I was so worried that I wouldn't get this story. His grandmother called again, since she hadn't yet seen my article about him in the newspaper. "Hasn't Josh gotten ahold of you yet, dear?" she asked. I told her I had missed his call but that he hadn't tried again, and she said, "I keep telling him he needs to call you, but..." and she trailed off, obviously disappointed that her grandson hadn't listened to her. I laughed as I realized that no matter how old or famous one gets, they still have to answer to Grandma.

Then she did something that shocked me. It was a good thing I was sitting down, and even then I almost fell out of my chair. She gave me Josh Duhamel's personal cell phone number. When I hung up the phone, I screamed and danced around my office.

Since I write from home one day a week, I had to wait until the next Tuesday came around before I could call. I called, held my breath as it rang, and then let it out in a sigh when I got his voice mail. I left a message for him and waited until the next week to try again.

The next Tuesday morning, I nervously dialed Josh Duhamel's number again. Again, I got voice mail. I decided to console myself on the phone with my sister, and it wasn't five minutes later when I got call waiting. I cleared my throat, hit the flash button, and answered the other call.

"Hi Heather? This is Josh."

I frowned and paused for a second before it dawned on me. Oh my God!!! Josh Duhamel was calling me! He was on the phone with me right now!! I took a deep breath and managed to remain professional. "Oh, hi Josh! Thanks for taking time to give me a call back." He was calling from the set of 'Las Vegas', where they were filming their season finale.

I started out the interview very nervous, and I know I stuttered a couple times. But I focused on getting the questions out and writing furiously to get his answers exact. Josh was, just as his grandmother had said, a good ol' North Dakota boy. Soon I was so at ease, I even teased him a little about the question he got wrong on '1 vs. 100'.

"You didn't know that the dish ran away with the spoon, which is cutlery?" I asked, laughing. He replied, "No!! I did know that, but I swear my clicker wasn't working! But that's okay, because I would've gotten the next question wrong anyway. I don't know a thing about computers." If I remember correctly, it was a question about megabytes and gigabytes.

I asked him about his work and his personal life, and he was very candid with me. Josh shared stories about his girlfriend Fergie's experiences when visiting North Dakota with him. Soon it came time to ask him for a photograph. I asked if he had any headshots he or his publicist could email. He didn't know about that, so Josh asked if I couldn't just download one off the internet. I thought it was cute that he didn't know about copyright laws, but I didn't want to point that out to him. I told him I would look for one.

He replied, sounding either nervous, sheepish, or both. "Uhmmm, just don't look at ... all of them ... on the internet." I laughed hard, because I knew exactly what he was talking about. Josh Duhamel had modeled for a coffee table book at one point early on in his career... in the nude.

I grinned and told him, "Oh, I've already seen those." I think I heard an "Oh god" before I reassured him. "Don't worry, they're good!"