HOLLYWOOD -- Jay Hernandez is the first to admit one crazy encounter led to a beautiful career move.

Hernandez had never even been in a school play and hadn't even considered acting as a career option yet he's starring opposite Kirsten Dunst in the romantic drama crazy/beautiful.

"My parents and I were in this elevator in Hollywood. The door was just closing when this guy squeezed in. We rode for a couple of floors together when he asked if I'd ever considered modelling or acting," recalls Hernandez.

"He gave me his card and asked me to contact him if I wanted to give either career a try."

Hernandez pocketed the card, never giving the man's offer a second thought.

"My mom finally pushed me to phone the guy and see what it was all about."

Hernandez called Howard Tyner, who turned out to be a marketing director who'd worked with The New Kids on the Block.

"Howard said he was looking for some new talent to represent. He said he didn't want any money up front.

"We checked him out and he was legitimate so I signed on with him. He immediately signed me up for acting lessons and within a month he got me an agent."

Hernandez's first paying job was a commercial for a digital camera. "I've never seen it because it only airs in Japan. Maybe that's a good thing because I was pretty raw."

A few months later, Hernandez won a recurring role on the TV series Hang Time.

"It's a Saturday morning series liked Saved By the Bell. I played this cool-guy basketball player for two seasons."

In crazy/beautiful, Hernandez plays a young Mexican-American who is a star on the school football team, and he just completed a role opposite Dennis Quaid in The Rookie in which he is a baseball player. "I did track and soccer in high school but I wasn't what you could call an athlete so I find it ironic that I'm always being cast as one."

There are actually some real parallels between Hernandez and Carlos Nunez, the boy he plays in crazy/beautiful.

"I come from a very tight, loving family and I was raised just 15 miles from where Carlos lives in crazy/beautiful. "I still live at home with my two older brothers and younger sister. I'm third-generation Mexican-American whereas Carlos is only second generation, so most of his issues were never mine."

In crazy/beautiful, Carlos falls in love with Nicole Oakley, a wild girl in his class played by Dunst. He becomes the calming influence in her troubled life. What he only learns much later in their relationship is that her father (Bruce Davidson) is an influential congressman who can help him get a scholarship.

"Congressman Oakley becomes Carlos' angel just as Howard became mine. Meeting Nicole plunged Carlos into a new and vastly different world just as meeting Howard plunged me into a completely alien world.

"Here I am starring with the girl from Interview with the Vampire and Bring it On. I was really intimidated by the thought of acting opposite her. She was so generous and helpful. I know she could tell how nervous I was.

"She said if there was ever anything she could help me with or that I wanted to know not to hesitate asking her. Just knowing she was there for me put me at ease.

"We have a lot of intimate scenes together and Kirstin said I made her feel comfortable doing them.

"That meant so much to me coming from a person whose work I respect so highly."


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