All clothing by Calvin Klein Sportswear

Photography Toni Torres

Styling Allan Kennedy

Leading Man

Actor Alex Burns will not be left out of the genealogy.

Alex Burns walks into the caf, one hand on his head,

looking skeptical. I can see immediately that this wont

do. I wave him down and his face brightens. He sits down
in the booth next to me for a minute, then points to
one of the patrons. Okay, that guy is sitting on a couch,
drinking coffee, and reading. Its 9 pm! He suggests we
get out of there. We head down the street to a different
corner bistro, and on the way we fall in to talking about
the Burns family history.
My maternal grandmother just finished our genealogy,
he says. I should have brought it to show you. How
considerate. The Millspaugh genealogy is, as it turns out,
a bit complicated. Its not exactlycomplete.
My grandmother spent most of the past 20 years researching the German side of the familyunfortunately,
she saw fit to leave out anybody remotely undesirable.
So, any of my family members who had ever been to
jail, anyone that she deemed a miscreant of any ilk got
left out of the genealogy altogether. In fact, it is later
revealed that the Millspaugh matriarch understands her
bloodline to be hopelessly contaminated. Right after she
published the genealogy, she had this family reunion in
Ponte Vedra, Florida, in the middle of July. Ponte Vedra
is near Jacksonvilleits not pleasant in July. So, we all go
down there, and at the big dinner, she presents to all of
the descendants of the Millspaugh family a framed artists
rendition of the family crest. However, she only presented

it as far down the family tree as her own children, because

by the time the grandchildren had been born, the Millspaugh blood had been diluted to a point where she didnt
consider us Millspaughs, really at all, anymore. Young
Photography
Toni
Alex,
about 17 at the
time,Torres
decided to take it upon himself
to stand up for the slighted cousins. That wasnt looked
upon too kindly by my grandparents generation. But, ultimately I did get my own copy of the Millspaugh family
crest, which hangs on my wall to this day.
In Burnss acting career, this pursuit of what he believes
is right for him (demonstrated early on under threat of
diminished lineage) has helped bridge the qualification
gap from struggling to emerging (and on the road
to
accomplished)
actor.Sindon
This fall Burns takes the lead
photographs
by Phil
with a starring role in Sordid Things, a drama by first time
director Andrew Bloomenthal, as well as having small role
in The Girl in the Park, directed by David Auburn (Proof,
The Lake House). Of course, on the journey of an auteur,
a healthy ego also helps. The highs of landing bit parts in
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Van Wilder, and
Garden State balance out such times as when, at the beginning of his career, the new sitcom he was to star in was
dropped a week after he relocated to Los Angeles. Burns
remains philosophical about the process.
I think if the first thing I had ever done had gone on to
become wildly successful, it would have engendered an
even grander sense of entitlement than I already possess,

with sprinkles of megalomania. I mean, in the background

noise I already hear people screaming my name, so you can
imagine if that were actually true to even a tiny extent, how
out of hand everything would have gotten. I am trying to
get to a place where I can be humble but can also be very
confident.

Growing up, it was perhaps a struggle with humility,

among other things, that led to Burnss tour of various

boarding schools in his parents native Massachusettsthe
Eagle Brook School for Boys, and Andover (where it was
politely suggested he take a medical leave of absence after
his first year there). Upon completion of his senior year
of high school back in New York where he was born and
raised, Burns again returned to the Bay State for a year at
Northeastern University.
Everyone was a jock, he laments, explaining why he
left after his freshman year. He muses that he could have
faced a similar fate had he been raised in Boston instead
of Brooklyn Heights. Id be a beer-guzzling frat boy, you
know what I mean? Or a State Trooper. Theres definitely
a part of me that identifies with authoritarianism, and I
could totally see myself in the field of law enforcement
or the military. Thank God Im too old for all that at this
point. I mention that theres no threat of him getting
drafted, and his answer is surprising. No, what I mean
is that Im too old to enlist at this point. Every once in
awhile, whenever Im feeling overwhelmed with the career
choices that Ive made in my life, when I feel like Im not
getting anywhere, or Im certainly not getting there fast
enoughI immediately think, I should give it all up and
enlist in the Marines.
It seems a rather extreme antidote to restlessness, and
when thats pointed out to him, he answers, a bit tonguein-cheek, Well, Im extreme in nature. Its all or nothing,
a lot of the time. I ask if the thought of military service
has crossed his mind recently, and half-joking, he says he
thinks about it almost every day. Burns is, as he puts it,
staring down the barrel at 30, and has of late given in to
some serious reflection. This is due in part to changes in
his life that he will only hint at but that seem to have given
him pause over the past few months.

"Dont get me wrong. I love my life, I love what I do,

Im very happy with the moderate success that I have had

up to this point. But at the same time I think that when
I started acting, I was 19, and I had this boundless naive
optimism that was fueled by ignorance. I often wonder: if I
had any idea what I was getting myself into, would I have

stuck around this long? Because now at this point I look

at my life and I think, Shit, all my fucking eggs are in this
one basket. While many of his high school friends went
on to Ivy League schools and six-figure salaries, after his
freshman year of college, a friend offered Burns $1,000 to
do a photo shoot, which led to a modeling career. I spent
the next three or four years traveling all over the worldI
lived in Milan, Paris, I went to Japanand lived off someone elses dime, essentially.

Burns is tall, his good looks emphasized by his charm,

and anyone in his company is especially rewarded when he

cracks a smilewhich is rare: he is a deadpan comic. In
fact, news of his past modeling career might surprise anyone whos gotten to know him a bit. Okay, the conversation wasnt great a lot of the time, he cracks, But, that led
me into actingand I did actually audition for Zoolander.
At the time of the audition, Burns had yet to do a feature
film, and his rsum consisted of one credit, which his
then-agent had seen fit to print up in six-point type on the
back of his headshot. For the entire audition, Ben Stiller
just made fun of the fact that I had nothing on my rsum,
yet you needed a microscope to read what it was. Ive had
a lot of auditions, but there are a couple standouts for how
off the rails they went. How pear-shaped they went. Ultimately I thought that, because I had male modeling experience and Ben Stiller made fun of my rsum, I should
automatically be in the movie, but no. Not so. No love for
the kid.
With two films coming out this fall, Hollywood seems to
be showing Alex Burns a little more love, and I suspect his
future looks far less pear-shaped. When asked if his family
was proud of him, he admits they are all very supportive,
though perhaps given to speculation about when he is going to get a real job. Most everyone else in my family is
like a bean-counter, at least, theyre all kind of white collar
business people. He pauses. And if there were any bluecollar, they all got left out of the genealogy.
Jess Holl