From the city of Claremont just outside LA, Robert Buckley, with his sweet and easygoing demeanor, seems like the guy next door. That is, if the guy next door was so handsome it made it a little difficult to breathe.
Buckley’s star has been steadily on the rise since he played the much-younger boyfriend of Kim Raver’s character in NBC’s Lipstick Jungle—a role that almost didn’t happen. “You never say no to auditions but I was tempted to because [the Lipstick Jungle set] was 3,000 miles away from my family, and I didn’t know New York,” says Buckley. Thank goodness he did audition because—as any woman who watched the show can tell you—Buckley and his abs were a good part of the reason it lasted the two seasons it did.
Buckley’s current small-screen home is on the CW’s North Carolina-based One Tree Hill, now in its seventh season. Unsurprisingly, Buckley has quickly meshed with the notoriously tight cast. “We’re all sort of dislocated from our homes, so to have a few close friends helps when you’re shooting a scene,” he says. “The friendships are real, not forced.” While there’s no denying Buckley’s career is thriving, there’s also no denying it’s boasted its share of roles in which he’s played prey to some very hot cougars—in addition to Lipstick, he got Heather Locklear’s groove back in the Lifetime movie Flirting with Forty. So what does Buckley think about his particular brand of typecasting? “Of all the niche acting out there, I’m more than happy to fall into the cougar category,” says Buckley. “To be paired up with beautiful older women isn’t a bad gig.”
