Jay Jablonski

Growing up in New Jersey, actor Jay Jablonski had his future mapped out: he would use his natural athleticism to succeed as a football player while preparing to join the Marine Corps. Jablonski's sports career and military ambitions came to a sudden halt due to a knee injury, and in his junior year at Pennsylvania's Gettysburg College he grew interested in theater instead. After graduation, Jablonski moved to Los Angeles, where his first film role came as a smart-aleck medical school freshman in the 2006 horror film "Unrest." During production, writer-director Jason Todd Ipson took Jablonski to dinner and told him he was so impressed with his work he planned to write a leading man part exclusively for him.

The result was 2007's romantic comedy "Everybody Wants To Be Italian," whose story about two dating Bostonians pretending to be Italian failed to find an audience. What promised to be a big year for Jablonski fell apart further when the Topher Grace comedy "Take Me Home Tonight," completed that year and scheduled to be the actor's Hollywood debut, had its release delayed for four years. Jablonski kept plugging away with guest parts on television, including a memorable turn as an advocate of horse consumption on the offbeat crime show "Bones."