14 Things You Didn't Know About Tyler Hoechlin

Hoechlin got his start in acting when he was still in grade school, and though some get into the field with grand ambitions to be a thespian, his motivations were a bit more direct. He knew acting gigs paid money (because his mom told him he'd picked up some commercials as a baby), and he wanted a bit more pocket cash to buy video games. Hard to argue with that logic, especially coming from a third-grader. Here's an excerpt from what he told Empire: "At the time I was, like, seven or eight years old, and I brought up, 'Oh, that'd be kind of cool to go and make my own money so I could buy my own video games.'" Hard to argue with that logic, especially coming from a third-grader.

At the ripe old age of 13, Hoechlin landed one heck of a breakout role: Tom Hanks' son in the critically acclaimed 2002 graphic novel adaptation Road To Perdition. Hoechlin took full advantage of the opportunity and showed he certainly has the acting chops to stand side by side with one of the greats. He also pulled down some awards for his performance, including a Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Youth Performance, a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor, and a Young Artist Award for Best Youth Actor Leading Role in a Motion Picture Drama.

Hoechlin's 7th Heaven character was a case of art imitating life. The young actor was also one heck of a talented baseball player, starring for the Arizona State Sun Devils and UC-Irvine in college. At one point, he turned down a meeting with Francis Ford Coppola and a role in the Twilight franchise due to his busy baseball schedule. But that changed when Hoechlin began landing more acting offers and came down with a hamstring injury that temporarily sidelined him from baseball. When he knew he was finally giving up his baseball dreams, after having a meeting with his coach and dealing with an injury, Hoechlin told ESPN he decided to officially make the jump: "Because of baseball, I was putting acting on the backburner. It was like an answered prayer. It was like the decision was made for me. I wasn't going to quit until someone told me to stop."

It's funny how fate works out. Back in 2013, it was rumored that Hoechlin was in the running to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in the sequel to Man of Steel, eventually titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but that role went to Ben Affleck. The story had never really been confirmed in any meaningful way, but while hitting the press rounds for Supergirl, Hoechlin confirmed he really did audition for the big screen DC-verse. He told Empire the tone of the films from his sample pages was much darker than the work he's doing on The CW: "It was already very much obvious from the beginning that that was going to be a story of his struggle with things."

It's typically a fierce battle to land a starring role as a superhero, but Hoechlin didn't even have to audition for his plum gig in Supergirl. Instead, the producers of the series were already familiar with the actor, so they just invited him over for a chat. He knew the gig had something to do with Supergirl, but he had no idea it was to actually play the Man of Steel himself. The chat went well, and they asked him his thoughts on Superman. He told Entertainment Weekly his answer was immediate. Within a week, there was an official offer on the table for Hoechlin to don the iconic red and blue tights. Easy, right?

Despite the fact that he matches up with the previous Super-stars, Hoechlin is just one year older than Supergirl star Melissa Benoist. Benoist is 28 years old, compared to Hoechlin at 29. This creates a bit of fuzzy math in the series itself, as Superman was supposed to have already been grown up and active as a hero when the younger version of Kara crash-landed, and Kara waited at least a decade or so before suiting up. But hey, Kryptonians don't age as quickly as humans, right? We'll chalk it up to that.

Fandom is much bigger than it was even a decade ago, and fan excitement is something Hoechlin has already had to grapple with from his stint on Teen Wolf. The actor recounted a story to Empire about one interaction with a female fan who wanted to take a photo with him at a pool, but he didn't feel comfortable doing that in swimsuits. So instead, he had a polite, 10-minute chat with the girl and thought it ended well ... until the girl's mother flipped him off and reminded him he's "nothing without [his] fans" because he opted against taking a selfie. Ouch. That fan intensity will probably only get hotter now that Hoechlin is the Man of Steel. At least he's bulletproof now, right?