Why The Utopian From Jupiter's Legacy Looks So Familiar
Jupiter's Legacy is an upcoming superhero series from Netflix, which released the first teaser trailer just last week. While the trailer doesn't reveal much plot-wise, we do know that the show will follow the world's first superheroes, who received their powers in the 1930s, as well as their children, who are now taking over their role of keeping the world safe and upholding their parents' legacy.
Josh Duhamel takes on one of the lead roles — in fact the lead role of the superhero group. He plays Sheldon Sampson, known to the world as The Utopian. He's the leader of The Union, alongside fellow superheroes Lady Liberty — aka Grace Sampson, Sheldon's wife — and Brainwave — aka Walter Sampson, Sheldon's brother.
Upon watching the trailer, you may be thinking that The Utopian looks kind of familiar ... and if you take away the gray hair and beard, you may more easily recognize Duhamel, who has been acting since 1999. Here are some of the things you might be recognizing him from.
Josh Duhamel's career started off with two titular roles
In 2004, Josh Duhamel had his first big role in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! as ... Tad Hamilton. The romantic comedy introduces the big movie star, Tad, in the midst of his reputation taking a bit of a downfall. His agent, in efforts to improve how he looks to the public before his upcoming film, convinces him to participate in a contest that fans can enter to win a date with him; the proceeds will go to charity. The winner of the contest is Rosalee Futch (Kate Bosworth), who has a major crush on the movie star and is unaware that her best friend, Pete (Topher Grace), is secretly in love with her. The film also features some current big names in small roles before their careers took off, including Kathryn Hahn and Octavia Spencer.
In the same year, Duhamel played another titular role, this time in a smaller film that garnered less attention: The Picture of Dorian Gray. Based on Oscar Wilde's famous book, it follows the aging title character, who holds onto his youthful look through the powers of a special painting, which depicts his true inner ugliness. The film was poorly received, to say the least — it has an audience score of just 21% on Rotten Tomatoes – but it's a lead role in his early career worth mentioning anyway.
Rom coms galore
After Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Josh Duhamel went on to star in a plethora of rom coms throughout his career. In 2010, he starred in When in Rome opposite Kristen Bell, in which a young New Yorker named Beth (Bell), while on a trip to Rome, steals some coins from a famous "fountain of love," causing those who threw the coins in the fountain to suddenly fall in love with her. When she starts being pursued by Nick (Duhamel), she's unsure if it's genuine or because of the spell of the fountain.
In the same year, Duhamel also starred in Life As We Know It, in which Eric (Duhamel) and Holly (Katherine Heigl), two acquaintances who were once set up on a date that went disastrously, become the caregivers to a young child after their mutual best friends, the child's parents, die in a car accident. And, in the following year, Duhamel and Heigl appeared in another film together — although this time not as love interests. They were both a part of the huge ensemble cast of New Year's Eve, which featured numerous, interconnecting stories within the span of one day, New Year's Eve.
The list goes on with Safe Haven (more romantic than comedy but still in a similar vein), as well as The Romantics. But, his most recent romantic comedy is a bit of a diversion for Duhamel — he took a step back from the leading role and pivoted to the father role of the lead teen character. This was in 2018's Love, Simon, about the titular teen (Nick Robinson) struggling to come out as gay to his friends and family.
A Transformers regular
There are now quite a few Transformers films that exist in the pop culture canon, but the first live-action one came out in 2007. In Transformers, the war between two robot races, the Autobots and the Deceptions, puts humanity at stake when it comes to Earth. When a teenager, Sam (Shia LeBeouf) buys his car, which is actually one of the Autobots, Bumblebee, he finds himself wrapped up in the robots' war.
Duhamel plays William Lennox, who is a member of the United States Army Rangers. His character shows up in a total of four of the Transformers films, most recently in Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017, after taking a break from the franchise and not appearing in 2014's Age of Extinction.
Duhamel talked about being a part of the franchise to Men's Journal, saying, "It's fascinating to be part of those movies. You really feel like a tiny cog in a giant machine." He also added that he thinks "the scenes get bigger and better every time."
Josh Duhamel had a turn on a soap
Like most soap operas, All My Children ran for many years — between 1970 and 2013, it put out a total of 10,755 episodes. Duhamel showed up in just 51 of those episodes, largely within the three years he was regularly on the show, playing Leo du Pres. The role even garnered him a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Throughout his arc, Leo's character dealt with unanswered questions regarding his family, including not knowing his father or brother. He eventually began to start a family of his own, marrying Greenlee (Rebecca Budig), but ultimately died when he fell into a raging waterfall.
However, as it often goes in soaps, Leo didn't actually die, and Duhamel returned for a guest appearance in 2011. He told Entertainment Weekly about his return, "I guess in a way it was just my way of saying thank you to go back and do an episode."
Josh Duhamel continued with television roles
After All My Children, Josh Duhamel continued to do TV with a main role in Las Vegas, which ran from 2003 to 2008. He played Danny McCoy, who begins as the apprentice to Ed Deline (James Caan), the head of security of a Vegas casino, but eventually moves on to become the head of security himself. Then, after a break from appearing in television roles — although he did provide some voice work for TV — he returned with another main role in the short-lived comedy-drama Battle Creek (which only ran for 13 episodes).
He then had a recurring role in Hulu's 11.22.63, the science fiction thriller based on the Stephen King novel about the time traveler (James Franco) who attempts to stop the assassination of JFK. After this, he received another lead role with Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., in which he portrayed Detective Greg Kading.
Despite all of these roles, Duhamel has yet to tackle the superhero genre, so his role in Jupiter's Legacy is bound to introduce him to some new viewers.