Teen-age girls scream and cry in his presence. In his absence, they create Internet sites to wax romantic about his "insanely blue eyes," and write poems with titles like "Evan Rocks." But Evan Farmer -- actor, musician and television host -- is not actively wooing his gaggle of fans.
Yes, he once played in a boy band. And yes, he's toured with Britney Spears, appeared in Cosmogirl! magazine and stood in for Carson Daly as the host of MTV's Total Request Live. These days, however, Farmer is working on something much more subdued: interior design.
The 31-year-old Baltimore-area native is the new host of While You Were Out, a spinoff of the hit home design show Trading Spaces.
The show, which airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on the Learning Channel, has a catchy premise: a homeowner sends his or her partner away for a short vacation, while a professional designer and two builders make over a room in the couple's home as a surprise for the out-of-town partner. With a budget of $1,500, the crew revamps the room in two days. The climax of the show occurs when the room is presented to the stunned surprisee upon his or her return. In its first season, While You Were Out boasted 1.5 million viewers per episode and earned an Emmy Award.
Why is an up-and-comer like Farmer, whose breakthrough role was heartthrob Jerry O'Keefe on MTV's made-for-television movie 2Gether, playing host on a home design show? Because he's just as interested in tearing down walls and wielding power tools as he is in crooning to screaming teens.
"This is really the ideal gig for me," said Farmer, seated on the back porch of a leafy North Baltimore home where the crew of While You Were Out is filming an episode of its second season. "I just take really well to hosting. And I'm really hands on -- very practical."
Worked in architecture
Born in Ethiopia (his father was stationed there for the army), Farmer grew up in Towson, where he played several sports, practiced guitar and dabbled in musical theater. After graduating from Towson High School in 1990, Farmer attended Tulane University, where he studied architecture. Before moving to New York to pursue show business, he worked as a draftsman at the Baltimore architectural firm SMDA Architects.
"I've always been interested in home design," says Farmer, whose neatly clipped brown hair and chiseled face make him a dead ringer for Carson Daly. "When I got to New York, I even debated opening my own business rehabilitating old homes."
Instead, he purchased his own project -- a fixer-upper on the city's West Side -- and soon landed roles on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light and several off-Broadway plays.
In his latest role as television host, Farmer travels nearly three weeks out of every month with the crew of While You Were Out. Instead of acting as just a "pretty face," Farmer said, he is often invited by the designers to participate in their work.
Today in Baltimore, the cast and crew are remodeling the bedroom of a charming, Cape Cod-style home. After two days of work, the show's designers and builders are racing to put the finishing touches on the room. To gawking neighbors, the home looks like a movie set. Towering spotlights and white tents crowd the front yard, where a builder is hacking away at plywood with a chain saw.
What looks like chaos, Farmer explains, is actually the end-stages of the project.
"This whole thing will be done in just a few hours," he says calmly, strolling through the sawdust and cranes in the direction of the bedroom. There, designer Chayse Dacoda -- a petite blonde -- is painting the base of a giant fish tank.
"We put this in to act as a wall between the bed and the entryway," she explains.
Farmer tours the room, examining the fresh paint and pointing out the changes: striped blocks of earth-colored paint on the walls, a multicolored tile floor and a fireplace. Shadowing him is his mother, Jay Farmer, snapping photographs of her son.
"He used to sing with a hairbrush in his hand," she says proudly.
'Life is so precious'
Farmer is a self-professed family man. Although he's currently single, he spends as much time as possible with his mother and two sisters. His mother, he says, has supported his career even in its most unpromising times. When he first moved to New York with no money to his name, she sent him positive affirmations to repeat to himself in the mornings.
Then, in 1999, Jay Farmer was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, Farmer was filming 2Gether in Vancouver, British Columbia. Still, he flew home almost every weekend to help her through her treatment.
"It was then that I discovered how life is so precious," Farmer says. "I was dealing with reality, and it made me realize that my family is paramount."
Inspired by his mother's recovery, Farmer has taken an active role in raising funds and awareness for breast cancer research. Since 1995, he's been singing the national anthem at the Susan G. Komen annual kickoff Race For the Cure in Baltimore.
In addition to his job as a television host, his charity work and his family time, Farmer is working on a solo album set for release this fall -- rock music he describes as autobiographical and similar in style to Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi. He wrote all the music, sang and played the guitar for the album.
Farmer is also certified in skydiving and paragliding. "Idle time is the devil's playground," he says.
At the end of the day, as he helps pack up the show and move on to its next location, Farmer will add tips from this episode to his "ideas" notebook, in which he lists plans for his tiny Manhattan apartment. If show business does not work out for him, he says, then he might turn to home design.
"As an actor, you always have to have a backup," he deadpans.