Rise to Fame
Alexander Payne wasn't scouting talent when he spotted Klein walking out of a locker room at Millard West High School in Omaha in 1997. He was scouting locations for Election. He reportedly cast Klein on the spot, no audition, no agent. That film put him opposite Reese Witherspoon as the affable, dim-witted Paul Metzler, and American Pie the same year made him a teen fixture as the sensitive jock who actually had feelings. The 'sensitive jock' niche felt novel in 1999. Whether it had a second act was a different question.
In the Spotlight
The 2010 arrest came at 3 a.m. on the 101, blood alcohol nearly three times the legal limit. He checked into Cirque Lodge the same week, and has been sober since. Not the trajectory the American Pie casting directors mapped out. Sweet Magnolias gave him three Netflix seasons as a chronically unfaithful husband, a pointed departure from his 1999 image. The show killed his character off in 2025. Fear Street: Prom Queen cast him that same year as a graying high school teacher, which is either full circle or the long punchline.
Side Notes
He and Katie Holmes got engaged around Christmas 2003, during the height of early-aughts teen royalty nostalgia. The engagement ended in March 2005. Two months later, Holmes was publicly dating Tom Cruise. Klein pushed back: 'Her being with Tom has nothing to do with her and I discontinuing our relationship.' His first DUI arrest came in February 2005, within weeks of the split. The tabloid timeline reduced him to a footnote in someone else's love story. Considering how things went for all parties involved, maybe that was the lucky outcome.