Sean Patrick Thomas Dances

Sean Patrick Thomas may be a veteran of the teen movie genre (he played high schooler Ronald Clifford in "Cruel Intentions," college age Darren in "The Sterling Chase" and even the ubiquitous Jock No. 2 in the graduation-night flick "Can't Hardly Wait"), but he figured he had no shot at Hollywood's latest high school movie "Save the Last Dance."

"I auditioned early and they said, 'You're too old. You aren't urban. And you can't dance,' " Thomas, who recently turned 30, says between bites of salmon at Buckhead's trendy Nava. "But six months later they called me back. In my final audition I had to dance and act. I guess I did well enough to get the part."

In "Last Dance," opening today in metro Atlanta, Thomas plays Derek Reynolds, a brainy, confident high schooler who falls for new student and ballet dancer Julia Stiles and teaches her hip-hop footwork.

The movie, Thomas says, "changed my life to the extent I have a lot more physical confidence. I've always had confidence about my intellect and my educational background. But I've never been confident about myself physically in terms of dancing, and dancing with a woman. I'm a lot more confident that I can try something and get away with it on film."

To learn all the intricate hip-hop moves, Thomas was sent nightclubbing over and over again in Chicago, where "Last Dance" was filmed last winter. "They said, 'We're gonna rehearse all day, you're going to have dinner, and then we're going out all night," he says. "I don't go out. At least I didn't before the movie. I'm a square. It took me a while not to be a square."

A stand-in certainly helped his footwork onscreen.

"There's a flip. I can't do a flip," he says. "Another time we had to do a split. I can't do a split. But most of the time it was me. I would say 75 to 80 percent was me."

Here's a quick rundown of Thomas' life, his career and view of being a young black actor in Hollywood:

Vital stats: Born December 1970 in Washington. One younger brother and one younger sister. His mother and father were from Guyana. Thomas grew up in Wilmington, Del., and now lives in Los Angeles. He has an English degree from the University of Virginia and a master's of fine arts from New York University.

Where else you might have seen him: He was a guest on VH1's "The List" (the category: the voice) and has a regular role on CBS' "The District." Other films: "Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000," "Courage Under Fire," "Picture Perfect," "Conspiracy Theory."

How close real life imitates the movie's interracial coupling: "I took a white girl to my senior prom. I have not dated a whole lot of white girls. I've never had a white girlfriend. But from time to time it's happened. I could definitely identify with (the movie's take on) that twinge you get from other black people when you are with somebody who's white. There's these stark looks they give you. There's an energy you sense. It's very subtle, but it's there."