Two Decades After Teen PEOPLE’s Sexiest List, One Tree Hill’s Austin Nichols Says ‘Health’ is Sexy Now

The year is 2004 — Austin Nichols' career is picking up and he is set to star alongside Kirsten Dunst in Wimbledon and appear in The Day After Tomorrow with Jake Gyllenhaal. Being 24 at the time, Nichols landed himself on Teen PEOPLE's Sexiest Guys Ever list for being "sooo romantic."

"He once scaled a wall to steal a kiss from his favorite girl," Teen PEOPLE wrote at the time alongside a smoldering photo of the young actor.

Twenty years later, Nichols, 44, says his idea of what's most sexy is a little more practical.

"Honestly, health," he explains to PEOPLE. "If I feel healthy, if I feel like I'm doing well with exercise and diet and sleep, and I'm able to just have a lot of energy and go tackle all the things I want to tackle, that's when I feel the sexiest."

And while his definition is more about what's on the inside than on the surface, the One Tree Hill alum admits he doesn't mind the physical side effects.

"Part of that is there's a little vanity in there like when I'm filling out my jeans, that's the sexiest I feel," he says with a laugh. "It's like, 'Oh, I put on my pants. They feel a little tight.' I'm like, 'Yeah.'"

When thinking back to the early 2000s, Nichols says he doesn't remember feeling the impact of any sort of "heartthrob" status but remembers feeling as though "something had happened" following his 2002 appearance on Six Feet Under.

"My manager goes, 'The phones are ringing' — and that had never happened before," he recalls.

The one "Bieber" moment he does remember happened at a Christmas market he attended with his mom in Austin, Texas — where the actor grew up and now lives.

"This woman started shrieking across the whole convention center," he remembers. "She ran up to me, and I just had to grab her and I go, 'Shh. Calm down.' But that was one of the only moments in my life where I got any sense of that [teen heartthrob] thing."

In the years since his Teen PEOPLE appearance, Nichols has continued to act as well as direct, write and produce.

Following his four season run on One Tree Hill as Julian Baker, Nichols went on to appear in The Walking Dead, Bates Motel, Ray Donovan and recently wrapped directing his first film.

"It went really well," he says of the indie flick about a "rundown, crappy public golf course and this quirky, diverse group of people who all work there...who are trying to save it from being bought and developed."

After decades in the industry, Nichols is both excited about what's ahead but also grateful for all roads that brought him here.

"I go, 'Oh my God, I can't believe how blessed and lucky I am to still be working and making movies and television with fun people and nice people,'" he says of how it feels to reflect on his career. "Just pinch me. I never could have picked a cooler job."