Book your appointment now. “When I’m 50,” muses the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, “I’ll really get into this stuff and have my own spa: Stewart’s Seaweed Wraparama!” In the meantime, the 5’7″ professional smart aleck refuses to cop to his cuteness quotient, going long on the short jokes—”Girls don’t want to go out with someone who looks like they belong in an animated special”—and blaming the media. “Virtually anything is more desirable on TV,” says Stewart, 36. “If they can sell the Popeil Pocket Fisherman, surely I’ve got a shot.”

Success hasn’t hurt either. With a bestselling humor book—Naked Pictures of Famous People—and five films to his credit, even Stewart, the son of a teacher mom and a physicist father, admits to a newfound “carefree confidence.” Says the Lawrence-ville, N.J., native: “Whatever self-perception I had in high school [when his surname was still Leibowitz] probably isn’t so valid now.” Indeed not, confirms Heather Graham, who plays opposite Stewart in this fall’s romantic comedy Committed. “Jon’s very New Yorky—very clever and dry,” she says. “He doesn’t try to be a cool, sexy guy. I like that.” Gillian Anderson, Stewart’s costar in last winter’s Playing by Heart, seconds her take. “He’s incredibly self-deprecating and he has no need to be,” she says. “He has beautiful eyes and he’s so funny, smart and charming, he just warms your heart.”

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