Forever 29? Fuhgetaboutit! Since turning 30 in January, things have never been sweeter for Marc Blucas — who played the Slayer's ex-boyfriend, Riley Finn, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"Everyone says that the 30s are the best years of your life," Blucas tells TV Guide Online, "and so far, I have to agree... I can speak to the fact that every year of my life has gotten better, and if that holds true my whole life, then I'm in for a fun ride — and I hope to live to be about 250!"

What's he so damn perky about? Well, his post-Buffy acting career hasn't bitten the dust like those undead baddies he used to stomp. Next month, We Were Soldiers — his war movie with Mel Gibson — arrives on DVD. And come January, he'll co-star with Gwyneth Paltrow in her flight-attendant comedy, A View from the Top. "I play her high school boyfriend and we revisit 10 years later, after I have a wife and kids," he previews. "She is so talented. She has a gold statue for a reason."

Was it scary to act opposite a bonafide Oscar winner? "[She's] extremely easy to work with," Blucas says. "I've been dunked on by [basketball pro] Grant Hill — I'm not going to be intimidated by a 5-foot-9 girl." (We guess after surviving Buffy, it takes a whole lot of girl power to throw him!)

He's got more big-screen romance in the upcoming BBC film, I Capture The Castle, co-starring E.T.'s Henry Thomas. (It's from David Parfitt, who produced Shakespeare in Love.) "We play brothers [who] inherit a castle," Blucas explains, "and everybody falls in love with the wrong person."

— Daniel R. Coleridge with Michael Ausiello