Jazz baby: to 26-year-old Shawn Ryan, life is a cabaret, and he's coming to one near you.

You may have missed Shawn Ryan's big-screen kiss in American Wedding, but it was there. "I was making out with my partner, John [Ainsworth], in the gay bar scene," he says. "You can see us, but my lines were cut." Still, things could be worse: Ryan's specialty is singing, not speaking. At least he gets musical in his next screen role, as a marine bandleader in the forthcoming Katie Holmes vehicle First Daughter. But what really draws the 26-year-old Ryan these days is performing live in that domain of glamorous but faded chanteuses--cabaret. With a voice that reminds critics of the masterful Mel Torme, Ryan is revving up for his first national tour.

At his age, why isn't Ryan wailing behind a guitar in a rock band? "This type of music is what I respond to," he says. "You can't beat the composers of the American songbook. Their songs give room to the singer to color them in their own way."

Ryan was set on becoming an actor until he won a cabaret competition in his hometown, San Francisco, in 2000. It wasn't exactly the big time, he admits: "The prize for winning didn't even pan out. The company sponsoring the first prize [a 10-city booking] went belly-up. They totally flaked on everything."

But the experience gave Ryan the drive to develop his own act with composer Kelly Park. A serf-released CD materialized in 2002, with Ryan hitting the road every chance he had to make his voice known to cabaret audiences. That diligence paid off in the form of regular return engagements in cabaret clubs from San Francisco to New York--and the support of famous fans like Tony award-winner Lillias White.

Confessing to being "a Broadway show-tune kid my entire life," Ryan--who once played Wilbur the pig in a stage production of Charlotte's Web--found himself at New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Arts after graduating high school in 1996. Now, when not propping up a microphone in the wee hours, he helps run a summer drama camp for other Broadway show tune kids, both middle- and high school age, whom he calls "great, and exactly like the [kids] from Camp."

When he's not singing songs like "It Had to Be You," does Ryan respond to music more typically embraced by his own generation? "Well, I have A-Teens in the car right now," he offers. "They're a guilty pleasure. But the hardest [rocking] thing in my CD collection is the soundtrack to The Rose. That's it. Bette Midler as Janis Joplin." He pauses before adding, "I know, I know."

White writes about film for E! Online.