Slender and boyishly hunky, Murray starred in the TV series The Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill in the early 2000s. Murray began his career by modelling for Gucci and Tommy Hilfiger while trying to break into acting. The break came in 2001, when he began a semi-regular role as womanizing musician Charlie Todd alongside Katie Holmes in the show Dawson's Creek. He then played Tristan DuGray in The Gilmore Girls before scoring the lead as a brooding basketball hero in the Dawson-like drama One Tree Hill in 2003. In the movies, Murray was the young suitor who falls for Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday, and the princely Austin opposite Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story in 2004. The same year he began filming House of Wax, a remake of the 1953 horror classic, with co-star Paris Hilton.

Extra credit: Murray is known as CMM to fans... He married actress Sophia Bush, his co-star in One Tree Hill, on 16 April 2005... According to a July 2004 article in USA Today, "Because of a football injury, [Murray] had part of his small intestine removed at age 15, which now prevents him from gaining weight."