Chad Michael Murray believes sexiness is "a state of mind".

The 43-year-old actor thinks there are "many different things" that can make somebody sexy.

The 'Merry Gentlemen' star told PEOPLE: "There's so many different things that make somebody sexy.

"It's a combination of being confident in who you are, knowing who you are and just being comfortable in that, no matter what you look or feel like.

"Sexy is a state of mind. It's confidence, it's sitting right with yourself. It's laying your head to bed at night and knowing you had a good day and you did what you could do, and not having regret when you go to sleep."

The actor became a teen heartthrob early in his career, and he's now confessed to being "self-aware of everything" at the time.

He said: "If it were today, I wouldn't even think about it, it wouldn't even dawn on me, but when you're 20, 21, 22, I know that I was so much more self-aware of everything.

"You're worried about every piece of hair. You're worried about how your clothes look on any given day, even when you don't realise that you dress God awful.

"So I think that that part of my life was so very different to who I am, and what I experience because I'm such a homebody, I'm such like a blue-collar worker, and that's just how I like to keep things.

"Through that kind of 21 to 24 phase, it was so much to take in, and there's no book on, ‘Hey, this is how you micromanage each and every moment. This is how you learn to say no to A, B, C and D without offending people'. There's no handbook on gratitude to teach you like, ‘Hey, don't look at what you don't have, just be grateful for what you do and the rest will take care of itself.’"