Ryan Phillippe appears on Ellen today to promote The Lincoln Lawyer with Matthew McConaughey, which is out next Friday. I think he plays some kind of sociopath to McConaughey’s grifter lawyer with a heart of gold. The trailer makes it look cheesy, but it could do well at the box office.

In today’s interview, Ellen asks Ryan about his lovelife and he’s noncommittal as usual. He says he’s dating, but it’s not like he’s going to mention Amanda Seyfried by name or say that he has a girlfriend. He also tells a very funny story about how his mom regularly reads the blogs and then calls him up and asks him why people call him a tool. His mom also had no clue what DILF meant and thought it was an insult!

On his love life
Ryan: I’m dating. Not nearly as veracious as the magazines like to make out. I am dating. Boos from audience
Ellen: Don’t give up. He’s dating. He’s not in a relationship. You can still snatch him away. What kind of qualities are you looking for in a woman?
Ryan: Sense of humor. I like a strong woman. I have three sisters and I have a daughter and I like individuality. I like a woman who’s self possessed. Who knows who she is. Who knows what she wants….

On his mom reading the blogs
Ellen: Do your parents pay attention to these things and call you up and say, “Are you dating these women?”
Ryan: They pay way too much attention. My mother, who recently had surgery, she’s not in the best of health. She’s recovering. She spends all day in front of the computer. Every other day or so, I’ll see her name come up on the caller ID and pre-emptily open my laptop knowing she’s going to want to address whatever rumor she has read recently. She also gets really, really upset. You know, sometimes they write some pretty negative stuff about you or in the comments they’ll say some mean things. She doesn’t like that. She’s always like, “Ryan, why are they calling you a tool? Why do they think you’re a jerk?” I’m like, “Ma, they say that about everybody!”

On people calling him a DILF
Ryan: And then she took particular umbrage with this. She said, “I always read in the comments that they call you a D.I.L.F.” She goes, “I don’t like that. I don’t know what that means but I don’t like. What is that Ryan?” And I go, “Well, actually Mom, that means I am a dad that they’d like to have sex with.” And then I hear my dad in the background, “Susan, did he tell you what a D.I.L.F is?” Laughs And she’s like, “Yes, it means they want to have sex with him.” Laughs
Ellen: So now she’s not so upset with that one anymore.
Ryan: I think she’s embraced D.I.L.F. [Laughs]

[From The Ellen Degeneres show, received via e-mail]

That was really cute and you can tell he cares about his mom and is trying to make sure she’s ok. Ryan was raised in Delaware and his mom ran a day care while his dad worked at DuPont. From what I can tell he had a working class upbringing.

People call Ryan a tool because he cheated on his then-wife, Reese Witherspoon, then gave several “poor me” interviews afterwards. (He continues to give self-pitying interviews to this day.) His behavior wasn’t extreme given some of the celebrity cheating stories since, but he definitely came out the bad guy. He never trash talked Reese however and has only shown her respect in his interviews and his statements about her.

Ryan proceeded to treat his jump off, Abbie Cornish, the same way he treated Reese. From most accounts he strung Abbie along and cheated on her too. (And he cheated on the next one we barely heard about.) Now he’s seeing Amanda Seyfried and he’s trying to keep it casual so he can keep his options open. He’s 36 and he spent his younger years, from 25 to 33, married with children. It makes sense that he wanted out of his marriage and is a commitment phobe, but he’s given us plenty of other reasons to call him a douche. I do give him credit for handling the gossip with humor and being nonchalant about it in this interview. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to him though. Maybe his mom has helped him realize the absurdity of some of it.

Ryan is shown at a screening of The Lincoln Lawyer last night. Credit: WENN. Other photo credit Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.