Sophia Bush Dishes About Reliving 'One Tree Hill' With Co-Stars On Podcast

What started as a series of three-way FaceTime calls spurred into a podcast that any One Tree Hill  fan will know and love. Sophia Bush, Bethany Joy Lenz and Hilarie Burton debuted the Drama Queens podcast, rewatching and reliving every episode from the iconic show.

Bush recently caught up with iHeartRadio about the podcast — including how it got started, what it’s like to reflect on the show and more — and her passion for philanthropic work. Here’s what to expect when listening to Drama Queens:

“Take yourself back in time...back to high school. The ups and downs, the loves the losses, the struggles the triumphs, being together with your friends...feeling every emotion of it. Is 23 more than just a number to you? Do you respond to people by saying I don't wanna be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately? Do you expect to have life-changing moments while caught in the confetti or the rain? Are you One Tree Hill obsessed?...it's OK...we're here for you. You can sit with us. Are Brooke, Peyton and Haley your BFF goals? These Drama Queens are getting back together!! Bethany Joy Lenz, Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush are the biggest Drama Queens and they are here with you to dissect every episode, deliver every detail you must know, and devote themselves to you as you rewatch every single scene together. Join Joy, Hilarie and Sophia each week. Relive it, Relove it, Rewatch it ...every One Tree Hill minute of it. Be a Drama Queen. Drama Queens, an iHeartRadio Podcast.”

Read Bush’s Q&A below. Listen to the latest episode here:

You teamed up with Bethany Joy Lenz and Hilarie Burton on the Drama Queens podcast… What was your inspiration to start it? What is it like to get to work with Bethany Joy Lenz and Hilarie Burton on the podcast?

I have had such a glorious experience hosting my podcast, Work In Progress. It’s rewarding and creative and allows for real in depth exploration. At the start of the pandemic, the ladies and I were on a lot of three-way FaceTime calls, and something just clicked. Launching a podcast felt like something that us three women could do together, as executive producers, creatives, and friends that would allow us to go back and explore our show and have total creative control and freedom together. It seemed like the next right thing. Drama Queens is a dream for us. We get to gather on zoom together every week, from anywhere in the world, and be together. It’s like our FaceTime calls with a little more direction! And it’s offered us the opportunity to work together again and take all of our fans on a journey with us at the same time. It checks a lot of boxes, and for that we’re very grateful.

What is it like to reflect on One Tree Hill? Do you have any favorite moments/episodes?

Reflecting on the show together definitely comes with its fair share of humor, which I’m sure our listeners can feel as we do laugh a lot on the podcast. It also comes with a lot of cringes and surprisingly a lot of tears! We didn’t watch the show the way fans did back then because we were making it. And now from a distance we get to experience it episode by episode. It’s been very affirming for us. Though it would be very difficult to pick a favorite moment or episode, because we’re only into the second season on the podcast at this point!

What’s been your favorite part about the response from fans of the podcast?

It’s been so enjoyable, with a Podcast, to finally see it through the fans eyes. Again now rather than working 16 - 18 hours a day for eight days at a time to make one episode, we are watching the final 43 minute edit with musical score and all of the other emotional tools that the fans have always seen in our show. It’s incredibly fun for us. We see what they see now, and it’s been such a joy to have the fans with us all this time because we can all — the three of us and our global audience — talk to each other about it now in a different way than we did then.

You’re also working on a project called Work for Humankind. Tell me a little bit about what the project is, and how you came together with Island Conservation and Lenovo for it.

I’m thrilled to work with Lenovo on its Work for Humankind initiative. It manages to perfectly combine my passions for purposeful travel and conservation. The Lenovo initiative — in partnership with the NGO Island Conservation and the Robinson Crusoe Island community — invited volunteers from around the world to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to support the local community and biodiverse ecosystems of Robinson Crusoe Island while working from one of the most remote, tech-enabled offices in the world. Robinson Crusoe Island is one of the most remote, beautiful, and ecologically rich places in the world. And while the island community, non-profit Island Conservation, and the Chilean Government have initiated community-driven restoration projects over the last decade to address environmental problems, they were often hindered by telecommunications and technology challenges. Lenovo sponsoring a project with their smart technology, together with the amazing skills of these global volunteers, has made possible life-changing restoration projects on the island!

What does Work for Humankind mean to you?

I’ve spent so many years working to inspire brands and people with the potential that I see to really shift meaningful impact, and to do so in creative ways. Being a part of what Lenovo is doing through work for humankind on Robinson Crusoe Island is immeasurably inspiring to me. To mobilize technology, call volunteers to have not only an incredible personal experience but use that experience to give back to a community, and to be doing all of this for environmental benefit!? It’s astounding. And it’s such a reminder of what each of us can do if we mobilize our creativity, our skill sets, and our willingness to act in service of others to work in community. I hope to see more initiatives like this one.

How did you become so passionate about environmental causes, using technology for good, and other philanthropic efforts?

I’ve been passionate about philanthropic work — which really is rooted in community service — since I was a kid. It’s probably the privilege of growing up with exposure to incredible ecological environments like those here in California. Here you can wake up in the morning and go skiing on Mammoth Mountain and be surfing in the Pacific by sunset. You can take a two hour trip to the desert and marvel at the difference of the ecology there. I was lucky to grow up in such an incredibly rich and diverse environmental landscape. And the environment is one of the things that’s restorative to all of us; no matter where we come from, what we believe, how we vote (though hopefully we are voting for folks who want to preserve said environment!!) or what resource class we find ourselves in. Getting outside is largely free, and now there are more groups working to further democratize access to the outdoors than ever before. Plus, it’s restorative to the human spirit. We breathe better and feel better when we get out into the beautiful world around us. And I personally believe that access and that profoundly restorative quality should be protected for us, and all future generations.