Take Me to the Pilot • EP101

Hilarie, Sophia, and Bethany Joy are flooded with emotion and surprised by their own reactions as they rewatch the pilot for the first time in almost twenty years.  

It’s not unheard of to forget your lines but an alligator crawling on to the set was something Hilarie was not prepared for.

Crushes are significant but this crush that all three bond over will shock you.

Hilarie and Sophia reminisce fondly about celebrating their 21st Birthdays together in Wilmington as One Tree Hill was about to change all their lives.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
First of all, you don't know me. Were all about
that high school drama, Girl drama, girl, all about them
high school queens. We'll take you for a rod in
our comic girl cheering for the drama Queens, girl fashion.
But you'll tough, girl. You could sit with us. Girl Drama, Queens, Drama,
Queen's Drama, Queen's Drama, Drama, Queen's Drama, Queens. Welcome back.

(00:26):
We ended last week with Champagne. We're kicking off this
week with the rest of the bottle of the champ
So this is the recap of episode one, the pilot
air date September twenty, two thousand and three. Day we realized,
like jersey number twenty three and wait minute two thousand

(00:46):
and three, what does like Aluminati? Do they do have purpose? Purpose?
I don't think so. I think that was Michael Jordan's number.
So the synopsis is here. We Nathan Scott is Tree
Hill High's biggest basketball star and he's dating Peyton, a cheerleader,
and so much more. Nathan's half brother, Lucas joins the

(01:08):
team and threatens to take both Nathan's spot in the
lineup and his girl. As if I was nobody's a
girl that was my own. So grumpy, I have to
perhaps start in an unconventional place. But we've all just
watched the Pilot for the first time since two thousand three,
and oh my god, Craig Shipper is so hot. Joy.

(01:36):
Its spotted from a mile the way. I was like,
mmm with him. I was late on the pickup with
that because I was like, well, he's playing one of
the grown I was like, he's a grown up. But
you were like no, no, ladies, no, not at all.
You were wise beyond your years. Joy. Yeah, he was
like Muslie and his jeans were tight. Yeah, let's talk

(02:00):
about the denim. Yes, oh god in this first episode. Wow,
the baggy denim, the cuts of jeans on the men. Yeah,
on us. I love my jeans. I don't know what
you guys are talking about, like flares consistently, whether they're
cool or not cool. Flares are pretty fabulous, But it's
more the the rise or the lack thereof that I'm

(02:22):
concerned with. Huggers they were just like they were the
zippers two and a half inches long above your pubic hair.
Like we blamed Britney Spears for this. She really yeah,
she ruined it. For the rest of us. But I
also feel like because we were in Wilmington, North Carolina,

(02:45):
are shopping options were not what they were in New
York or Los Angeles. So we were dealing with like
being six months behind any cool kid curve. But I
have to say there's a part of that that worked
to our advantage because most people don't have access to
like the you know, it's I mean, that's if you
live in the city, and that's a priority for you,

(03:06):
and that's fun and that's a great way to express yourself.
But there are a lot of people who just that's
not a priority, and so I think there's a relatability
in that as well. We cooked, right, we looked like
regular kids. At the time. O C had come on
the air over the summer and had blown up and
it was all about rich kids, and so that was
our competition. It was a fantasy element, you know, they

(03:28):
were so yeah, yeah, we were gap old navy kids,
more kids, yeah, God, bless that. I think that's one
of the major things that that the fact that we
were relatable in that way that kept the show on
the air for so long, that we weren't just a

(03:49):
fantasy element of Oh, murder and intrigue, and you know,
as the parents all sleeping with each other, and I
mean that didn't happen on our show until at least like, yeah,
oh my god. No, There's so many things that I
never noticed about the show until we just rewatched it,

(04:11):
like the grooming, the grooming, the grooming between Paul and Jane.
They have the same hair, and then Chad and Chef
like the same hair, the same haircut. And guys, when
when we refer to Chef, we're talking about Craig Cheffer,
who played Uncle Keith, And yeah, like there's a We
just watched the scene where they're in Keith's body shop

(04:33):
and Keith and Lucas have the same hair, and we
just never knew, never clocked it, never clocked. Speaking of hair,
Joy and I have very Joy and I would look
like sisters if we were groomed, because when I showed
up in Wilmington's, I had curly blonde hair and they
took one look at me. Yeah, that's not gonna work. No, Like,
how quickly did they make that decision? It was like

(04:54):
with him, I'm sure they had made the decision probably
before I showed up. I mean when I tested I
was blonde, um, and then they just probably figured out
they just died as soon as I got there, which
they did. But did they because I had a feeling
with having I had seen the pilot. I knew they
wouldn't let us look exactly like and I was game forward.
In fact, actually I was super excited about playing this character.

(05:15):
And I thought like, maybe I'll get Bobby pins and
stick them in my hair so that my ears will
stick out, so I'll look like I just wanted to
add this element of like awkwardness to her. Um. I
think God I didn't do that because can you imagine,
like nine years Bobby episode would have had to happen

(05:36):
like I have a headache all the time. Yeah, But
the hair was it was a deal because I didn't
straighten it a lot, and back then there were less
ums at tools and advances and knowing how to handle
curly hair and make it straight in the South in
the humidity, and so I ended up with this very
flat top, wide bottomed hair that was a strand of

(05:57):
a strange color. But so right, you know, But you're
I feel like, I mean, we'll see as the episodes
go on. I feel like you had like three different
hair colors season one, because they kept dying it and
dying it and dying it, and it was like an
evolution of hair, and I was trying to like it
was also weird, like because we didn't all want to
look alike, and I didn't want to like compete with

(06:19):
you because you were the blonde one. But I also,
like was naturally blonde, and so it looked good on
my skin tone to lean lighter in that way. And
then we like, then there was a time when we
totally you went really platinum and then I went blonde.
But I mean, amas, I wish I had just stayed
the same color, honestly, like you was read for a minute. Yeah,
oh god, I dyed my hair every color in the book.

(06:41):
You were still black at one point to like, well,
I dyed my hair black in the summer between seasons
two and three because you're in the Yeah, I died
by your black. And I cut bangs and I remember
even even lightening it. When I came back, it was
so much darker than it had been. And our boss,
who shall not be named, we lost his marbles that

(07:03):
I had cut bangs because he was like all the
cheerleaders never bad me the job. But day in high
school I had bangs and they were bitches and but
it was like it was that funny moment because we
you know, we were just talking watching the pilot about
how our hair was kind of this battle well but
not to bring back Felicity, but it was because that, yeah, yeah,

(07:25):
when she cut off all her hair, they went crazy.
Kids and might not know about that. Yes, Okay, so
there's you know, there's a great show called Felicity. If
you haven't gone back and watched it, you really should.
Carry Russell isn't dynamite actress. Um, but she had this
you know, big beautiful, long, curly blonde hair blondish brown here,
and she she went away one season and cut it off.

(07:46):
And you know, Michelle Williams did the same thing actually
in Dawson. She just chopped it all off. But it
wasn't her hair wasn't and I its own. I mean,
Harry's hair was like it was an image that was
instantly recognizable. Nobody else and TV had hair like this. Um,
So when she chopped it all off without letting anybody know,
everybody kind of went crazy, and the show's ratings actually

(08:06):
dropped and they connected it to her hair being which
is ridiculous. Yeah yeah, but we know, for whatever reason,
the ratings dropped and it happened to be the same time.
Heaven forbid the writer's admit they've gotten so just blame
the actress and her hair. So yeah, So then from
that point forward, everybody was trying to do recon and
put into every actress's There was like a hair clause

(08:28):
in the contracts or something, right like, I feel there's
something president at a network that's just in charge of
actress's hair. Like the boys can do whatever the hell
they want to do. But it was a massive battle
about hair every episode and curls flyaways, yeah, you can't do.
And it had to be down down, sexy down approvals.
Take the polaroid, send it off to l A, make
sure they approved this hairstyle. It was so crazy and hiller.

(08:51):
You pointed out so wisely that you know, watching the pilot,
you'd been fighting to get ponytails of the girls at
cheer practice. So now looking back at it, the stuff
that I was fighting about right out of the gates,
like the audacity of a twenty year old kid to

(09:11):
be like, hi, um, you're wrong, I feel like I
can go on to a set today and assert myself.
But the idea that I was doing that as a child,
mortified and about hair, like nobody had taught us how
to pick and choose our battles, which ones do you
fight for? But also the irony is that at twenty
you had been a cheerleader two years before, so you

(09:32):
were that cheerleaders are athletes. When I did, they're doing
like stunt cheerleaders to make fun of us, like God
forbid the real cheerleaders out there be like, oh, these
fake TV cheerleaders. So I was adamant that, like there
was accuracy. Okay, well, well this is a good segument
because getting away from hair because you know, we can
only talk about that, but like speak speaking of hair

(09:54):
and being speaking of being a cheerleader there, you know.
Lucas asked Peyton a great question in the PILOTY said,
why are you a cheerleader? You're the least cheery person
I know, and I don't always kind of wonder why
Peyton was a cheerleader. I think that's why we needed Brooke,
you know what I mean, Like I remember having like
an internal struggle my real senior year in high school
where I didn't like what cheerleading stood for, Like I

(10:17):
didn't like being in the passive role of cheering on
someone else. But all my best friends did it, you know,
and it was like a way for us to hang
out after school, go on trips together. You know. It
was a thing that connected us, and I could make
fun of it because I was one of them. You

(10:38):
can't make fun of a cheerleader when you're not a
cheerleader and not sound like a total asshole. I mean,
I guess other people do, but so so it made
a lot of sense for me for Brooke to be
introduced because she was the anchor for Peyton. It was like,
if my mom's dead and I'm a nightmare and the
one person in my life I can rely on does
this dumb thing, I guess I'll do this dumb thing too.

(11:02):
But when we shot the pilot, you weren't there yet,
and so I had to go over to a high
school in Wilmington, and you know, I'm like a twenty
year old VJ, you know, and it's like all these
real fifteen and sixteen year olds and they're like, okay,
so just hang out with these girls after school, and
so part of me felt like a predator. I was like,

(11:23):
what am I doing hanging out with these children? You know? Um?
But like in the pilot, that was a real high
school cheerleading squad. That was the area. I'd love to
know what those girls are doing now, Like how weird
it must be for them to see their childhood experience
like played out on TV. Like Bevan grew up in
Wilmington's she kind of had a tap on it. But

(11:47):
was that anyone's childhood experience? Though? Like what we just
saw is that. I mean, obviously we know it's heightened
for television, but I'm trying to imagine in my high
school something like that. Actually, yeah, I mean I don't
feel like the the experience, I don't think. I mean,
who knows. We did say during the viewing that we

(12:07):
were like, god, we all thought it was so scandalous
that there is this idea that this guy would have
knocked up two women and would have two kids. And
then we're like, people have whole other families now. But
it's funny because at the time we were like, this
is so crazy. But I also think there is that
real element of when you are in high school it

(12:28):
is your whole world. Stakes feel so so high. The
stakes are so high because that's that's the entire scope
of your universe and your experience. So I almost feel
like the stakes of the rivalry and who gets to
play on the sports team, it they felt high. They
were dramatized because really, you know, when you're young, you're

(12:51):
just like I want to fit in and I want
to belong and I want my family to be okay,
and I don't know, it's pretty real for a lot
of people. Sticks still fell high for us at twenty,
being on that set, not that far out of high school.
So I mean those hormones and those emotions and the
feeling of everything really big. I mean, you were talking
about buying your first car. Well, and I had gone

(13:12):
to a really big sports high school like Parkview High
School went to States in football and we were like
machines and and so we went to States and cheered
and had those big, huge moments. So for me, I
felt like I knew it better than the adults who
were writing about it, because I was like, guys, I

(13:33):
was literally just here, you know, like this looks like um.
And I think that's why I was so like bossy
about it, but nobody was like that good looking, do
you know what? Like? For me, the hard part was
the beauty element of it, because I look back at
pictures of real high school and we should definitely post
our real high school pictures because it wasn't cute house

(14:00):
that guys, my brown, super crunchy hair. You know, the
year I thought I could have a bob and learned
that that's a real bad haircut on me. My junior
year in high school. You know, junior year in high school.
It's a picture so bad I'll show the two of you.
I don't know if I wasn't down the middle. Yeah,

(14:24):
and like chunky highlights. Yes, did you like twisted back
with the butterfly? I did that in middle school for sure.
Good god, no, dude. It all comes back to Hairman
for such identity in it. It was one of the

(14:46):
few things that we felt like we could control as
the girls. Because we could control what we said, we
couldn't control like what we were wearing necessarily when our
characters had to do. I mean that moment for you
in the pilot. Okay, so yeah, when we were watching
the pilot, there's a scene where Peyton comes out of
the bathroom after um Nathan and it's like high Mr Scott.

(15:08):
And so when we when I first got the job,
it was called Ravens. We've talked about this and the
arc throughout everything was narrated by Barry Corbyn, by Whitey,
and he was describing everything that happened in the town
to his dead wife Camilla, and that was which we did,
who we didn't find out was dead until the end

(15:29):
of the pilot. Oh, you're totally right, right, But that
was the tone. It was like a really sweet, you know,
like small town, all shucks kind of show. But they
were trying to capitalize on the popularity of eight Mile
and they wanted it to be like an all shocks town,
but with this eight Mile underbelly of the kid from

(15:50):
the Wrong Side of the Tracks. Never in any of
that was there a sexy element, right, And so I
felt totally safe just being like okay, yeah, go and
be the cranky girl. So then when the o C
got popular and we had to turn up the sexy,
it was like a bait and switch, like do we
get to say, like, do we get to have an

(16:11):
opinion about it? And we didn't. We just had to
turn up the sexy, which like, thankfully we're all really
sexy in our flat shoes and our like corduroy skirts.
That was hard. That was hard for us as young
women who were all like we were all relatively like prudish. Yeah,

(16:32):
you're in our you know, in our activity, and so
when we were to get into that environment and we
have to play this like I don't know older male
idea of what a young teenage high school girl who
could be in a dream world or maybe was maybe

(16:53):
to see. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how much
of that was that how much of it was experience
of um girls that maybe they knew that, you know,
we just weren't like or I just I don't know
anybody who's having sex in high school? Did you did?
But like I also think it for the people who were,

(17:14):
but it was talking about late and it was a
big deal every God. I my very first boyfriend, who
I dated until I was a senior in high school,
was my best friend from summer camp since the age
of nine, like my sweet sweet like high school sweetheart

(17:35):
who for years I was like, I'm still not ready.
It was like it's okay, like just such a friend
a true gentleman, and it's funny to think, like, yeah,
I mean, I don't know. I dated three people by
the time we got on our show, Like what you
would never casually come out of the shower in front

(17:58):
of their powers, in front of your boyfriends father, Like
how dare you lead in the shower at your boyfriend's
the first place? No, I shower with my clothes on.
In fact, I also just love I gotta I gotta
tell the listeners because it's a fun one to watch
when you come out of said seeing where Paul is
really just ripping into James because he has by the way,

(18:21):
the one episode where James has a nipple ring bagap
artists had to glue onto his chest, by the way,
gross and like serious things are gross, just like you
having a fake one glued on as gross and no
one liked it and so they never referred to it again.
You walk out of the bathroom and you wouldn't even
look at the game ra They're like, can you cheat out?

(18:41):
And I'm like, no, absolutely not, Like I'm mortified right now,
I'm hoping this gets caught. I'm mortified by this fake situation,
so I'm not going to play it. Like I still,
as a married woman, couldn't do that, just like treeps
by in my towel in front of my father in law,
like oh yeah, and I was so blue say no,
I would never yeah you in front of you guys,

(19:05):
but like in laws, Oh my god, it makes me
shame me. Also, like, like looking back on it, Paul
was also a viable option, like Paul's the same age
as my husband, and so like like the whole element
of like trapesing around like semi dressed was just so

(19:26):
loaded and weird, and I remember that feeling of I
was never allowed to watch these shows growing up, and
here I am like right smack dab in the middle
of it, and this one's potentially worse than what I
wasn't allowed to watch. The heroine too, you're the you're
the one that we're watching, and like, you know, off

(19:46):
the bat the second the first episode aired, and the
reaction to Peyton was so bad because it really was.
The reaction to her was so yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah,
They're like, we're going to have to take you dark, right,
and then you'll have a moral arc where you you know,

(20:07):
like come back around and people will understand why you're
such an asshole. But that's kind of great though, Like
as as an actor, that's that we understand that now,
but back then, yeah, you know, you're like people hate me,
you know, like the chat boards remember the chat boards, Yes,

(20:27):
just pages. It's a hideous place. So people are so
cruel and the irony that that we clearly are not
in control. I mean we did over the years have
to go so hard in the paint for our characters,
and when we would win a battle, it was really
like winning a war, and and there would be people

(20:50):
online being like I can't believe you did that. It's like,
well I didn't want to, Mr Jersey, oh seven six, Like, god,
do you think I chose this, choose this for me?
I did not choose this choice. And if they known
how bad it was supposed to be to become and

(21:13):
so like that the new normal that this show created,
of like parents not being around, of like casual sexuality
and stuff, it's something that I'm really happy we've been
so open about with with conventions and things like that,
because I never wanted teenage girls to feel like they
were behind the eight ball or that they were like
missing out on something. Because I'm like, do you want

(21:34):
to see pictures of eleventh grade? For real? Because it
wasn't a lot of that a lot because we knew
that we were we were speaking to a young audience,
and I was constantly having conversations about like, young girls
look up to me and to this character, you know,
me as this character, and I'm nervous about a B
or C because I don't want them to think that

(21:55):
that's like normal or okay, or that they should be
treated that way or that they should you know, subjective
and and you know, the conversation between as an actor
portraying a character, and you want to show that the
character has an arc, so your character has to have
flaws and they've got to learn things and go through things.
So yes, you don't want to be perfect all the time.
But you also there was this sort of moral responsibility

(22:17):
that we felt, and it was tough. That was really
tough to navigate as a young woman. And I remember
also the excitement of feeling our first sense of permission
to be a little wild, because like we you and
I are Bert, you know, Hillary and I have my birthdays.
The week apart, we turned twenty one, and we started

(22:38):
working a week later, filming. We were already in women.
It was first night. We went to Level five, which
was this cool bar on top of a theater, and
we ordered drinks and looked at each other like we
had just gotten murder. They were like, can we see
your I d s? And we were like yep. Even

(22:58):
we were like, are they going to get rejected? Are
they going to know they're real? And they gave us
cocktails and we looked at each other like, oh my god.
It worked. It worked. It was magic, Like we had
money to buy our own three. It was crazy. Yeah,
it was. I mean we didn't. I wish we'd had
like phones cameras at the time because we'd have so

(23:21):
many memories on our Also like a lot of blackmail,
you know, looking back at the show now just watching
it objectively, Joy, you were really good to point out,
like the structure of it is so good and there

(23:43):
was nothing else like it on TV at the time.
The parallels between what each boy is going through, the
way they cut back and forth on the courts, but
the cars and the buses, um that the connection between
the two older brothers the two younger brothers, how they
that whole dynamic I was really strong. Yeah, there was

(24:06):
a lot of wildlife in this episode. Joy got attacked
my pigeons. There was an alligator in some scene. It
was what was your pigeon experience? Oh, we had some
guy out there with the pigeon strange, so that was okay.
For those of you who don't know it's called, that
was called a steady shot. It was a steadicam shot.
It was It was a one er is what we

(24:27):
call it. Because there's no coverage, which means the camera's
not popping in on Chad's face and then my face
to get each of our lines. It's just one camera
set up and we do do the scene and we
walk through and say our dialogue and once when it's over,
we're done. And by the way, baller for the steadicam operator,
because what that means is that there's a guy wearing
a camera strap to his chest, walking backwards looking in

(24:49):
a monitor at you and Chad in a two shot
that never cuts, never moves, has to be perfectly timed,
and this man has to trust the guy who's dragging
him by the vest enough to just look at the
two of you and walk backwards blindly. It's it's so hard,
it's so hard and it's got to be perfect one
years and if somebody cops or sneezes and doesn't make

(25:11):
it work in the scene, you gotta start all over
against pigeons. And so we're doing this one er on
the steadicam and we had the guy with the pigeons,
and there was like always a thing it just couldn't
We could never get it to work, and it was
so frustrating. I don't know what. They would fly in
the wrong direction or like he'd open the cage and
they just walk out like it was never anything right.

(25:34):
So finally it worked and then you know, we continued
on with the scene. But yeah, I had that was
my pigeon wildlife experience. What was your? I had the gator? Yeah,
my was it my first day. We was either my
first or second day, but it was my first real
day of like acting. I may have done some like
you know, like extra work in a different scene, but

(25:55):
my first real day of acting was that roadside scene
where my car's broken down. It's just Chad and I
and Chad had been on Gilmore Girls, he'd been on Dawson's.
He'd done that like a Hailey Dolphin movie or something around,
you know, like he'd done so much work, and so
our director was a very big time director, Brian Gordon,

(26:15):
and I knew he'd done some like HBO stuff and
he was a very big deal. And I had not
done a chemistry read with anyone. I hadn't tested. I
had done this, you know, one little part on Dawson's Creek.
I had done, you know, my scene study classes in
New York for the last two years, but mostly it

(26:36):
was theater where you've got a really big space to
move around and rehearsal time. Yeah, so Chad and I
get called to set and I knew my lines coming
and going right. We go down there. They put us
on these marks, which are like little, you know, pieces
of tape in the shape of a cross, and they're like,
hit this, don't you dare look at it because the

(26:59):
camera's point it at you. You just have to feel it.
And I'm like, unless it's a wide shot, there's like
a little dot the size of your half your finger.
And they ripped the tape tea off and they're like,
see this little dot we left you and you're like
in the grass, in the grass smaller than my pinky nail.
So they everyone's like just like telling me all these things,
and no one realized I didn't know the business at all, right.

(27:22):
I didn't know how to hit a mark. I didn't
know how to find my light. I didn't know any
of this. And while we're in the midst of the
very first rehearsal, a gator is swimming up to Chad
and I and no one is clocking it, like no
one's saying a word in the marsh, in the mar
right there in the water, and I'm like, anybody, nobody, nobody, anybody.

(27:47):
And I was distracted right like larranted. So we end rehearsal.
I go to my trailer. I knew it was bad.
Like I knew it was a bad rehearsal because the
just the lingo they were using. I kept having to ask, like,
what are you talking about pulling focus? Like what does

(28:07):
that even mean? I had no idea. The director comes
to my trailer bang bang bang bang bang bang bang,
and I was like, yeah, He's like I need to
talk to you. You didn't know your lines? Yes, I
knew my lines, but there was like a lot going on,
like there's an alligator, sir, don't you ever waste my

(28:29):
time or the cruised time again, and I was like
I cried and then I had to pull it together
and like, oh, it's just like the worst scary say.
But I never didn't know my lines again, like like
my whole career. It was a great note to get
your very first day. Um it. For the record, I

(28:51):
knew my lines. I just had an alligator coming out.
But the interesting thing is that the requirement is you
have to be unflappable, yeah, no matter what. Yeah, And
that's that's a hard skill to learn. It was the
first day, no one. But the thing is when you
go on to a job, no one realizes it's your

(29:12):
first day because it's not their first day. They've been
doing this for years. Like you're just welcome to the circus, kid,
and so um it definitely set the tone for me
of crew first, always crew first, be a team player,
don't ever waste anyone's time. I think that probably plagued
me a little bit the whole course of shooting because

(29:34):
I was then I tried to overcompensate, so I'd be
like I'll advocate for every department, you know, like I'll
fight your battles for you because I'm on your team, remember,
but it all came down to that freaking gator. Wow.
I mean people die all the time getting eaten by
gators and welming today. I know that happened all that

(29:56):
ya like Greenfield Lake, Yeah, yeah, the yeah, no, there
was a bad There were some bad stories about like
I remember maybe maybe this has been created in my brain,
but I'm sure that we lived there. There was a
story about somebody walking their dog around Greenfield like and
the dog got snatched, but the person's arm was in

(30:19):
the leash and so when the dog was getting rolled
by the gate or the person walking, it was also drowned.
And I was like, well, I'm never going there ever,
I'm never going This is a mythology that's so fun
about shooting at a small town because I don't know,
but I heard it did. It was also just such
a crazy thing because I remember, you know, you guys

(30:40):
obviously shot the pilot. You do pilots in the spring, guys,
so like March usually, so it's chili still in Wilmington's
in March. But then when we got there to start
shooting properly, enjoy when you had to shoot all your
pilot scenes, you know, do all those those reshoots. Um,
it was July. You know, it's a hundred degrees. It's
a hundred percent. But you're shooting a show that's going

(31:01):
to be airing on TV in September. So you're wearing
Kashmir sweaters and leather jackets and they're like, could you
stop sweating the camera guys, and you're like, I wish
I could help you. I'm so sorry. Another thing to
know is that our show was supposed to be a
mid season replacement January, That's right, And that's why we

(31:24):
were all just for winter because we were supposed to
come on the air in January, and so we were
filming in July. We had a six month lead and
another show got canned and so they put us on
the air right away in September. But that meant that
we were filming an episode and then it would air
like two or three weeks later. It was so there

(31:47):
was no way to adjust for like reaction, you know,
to like like crowd reaction and stuff like that. We
you know, it was so um. I just remember being
so nervous up Peyton because I like, everybody hates her.
Everybody hates her. I'm on set reading about how everyone
hates her and like we're still in the midst of
like being a big jerk, you know, man. So it

(32:09):
was yeah, that was scary. There was no promotion for
the show, and that was yeah, because every week the
street cred Man. Every week the viewership jumped in ways
that we all were like, what's happening. And when we
first because obviously you you you ushered us in Hill
to the whole world of MTV and I will never

(32:31):
forget when we went and did that first t r
L and the people at MTV were like, last time
we had a crowd this big was for eminem And
we were like, I mean Times Square was I've never
seen a crowd like it, and we were like, this
is for us. Yeah. I was like, I remember being
really confused. I was like having a panicked I was
sweating because I was that for others paid people to

(32:53):
do it, and I'm like, well, no, then every movie
would have done that, you know what I mean, Like,
we didn't have those crowds for anybody else. It was
I didn't know that they were for us. I just
thought Time Square was packed. And we pulled up and
I got out and I was like, man, this is crazy,
what is going on? And I got out and I
saw somebody in the in the immediate crowd surrounding us,

(33:14):
holding up a poster that was Nathan and Haley, and
I just was like, what wait. They were holding up
posters for all of us in all different ways, but
that was just the one that my eyes saw that
was like, Oh my god, wait, these people are here
for us, especially because we were just in this little town. Like,
oh man, we were laughing so hard, you guys watching

(33:36):
the pilot, just thinking about all the shenanigans of our
lives there. And like one of the things that's so
funny about Wilmington, it's a college town and it's a
retirement so like it was us one, and then it
was a bunch of nineteen year old kids at U
n c W and and then it was a bunch
of people's like dad's and grandpas on the golf course.

(33:58):
I kissed those and so it was kind of just us,
like all we had was each other, literally for better
or worse, and oh man, we just had no perspective
on anything outside of our little bubble in this little place.
And then we got to New York and there were
thousands of people in the streets outside of a building

(34:22):
where we were going to do press, and we were like,
what is this. It was like being in the Twilight Zone.
It was so crazy. I remember other people talking about like, oh,
your life's about to change, and I'm like, well, I've
been on TV since I graduated high school, Like what
are you talking about? You know I do live TV.
You know I get the reaction right away, So to

(34:42):
do something where the reaction was delayed was weird because
then it really was so much bigger. And I had
a boyfriend fiance at the time who came to visit
and was like riding a skateboard around our base camp,
and I remember, our boss is going he won't last long.
They knew our life was about to change enough that

(35:04):
I would just like cast off the old skin and
turn into something different. I never felt like, I mean,
did you guys feel like your lives? Your lives did
change all of a sudden because I we were only
in that I was making decisions a hundred percent on
my own for the first time, like where I wanted

(35:26):
to live, you know. I went shopping for a car
with Brian Greenberg. In those first couple episodes, I remember
I was looking at like a mountaineer. Did they even
make mountaineers anymore? It's kind of like a jeep, right,
I don't know, like a range of not a range
of over I which to call it. Um, Yeah, like
it's like a jeepy kind of it's like a sport
utility super like a super room girl. I don't know, No,

(35:50):
I think a mountaineers, like I think I was just
like just pumped to like hang out Greenberg because he
was so cool, you know. And so we were like
shopping for cars and then I was too scared to
actually spend money on a car from a car lot
because I wasn't convinced scary to spend money. I bought

(36:13):
like a fifteen hundred dollar nineteen eighties six Mercedes that
had the crank windows, you know, and that's what we
would like drive into work. And yeah, it was it
felt extravagant. At the time. I was trying to figure
out who we wanted to be. I mean, that's a

(36:33):
big deal at that age. Like, you know, we all
had different personalities, but you also we were looking up
to other public figures at the time. And two the
things that we saw in the magazines and we want
around us. I didn't know. I mean, I there were
things I admired about you. There are things I admired
about you. I just I and I remember like, Okay,

(36:53):
let me copy that and see if that feels right
in my skin. Now that feels that doesn't feel right
trying on a sweater? Yes, And look at magazine and
be like, let me try that on and see. And
I think every teenage girl can relate to that. We're
all trying on different suits to see which one. I
felt so confused, too, because to your point, everyone around
us kept telling us our lives were changing. But I

(37:17):
I just felt like I had no idea what that meant.
And I think part of it for me, you know,
I I grew up my whole life. I went to
an all girls school with fifty girls and my graduating
classics I wore uniforms like I didn't have any of
the experiences we were portraying. And I had. Oh. I

(37:39):
had never been in a class with boys. I my
high school sweetheart was my best friend from camp since
I was nine. I'd never been lied to. I'd never
had anyone try to sell me anything. I went to
college and I wanted to have the opposite experience, so
I went to USC. I thought sororities were lame, but
my best friends were joining one. So I did just
like you as a cheerleader, but I was the philanthropy

(38:01):
chair of my sorority because I can't help but be
a nerd. I like camps, and I dated a boy
all through all through college who was a computer programmer.
Like we were just so cute. I had no I
had like these dreams of making the kinds of movies
I loved, and and I remembered, like, you know, watching
my so called life and loving Clear Danes and thinking

(38:22):
she was so talented, and she went on to do
movies I respected, and and I thought maybe someday that
could happen. And then suddenly we were on TV and
everyone was saying it was happening, but like we were
just going to work every day and like get getting
offered sweet tea at like the local furniture store where
you and I joy were like hunting for antiques and

(38:44):
nothing the Ivy and John market, right, But like I,
everyone was saying it was changing, but I still kind
of felt like a little kid, and I didn't want
anyone to know. I felt like a little kids. I
was trying so hard to be about me too. I see,

(39:07):
I had come from MTV, where you were looked down on.
If you hung out with the talent, it made you
like a Starker. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it made you a Starker.
And I was so against that, and so for me,
it was really hard to be on the other side
of the talent. I didn't like how people were like

(39:29):
treating me and I didn't like I didn't like feeling
like I was being coddled. God, you had so much perspective.
And at that time, the only way MTV would let
me do the show is if I worked Monday. I
worked Sunday. That's right. I forgot about that. So it
was hard for me to connect with anyone because I

(39:50):
was always gone because I worked. We we shot in
the high school on Sundays so we could get the gym. Yeah.
We worked Sunday through Thursday. Friday morning, at six am,
I'd fly to New York. I would film like three
different shows and then i'd work again Saturday morning, and
I'd fly home Saturday night and then like go out
and then go to work again on Sunday and I

(40:13):
did it for the first two seasons, and it was
so unsustainable. I mean, and by the way, you're being
kind about that schedule, because let me just tell you
all listening at home something. These basketball days in the
average for us as girls, because we have a two
hour pre call, we would film for sixteen hours in

(40:33):
the gym, meaning we would work an eighteen hour day
and be told that's normal. It's on an hour quote
unquote Monday, which means that because the later you shoot
every day, the later your call the next day has
to be. By Friday, we'd be going into work at
four pm, starting at six pm, shooting until four or

(40:53):
five am on Saturday. So hill are you are on
Friday night, Friday morning, Thursday night in to Friday morning,
we'd shoot until four or five sometimes six am, and
you would go straight from set to the free in airport.
I didn't look to fly. I think the course of
the season like I just disintegrate like a little bit more.

(41:16):
And I can see it joined to your point. It's
what you were saying about knowing what you were going
through personally, Like I watched myself trying so hard to
spin all the plates um so then by like season
three when I was like, guys, right in here and
then I just commit to the show. Season three really
is one of my favorite seasons because I was just
able to do one thing and it felt nice and

(41:40):
I got to cut my hair. It felt so nice.
But yeah, it was you forget how bad you wanted
it as a kid, and we were all trying so
hard to be these grown ups who deserved this position.
That we never said no to anything. Anything they asked
of us. Anything they said was normal. Anything they told

(42:02):
us we had to do, by the way, I even
think about like any question I was asked, like when
we would do press and they would interview us, when
no one ever told us you don't have to answer
a question if someone asks it, So like yeah, wow, wow,
that feels personal. Um okay, Like we just wanted to
be good so badly. We didn't realize at times we

(42:24):
were like coming apart of the seams. I think messy
is what made us really relatable, was like, oh I
feel her pain. We all just carried different pain. I loved.
I still love when people are like I feel like
me and Broke, or me and Peyton, or me and Haley.
I feel like we would be friends. And I'm like,
I love that. That's my favorite feedback, the Peyton crying

(42:48):
in her car. I guess there's like a meme of
me crying in a car. And my son every night
at seven pm gets online with his best friend and
they look at memes that like they watch YouTube videos
and like that's what fifth grade boys do. And so
I guess at some point my son got curious and
like saw a Peyton crying in her car meme and

(43:10):
so like eleven year old Guss is like, why were
you always just crying in a car? And what's kind
of great is like I know now why Peyton's like
always like super messy, but it wasn't explained in this pilot. No,
not at all. I mean I liked that when I

(43:30):
watched the pilot, I liked that because I thought there's
really somewhere to go, Like, I want to understand this girl.
Why did she always empathetic? Didn't have the reaction that
apparently a lot of other people thought she was so cool? Yeah,
I thought we were such a I always was like
I was like, Hilary is so grown up and she's
so cool and her arms are so long and slender.
How did she get like that? She knows how to

(43:52):
use bom bombs and shows me like I just want
I just wanted to follow you around like a puppy.
I was like, teach me stuff. Can I go to
bars with you? You're like, I just felt like, didn't
you feel like she knew everything I didn't? Those guys?
I was so I was intended by Joy because Joy
had been in Thinner and I had remembered like, oh,

(44:15):
she's like a movie, like a big deal. You were
the four that's amazing. I was so intimidated by your
theater acto. I was just like, Wow, she keeps talking
on all these plays and I haven't never seen any
of these. I don't know anything about musical theater or
like cool. I felt like, yeah, it's interesting thinking about it.

(44:39):
I just felt like I had so much to learn
from you about weird now. I told I was I
felt like what I had said before, where I was
just kind of terrified inside and just like you know,
looking at both of you and in On, like I
thought you were both so cool and so like with it,
and so like you were so stylish. Yeah, so with

(44:59):
her no back blouses like Sophia had an orange halterneck top.
That's why it cut T shirts were cool, and that
was a T shirt that had been cut up by
some girl in l A and the neck was the
arm holes. You guys, like a man's extra large T
shirt and you'd like put the arm holes on your neck.

(45:21):
I felt so cool because a girl who was older
than me in college, who was in my sorority like
taking me to this T shirt shop and I was like,
this is cool. I'm an adult on TV. I should
wear this in public and put my face through some
guy's arms, Like, oh my god, it's no. But you

(45:41):
also were like the pie piper of all the dudes
on the show with that shirt. Like I remember a
caravan from the river View Suites to the Rhino Club
up on Market and just they were all following you
like ducklings. It's just like the shirts killing it. We
had watched hipp Top, your episodes of Nipped Hawk we're airing,
and we've only watched them together. And then we went,

(46:04):
because we were twenty one in Bonafide to a bar
to celebrate, and we were like, we're getting cocktails, and
Greenberg played his guitar god Les Greenberg being you know
in every so cool there's one guy with the guitar. Yeah,
he was our Greenberg. He was our guy, but not
like like Jake's character was not overly romantic. You know

(46:26):
those guys there's always a guy with the guitar who
really like he's like, I'm the guy with Greenberg is
not that guy. He was just always always seems so
self confident and just sort of in his own skin.
He was just cool. And he was like covering Elliott
Smith songs, that's right. He was good for the music recommendation.
He had really cute friends. Like when we would come

(46:48):
up to New York for MTV, Greenberg would be like,
We're going to meet some of up bros from n
y U. And I was always like, O, come that.
I wish we'd been on trip. Hey, I wish I'd
hung out with you. I wish I hadn't been so
afraid of everything that I had actually like gone out
and hung out and done all that stuff I was
just like so terrified of. Thankfully, though, we have trips,

(47:09):
Like trips forced us into that space. And season one
we had the hurricane. Oh god, it was like the
spot we all met up there. It was like half

(47:31):
of us went to one place and half of us
went to the other place because it was like this
hurricane and we all need to be in the spots
we went for chick I mean the hurricanes. That was
something that was new for all of us. And so
you take all these kids that are away from home
or just what they used to for the first time.
You start filming in September, and then hurricane season hits

(47:51):
in October and we're all forced to be grown ups
and deal with natural disasters and also like to be
on a national television show and then fly all over
the country and do pray. Do we remember when people
were like, oh, are you stormproofing your windows? I was like,
what a who? How do you do that? I mean
I was still living over the bar so stormproofing my windows? Yeah,

(48:11):
I do have like nailing boards into the like I
don't want a picture frame into the wall. Guys, I'm
pretty sure I can't start. Okay, So obviously now the
world knows we were all so terrified to be at
work and so deeply intimidated by each other. Oh my god, Like,

(48:33):
but Joy, I'm so curious for you because you know, hell,
you had done the pilot, and then you came in
to do these reshoots of the pilot, and then I
came in and we all started working together right as
soon as the right, as soon as those were done.
But what was it like to have to reshoot some
of those huge pilot scenes Because some of them are easy, right,

(48:54):
like you're at Karen's cafe, it's you, Chad and Moira,
But then you had to do shots to match that
huge basketball scene, like the Lucas and Nathan face off
and starts the show. Was that insane to have to
do that? What was weird about it was that we,
if I recall correctly, we didn't actually reshoot that river

(49:16):
front scene. We we're shooting a different basketball scene on
the river court for another episode, and they tacked my
reactions for the pilot onto that scene. We did like inserts, yeah,
exactly the job they did. I'm pretty sure that's how
they did it though. That's what I remember. That scene

(49:38):
is so good, it really is, and you know, like
as much as we are, so you know, we kept
saying what we were watching it, how impressed we were
with James and how strong and intimidating and he was
holding his own old and like it so attractive and
captivating on screen. And you know, they did a really
good job because with with these characters too, because really

(50:00):
was rooting for Lucas when I watched this pilot as
much as I and it's it's a feat to have
you sort of you're attracted to the villain in a way,
but you're also rooting for the guy that's supposed to
be the hero when they didn't. If they hadn't done
that right, if they hadn't cast it right, shot it right,
written it right, if those guys hadn't played it right,
we probably wouldn't be sitting here today because that was

(50:21):
that's that was the biggest moment in the pilot that
I think brought people back keep coming back. James was
so sinister in the pilot, which watching now, I'm like,
what how did he do seventeen? Blows my mind. At
the time, we took it for granted, like you just
expect everyone to show up and do the job. Watching

(50:42):
it now, you know he's not that far removed from
my son's age, you know, which is like creepy. He's
only six years older than Gus was at the time,
and so super impressive, But I remember them recasting your part.
It had originally been a character named Reagan. It was
played by Sam Shelton, who's an awesome actress, great singer
by the way to great singer, had like a duo

(51:05):
episode on them, and she was so cool and so fun.
But when I was told that they were recasting her,
it was specifically because they wanted Nathan and Haley to
become a couple. And I remember every time, and Sam
just wasn't right for that, right, Like those two didn't

(51:27):
work because Sam was older than I was. So the
jump from from James to me and then her to
James was a different chemistry, really different chemistry. And I
remember thinking when they told me that, like, there's no
keen way that will work, like Nathan and Tutor girl,

(51:48):
Like what because he was so like bad, so bad
in my mind, there was no way to make it work.
And so it's a real testament to Jane his work
being able to take Nathan from that dark place into
like a loved daddy figure. Yeah you know, yeah, And

(52:09):
he's so genuinely such a good, solid guy that that
there was there was that was bound to come through.
Did you know from the jump that they were going
to put you two together. I have no idea. Yeah, no,
I never knew that. I didn't either, And by the way,
it's because I mean I would think if I like
click into a producer hat for a second. They wanted
there to be that tension that existed in season one

(52:31):
where all the fans, because we were piggybacking the end
of Dawson's Creek, everyone wanted you and Lucas to be
pasty and Joey Dawson expecting that. Yeah, we all thought
you guys were maybe going to end up. Yeah, yeah,
for sure, me too. Did you never went there? Did
you ever? No? I mean, we such a strong choice.

(52:52):
I don't think that ever. Well, we'll find out as
we keep watching, because I honestly don't remember most of
the first season. I mean I remembered those moments from
the pilot, but um no, we didn't have that kind
of just that chemistry wasn't there. It didn't exist. It
really was a good example of a male female friendship
that was earnest and like hard when it needed to

(53:14):
be hard and just kind of Yeah, we didn't really
see a lot of that where it didn't veer off
into romantic territory. Yeah, there just wasn't sexual tension there
for whatever reason, I don't know, but I think and
chef walked into the room. I don't think we didn't
flock that in Karen's cafe, your flustered little reactions, Hello,

(53:36):
do you know Paul? We were all having dinner it
deluxe meet Paul and Craig, and I was haying out
with boys. You were with the grown up a fine time, Joy,
Joy nailed it this year. Years later. I don't know
if he came back to the show or if it
was before he left or something was years later, but

(53:57):
I had kind of gotten over my crush with him,
and you know, but we were at dinner and sitting
there just like Paul a k a Dan Scott, who
I love very very much, but who loves seeing people
in awkward, uncomfortable situations. It's just pure comedy to him
and so true to Paul. We're all sitting at the

(54:17):
table and he goes, hey, Chef, you know Joy, and
a massive question she did in love with you? And
I mean I just turned like Craig just looked at
me and I was like, yeah, I think so, I think,
what are young don't made it. He's such a sweetheart though,

(54:39):
Like what a great guy. And we loved his daughter. Yeah,
hot single dad and we would babies it his daughter
will love you know what. He was looking out for
us to like, he really was one of the ones
that was the very few people that was was a
good listener and would would wanted to hear how our
experiences were, what we were going through, would give advice freely,

(55:01):
like just really he really cared, you know. He and
Paul were so special looking back on it, and I've
told you guys this and I've said it at conventions too,
but for anybody who's everybody able to hang out with
us when we shot when we started shooting the season,
so we came back after this pilot episode, my parents
came down to Wilmington's to like move me into my apartment,

(55:22):
like bring dishes, all that kind of stuff, Like I
was going into my dorm. We went out to dinner
with James and his mom at like one of those
you know, riverfront restaurants, and James was like, I mean
he had to have a chaperone because he was still
a kid, and so it was almost like we were
being set up to be buddies, you know, and so

(55:43):
I was like, okay, yeah, our parents are making us
be friends because we're playing boyfriend girlfriend and and then
afterwards I took my parents to that upstairs French be
stro um. What the hell was that place called Caprice? Yes,
and Paul showed up, and Paul is like, so good

(56:03):
at ordering wine. Paul is so chin and he's so funny,
and I think we were laughing and at some point,
like I laughed and touched his knee and was like, oh,
you old scamp, you know, like one of those moves,
and my parents mood changed and we left and my
parents were like, you are not dating him. Don't even

(56:25):
think about it. And it had never occurred to me,
but I was like, oh, oh maybe I will an option.
The world's opened up, but when you're all new, it's
also so funny to us, because I mean, Joy had
the the smart sites, I think, but I don't know,

(56:46):
at least for me, like and I imagine as we've
talked about it for you. I looked at Paul and
Craig like they were supposed to be playing our dads.
They're only sixteen years but at the time, because I
still felt like such a little kid. It never occurred
to me that they were not actually our parents age.

(57:07):
And so now like you telling me that Jeff and
Paul are the same age blew my mind. I was
like what. And when we watched the episode, you know,
when I met Jeff, he was like, oh, I auditioned
for that show. And I'm like, wait what. And my husband, Jeffrey,
audition for Cheffer's part, and he was like, yeah, you know,
I like the whole like gritty garage, you know, that

(57:30):
like edgy thing. Yes, Joy was onto something, you know,
and l hef a shown up in those type jeans
the chef was wearing. Can you imagine. Yeah, I would
have definitely had kids earlier. That's a totally different behind
the scenes scan. And by the way, the the wildness

(57:53):
of you while we watched the pilot like this would
have actually been mind blowing because you talk about in
that scene in the car where you stop and you
like make the face at Chad, You're like, oh, that's
my kids staring back at me. It's weird. It actually
what I was like, My god, it would have been
so crazy. Yeah, you know, my son is probably going

(58:17):
to be an actor, like he has already dived into
directing stuff and really really loves it, and I don't
want him to do it until he has a real
clear sense of who he is because I was so
like wishy washy and I didn't grow up in the
industry the way he has. You know, I was super
green from Virginia, you know, I didn't know anything about

(58:41):
film work. Meanwhile, he's like a pro. Now. I still
don't want him to do it till he's eighteen. Um. Yeah,
but to see my face, my child's face in a
cheerleading uniform, I'm like, oh my god, it's gush, just
making those surly little faces and like super ground be
and very dramatic. It's it's it is weird seeing like

(59:07):
the kid and yourself. Yeah, I'm protective of it. Yeah, well,
and it makes me a little bit emotional. I mean, firstly,
let me just say on the subject of things we deserve, um,
because you know, I'm proud of us for caring about

(59:29):
each other enough to have you know, been at this
and be such fierce you know, lovers of and defenders
of each other for all these years. And I'm I
love that we're doing this and we're you know, taking
back our joy from a place that had so much
of it but also had not joyous experiences. And and

(59:51):
it's kind of wild because I feel that too. I
feel so protective of you both, and I feel protective
of my young self, and I feel so detective of
brook Davis, like she's a person like I get surly
if anyone tries to come for her. And then I
have it also from Peyton then, like I remember some
like quote unquote fan on the internet, like you know,

(01:00:13):
tried to say why Peyton was a bad brand, and
I was like, you don't know the first thing about
what Peyton Sawyer did for Brooke Davis. And I was like, wow,
this is an irrational reaction that it is not appropriate
in any way. But I just I don't know. It's
it's nostalgic and beautiful and and intense a little to
watch that pilot, not so like full disclosure. I cried afterwards,

(01:00:39):
because you watch it and like the sense memories there,
Like I remember what the river court smelled like next
to the river in the middle of the night. I
remember like that humidity and also the smell of the lights,
you know, and there's just like such sense memory about it,
and we had no idea in that moment that the

(01:01:02):
thing that we were making at twenty one years old
was going to be the thing that became like the
cornerstone of our life when people stopped me in the
grocery store. Like every once in a while it's white
collar or a Christmas movie or something, but of the time,
it's this show. And it makes you think like, oh,

(01:01:24):
maybe I would have made some differential if I knew
that this was going to live forever. There was no
streaming then there was like internet, that's right, doesn't even
exist anymore. That we had no idea what was coming, well,
we didn't. Yeah, we didn't know what was ahead in

(01:01:45):
terms of the good or the bad of it. What
was your favorite moment from the pilot as a viewer,
I feel like this is what we should do every
every episode. What was our favorite moment just as a
view were Yeah, I loved Karen ripping down a new

(01:02:06):
one in the car dealership. Because now that we're we're
the age that Moira was when we shot that, Like
if my agents sent me those sides and was like, hey,
do you want to do this show? Like, yes, yes,
I do. Thank you so much. Like she just it
was a great character. She knew exactly how to play

(01:02:28):
the piste off Mama Bear. Um, and it's fun to watch.
It's fun to watch Moira. She's so so good and scary,
like a little scary. Yeah, her on your team. Yeah.
I think probably just that that big game at the
end on the river court, when the guys are facing

(01:02:49):
off with each other, that was the stakes were so heightened.
And um, I think that and I and I do
remember really loving, uh, the the image of the guy
who was not Chad but doing Chad stand in walking
across just bouncing that the iconic image from the show
and Van walking across the bridge basketball. It was such

(01:03:11):
a it was such great brilliant imagery. Whoever came up
with that shot, it's brilliant. It like sticks in my head.
And then um and then you and and chat at
the railroad tracks always sticks in my head to the
You're you were so natural, you felt so comfortable in
front of the camera Hillary and Um there was like
an instant I don't know that the chemistry between the

(01:03:33):
two of you guys in that moment. I felt it,
and it I remember that tugged at my heart. Instantly
on the show. I was like, I think I'm in.
I think I'm in on this show and and um,
and then the moment on the basketball court really tied
it all up for me. Absolutely. I agree that basketball
scene is just so good because you know what the
stakes are for these families, and and something about this

(01:03:54):
sort of dynastic element of what is that word smart
she went to space scamps, you know, but but truly
the this notion that this character of Dan Scott has
a dynasty essentially in the small town, and and the
element of of what his hyper masculine, sort of patriarchal

(01:04:17):
story is with this, you know, his progeny, his son
who's you know, next in line for the throne, and
then this other kid who by no choice of his
own is sort of stuck in this mess, and the
woman who has been harmed by playing his mother. Like
it's so good, and and then you realize, as these
two boys essentially are in this gladiator battle, that neither

(01:04:38):
of them chose this, and that it's going to affect
them for the rest of their lives. I just remember
thinking how elemental it felt, and I had that same
moment of like, I'm I'm in, and I loved how
it was constantly reinforced similarly the you know, I couldn't
relate to that family story, but what I could relate

(01:04:59):
to was being a part of a world but still
feeling like an outsider in it. You know, from the outside,
maybe I looked like I had it together or like,
you know, yeah, I was in this club or that club,
or did theater or seemed popular, but I always I
always felt more like Peyton. I always felt really uncomfortable, uh,

(01:05:20):
sort of in the skin of that place. You did
a good job, so because you came in with Brooke
Davis just like you and like like But I had
to be someone I couldn't relate to, and so that's
actually what made it easier for me. And and I
always felt a little uncomfortable in a room of people

(01:05:43):
who seemed like they had it all together. And the
moment that made me feel seen was the cutting back
and forth, almost montage style, in the scenes where Nathan's
driving the school bus, all the cool kids are partying
and Peyton's a cool kid, but she's not there, and
she's driving her car listening to angsty music by herself,

(01:06:04):
and it's cutting back and forth between these two driving scenes,
and and Nathan almost drives into the train and you
almost run Lucas over and everybody stops and it I
don't know. That was the thing that made me feel seen.
And I was like, I have felt that. I get that.

(01:06:25):
What were you listening to in your car by yourself
in high school? Man, Iryl Crow who ended up coming
on the shower her Um, Yeah, Cheryl Crow. It's funny
because I grew up listening to Motown with my mom
and the Eagles with my dad, and then I got

(01:06:46):
really into I think, just like being a kid who
lived in l A. You know, it was the era
of Tupac and the Tupac in Biggie Battle. And then
I was a senior in high school and Chronic two
thousand and one came out and I was like, dr
is the coolest. So I was just like this, you know,
really gangly, little white girl who loved wrap. Yeah. I

(01:07:09):
wasn't allowed to listen to modern music really, and so
I you know, with Peyton and all are dumb Vinyl,
you know, that was who I was. The only music
I could get was what we could check out at
the library because I didn't have necessarily money growing up
to go and buy CDs or tapes or whatever. So
we checked out stuff from the Sterling Public Library and

(01:07:30):
I remember getting like my Culture Club albums, Like I
was obsessed with boy George. I was so obsessed with
androgyny and like sexuality analytics, Boy George, David Bow Girl.
I was on a real gender bender kick, and so
Peyton coming in with a lot of masculine energy felt

(01:07:50):
like good to me. I was like, this chick can
kiss anybody she wants. This will be great, um, which
is something that a lot of the fan base is
picked up on, you know, like there is a large
part of the fan base that's like Payton's Gate, right,
And I'm like, I don't know, there's time. Life is long. Um.

(01:08:12):
So yeah, that was you know what was fun for me.
I would love to know where all those records ended up. Yeah,
scattered to the wind. I stole some things for you
from set when we wrapped up, but they'd packed those
records up by then. I was pretty tested about them.
I was like, where did they go? Do you love

(01:08:36):
woody sarcasm and talking fast? And are you longing to
return to Stars Hall of for one more trip? To
Kim's Antiques or just to pick up a few things
at Dosie's Market. It's an overnight stay. It's a dragon
flame on your list of plans for a getaway is
a burger from Luke's Diner on the menu for tonight.
This is Scott Patterson. I was Luke Danes for one
fifty three episodes and in four Netflix movies I Am
all In and I Heart Radio Podcast. Come hang with us.

(01:08:58):
We're read watching together. We're visiting with all our favorite
cast and crew members. We talk fast. We've got a
lot to say. Listen to I Am all In wherever
you listen to podcasts, Ladies and gentlemen. It's time for

(01:09:23):
most likely to Okay, so we're gonna try and do
this at the end of every episode. Who is most
likely to um? You know, like in high school, Like
in your high school, maybe you had this in your yearbook.
We should ask the fans what they're most likely to
were so we can get some idea. I like that idea.
I like that. Yeah, I mean I feel like in

(01:09:44):
most year books, like the one I hear about, a
lot is most likely to succeed. M Are there others
that you would prefer to you. I mean, I think
this idea of success in this first episode is such
a major point because obviously, on paper, Dan Scott is
it is likely to succeed. But as we know that
doesn't happen. That's the malarkey. Yeah right, Who do we

(01:10:07):
feel like, who's most really succeeded in this world? And well,
I guess to find success right in high school? Typically,
most like succeed means the person who's going to what
make the most money, build the biggest business in that way. Yeah, yeah,
I mean there's different definitions to success. It's like not
the kid joining Peace Corps, you know what I mean?

(01:10:27):
And now we're like, it should be the kid. Um.
I mean, Karen has raised a child who loves her,
and I think as like adults now we realize that something. Yeah,
I mean a kid that communicates with you and loves
you and lets you into their world is a big deal.
Someone with a strong moral character you can drop into

(01:10:49):
any scenario and they're going to do the right thing,
you know. I mean, that's massive success for sure. I
think most likely to succeed is Barry Corbin, a little
bit who plays code twite who But when we were
shooting one tree. Hill had been in more television shows
and movies like the length of Barry's career is nuts,

(01:11:11):
and like just dropped into this world of freaking teenagers
and was like, doues, I'm want to own this. For
those of you who don't know, no one had a
better time in Wilmington's than Barry Corbett. Oh yeah, good god.
We should try and get him. Come come in and
chat with us. I would give to hear Barry's stories
because he just watched us and like enjoyed that, like

(01:11:38):
watches the cattle. That interesting, what's happening over there? Okay,
I'm going to say I think my vote for most
likely to succeed in this episode is going to be Mouth.
I think watching him on the river court do his thing,
he was so driven and focused and it really set
the set the tone for him as a character throughout

(01:11:59):
the rest of the series. Everything that he was always
driving at he provided so much ammunition and fuel for
so many different storylines. And he was just always always
chasing a dream, you know. And I left that about him.
That's my boat. He bought a lot of energy. What
about you, oh man? I was really like, you're right,
it's Karen, that's the way to go. And now I'm like, oh,

(01:12:20):
but I'm so bad at this. I've never been able
to pick a thing. I don't know. I think it's
funny because then I sorry, well, yes, and obviously he's brilliant,

(01:12:44):
but like the Pilot feels very set up to give Lucas,
who's always been the outcast, his first taste of success,
like that boy gets his first win in the Pilot,
and I think what they set up is the audience
curiosity as to whether or not he's going to be
able to hold onto it, like you come back to

(01:13:06):
see which of them gets the ball next time, and
that I think is a really brilliant device. I'm going
to say the most likely succeed for me is the
town of Wilmington's, because this show was such a love
letter to that town. The way it shot is so beautiful,
and it has set up like a tourism industry that has,

(01:13:28):
you know, surpassed anything I think anyone ever expected. And
like Dawson's didn't take place in North Carolina. They were
like cheating cape Cod. I guess Willmington for Cape Cod,
and so I think Wilmington's came out such a winner.
You did this to such another level. It's a metaphor.

(01:13:48):
This is why she should be running the film commission. Hello,
I don't join clubs anymore. Um. The Drama Queen Club
is the only one. I'm a part of it, Drama
Queen jan Um. So next week we have episode one
or two the places you have come to fear the most.
That sounds done dangerous because I'm showing up like Hellyan

(01:14:14):
and my bad hair. Oh please, that was a bad haircut.
It was so cool then, but good god, I just
I wish we'd had one. Comes back to hair. Yeah,
it all comes back to hair. Yeah, I'm into it.
All right, y'all better watch the episode because we're gonna

(01:14:35):
have some things to say in our hot little bod
show up. We can't wait to see you guys next week.
Thank you so much for joining us. Have a good night.
All about that high school drama, Girl Drama, Girl, all
about them high school queens. We'll take you for a
ride in our comic girl Cheering for the drama queens

(01:14:58):
up girl fashion, but you'll up girls. You could sit
with us Girl Drama, Queeze, Dramaqueene Drama Queen's drama drawn
mc queen's drama Queens