Rachel Bilson Apologizes To Her “The O.C.” Co-Star/Director Tate Donovan For Past Assholery
Rachel Bilson is keeping herself sorta relevant by hosting a The O.C. rewatch podcast with Melinda Clarke (Marissa’s mom) called Welcome to the O.C., Bitches. Marissa’s dad/hottie of yesteryear, Tate Donovan, guested on the most recent episode, and Rachel took the opportunity to formally apologize for her past behavior. You see, after Tate’s character left the show, he returned to direct a third season episode. And Rachel admits that at the time, she and the other young stars of the show were “little assholes.” Give yourself a break, Rach, it was Hollywood in the early 2000s! T’was the season!
Rachel said, via People:
“You went on to direct us on The O.C. and I know some of us kids were little a—holes,” Bilson said during a new episode of the podcast. “And I think that speaks to that whole unaware, young, youthful, ignorant … just idiots. And I hope I wasn’t as bad as it’s come off.”
Donovan brushed off the comment, replying: “You can’t help but believe all the sort of hype everyone gets caught up in, especially when you’re young.”
“I thought you were so wonderful and such a wonderful director and an amazing human,” Bilson added. “So if I ever added to any of the a—holeness, I want to apologize on the record here right now.”
“Our first scene together, you were in Seth’s house and you were coming down to the pool to talk to Ryan or something like that. You did the scene, and it was great… And I said, ‘Just so you know, that was great. Just so know, you’ve just come from Seth’s room, and you’ve had a huge argument, in that thing, and you’re like, breaking up.”
He continued, “And so, I want to see that argument in you … You know that right? You know that you had an argument with Seth?’ I didn’t want to step on toes. I didn’t want to insult you by reminding you of that.”
“You go, ‘Tate, I don’t read scripts, I smoke pot,'” he said, receiving laughs from Bilson and Clarke, 52.
HA! Oh man, do I… “stan” a young Rachel Bilson? From now on that’s my go-to response when anyone asks me to do anything. “Hun, I don’t do the dishes, I smoke pot.”
Back in 2013 Tate did an interview with Vulture where he admitted that when he returned to direct the kids on The O.C. had developed “a really bad attitude”:
“They just didn’t want to be doing the show anymore. It was pretty tough; they were very tough to work with. The adults were all fantastic, total pros. But you know how it is with young actors — and I know because I was one of them once.”
He continued, “When you achieve a certain amount of success, you want to be doing something else. I mean, one of them turned to me and said, ‘This show is ruining my film career,’ and he had never done a film before. You just can’t help but sort of think that your life and your career are going to go straight up, up, up. So they were very difficult.”
So the diva “he” Tate was referring to was either Adam Brody or the blondish one whose name escapes me… wait, I’ll Google… Ben McKenzie! Since Adam actually appeared in some movies in the early 2000s, the man in question is totally Ben. And looking at his IMDb, the only film of his I’ve actually heard of is 2005’s Junebug. So maybe dude actually had a point about The O.C. ruining his film career!
Pics: Wenn.com