The Pilot with Josh Schwartz | Ep 1 | Welcome to the OC, Bitches! Podcast

[Music] wow this is our first episode of the podcast welcome to the oc [ __ ] that's how it goes welcome to the oc [ __ ] the podcast where we re-watch the oc as both cast members but also fans each week we're breaking down an episode often with the help of former cast members crew celeb fans and other guests who have something to say about the cultural phenomenon that was the oc no pressure yeah it was a cultural phenomenon rachel bilson mrs bilson how are you on this fine day i'm doing splendid how are you mindy i'm fantastic this is our first this is our first episode we've been we should let the audience know we've been working on this for a while so i just want to um acknowledge cast media thank you so much for having us um besides um rachel and myself we have a our producer diana we might hear from her from time to time but um rachel there's someone here with us and he's probably the reason we're all here so i'll let you take it from here probably probably definitely josh schwartz hello hello hi hi josh how are you i'm fantastic thanks for coming the creator of the oc for those who are not aware uh also executive producer because you know i will check that out yeah sure give all my credits craft services he created this world that we all have grown to love did you finally grow to love it i'm working on it i'm evolving uh yeah so josh is sitting here with me in my closet today it's true in the closet yes my office closet a lot of a lot of handbags in here just wanna throw that out there really well i happen to be in um behind me i don't know if anybody remembers but this poster um my daughter was seven when we finished and everybody signed it she's had it up in her room ever since she used to always say hi josh schwartz shorts yeah sure yeah she did you believe that she's um she's she was three when it started i was just a young new mommy and now she's 21 junior in college wow so i've been able i think it's been so so interesting we were rewatching this show because i was such a baby just a new mom at the time so now i've gone through the teen years i've i'm looking at the show with a completely different set of eyes and um i understand that teen angst a lot more i'm not looking forward to that all right you probably aren't you're almost there though i have a nine-year-old daughter now uh my oldest and she desperately wants to watch and i'm like absolutely not no no way no cg would not watch it she got into gossip girls and vampire diaries and finally a couple years ago she finally watched because i kept telling her i said look i those other shows are great but you have to understand this was um it was a brand new show it was a fresh take on a on a on an old genre and i just went i would talk about it on and on and she finally just said i don't want to see you kissing young men mom and i said well you kissed all kinds of guys you did you kissed all ages of men there's a wide range there's a whole spectrum of men i don't think she should just pigeonhole you like that it is true well for those of you listening who don't know josh schwartz is also responsible for gossip girl with his partner i'm just making sure all right yes i like to share correctly you should as you as she deserves she does yes so he's he's quite popular with the youth out there we'll see when stella hits like 15 if that holds true god help me um yeah well it's been an honor to um re-watch this it's true you know re-watching the pilot i was like man this is good i was really emotional and it was so good like i was you know you know what you're doing i didn't know what i was doing actually how old were you when you wrote it uh when i wrote it well i don't know 26 and it got made you were 27 when it was made right yeah when we started going mm-hmm yeah and you were um because of course i've done a lot of research but this wasn't the first show that you actually had produced right no it was i mean i'd written pilots but they hadn't gotten made and uh you know this was the first thing i ever did that made it to the television airwaves to the air and um you were actually the youngest creator in history at the time or is that still true i haven't checked i don't know you don't like refreshing google on that yeah making sure my record holds but i don't know that's pretty easy at the time i guess tell our audience um i think i know um what the official story is but how you were introduced to orange county and how it all came apart how it all came in part that's later on season three um so um yeah i went to uh i'm from providence rhode island and i went to usc uh for college and film school and that was like my first introduction to the newport beach orange county water polo playing community uh that i was not really uh uh familiar with before as a jewish kid from the east coast it's shocking really thank you i know i know it's amazing pleased um but uh so that was my sort of introduction to though that world and those people just as kind of an outsider myself um and a couple years out of college really i went in for a general meeting with stephanie savage who as we mentioned gossip girl with and at the time she was partnered with uh partner with mcgee right the director uh at his production company and we just sat down and had a general meeting and were talking about areas or ideas or just worlds and orange county newport beach came up because that's where mcgee was from and they didn't really have much beyond that just wanting to kind of look into that world and i said well i feel like i know that world and i know that world from an outsider's point of view because usc like was a there was like a direct pipeline from newport beach directly into usc um went off and came back with some characters and it just evolved from there and then uh we actually we pitched it late for pilot season which normally if you're pitching a show for pilot season so that's when you're you know you write your i don't know how deep we're going here into like how television works yeah you can give a little shirt a little bit right off when i'm getting real boring okay um so so they basically there's like a pitching season for shows that you would then shoot in the spring that would be to be on the air in the fall if they got ordered and normally you're pitching like in the summer so i don't remember exactly when we pitched but it was quite late in the fall like october or november went in with an incredibly detailed pitch dialogue acting it all out and they ordered it and then they said not only are we ordering it but we want you to be prepared to put the show on in the summer and so while we were shooting the pilot we actually had a writer's room going uh in a trailer and so i was kind of running back and forth between shooting the pilot and then we had to edit the first two weeks of the pilot footage together um and turn that in and i'd make a bible of things that were going to happen in the first season i feel like probably only 30 of which actually made it into the show but they just needed to see like that there was an idea of where the show could go anyway they ordered the show uh and we were we were up and running and kind of almost into immediate production and on the air in august which is very very aggressive and fast and if you remember we did 27 episodes in season do they even do that anymore like do any shows do 27 that's kind of it's insane it's insane it's like nine months out of the something like that it's really well yeah that was longer uh we did 25 in season three but yeah now everything's like eight episodes or ten episodes so um so 27 was quite quite a thing i have to be honest doing research just for our pot little podcast i'm dreaming the oc i'm thinking about things i can talk about i'm researching there's so much content and and things written about this show how do you just as a writer and and i explained to people that show runners just have such a unique place in in this um in this industry where you have to you have to be writing for shows in the in the future and and also be on top of what's being shot and that's just god how do you keep it all together and and you just have a great support team you have so many extra writing writers as as well as producers um yeah it's a good it's all about the team and we were fortunate i was fortunate i mean i had stephanie obviously with me um bob dylan so i hope you guys have a chance to talk to because as at my age and experience level they were not going to just like let me run the show by myself so i met with like multiple different potential show runners all of whom you could tell we're just kind of like i can't wait for this kid to like fall and then the show will be mine and bob is just the sweetest most generous kindest person and he was like look you do what you do i'll handle all the stuff that you know you can kind of learn as we go because there's so much you're in show writing there's the writing and um story and all that kind of stuff but then there's a whole other facet of it which is you know budgets and schedules and which you know is not doesn't come naturally to it's and it's a weird combination of like right brain left brain so we were able to kind of split responsibilities there but he was also super helpful in the room allen heinberg was a great asset in that first season so we had lots of really just good people around ian twinton who i think you guys are going to talk to who became our resident producing director yeah so we just had an incredible team norman buckley and matt ramsey and post so it was just an all-around great team that you kind of put together season one of any show is like a startup company you know and so so some of it's going to be a good fit some of it's not and you just kind of evolve in them but hopefully by season two things become more uh like well-oiled machines exactly yeah well it's true i mean there's so many factors that go into it so i think having the right people behind the scenes as well as the right you know actors hopefully feel that way well i was gonna say you guys made our lives a lot easier and it was kind of instantaneous just all of the the cast chemistry you know just all the different dynamics that were on screen um and i mean both of you just had kind of like a smaller introduction yeah we were guest stars but it was immediate apparently like apparently what the [ __ ] am i talking about let's edit that part out it was immediately apparent is what i'm trying to say got it that like there was so much more to write for you guys even in those like small you came out and were like in your juicy sweatsuit and making jimmy go get you some frozen yeah yeah and it was hilarious yeah which you actually i i listened to the um commentary i found the commentary from the first season and you called it the um that jimmy getting julie's froyo equaled suburban death you called it well it's someone who who's gotten my fair share of froyo i can i can say that that's that is true that's pretty sure i was i was very present yeah well you make a good point that i mean it was so such a learning experience for myself still being what i consider quite young yeah yeah we were definitely [ __ ] some dates on how you could have a teenage daughter back then i could have been a teenage mom i was 33 when it started which is outrageous but yeah but it was it was one of those things when you realize that as an actor on a series we have the opportunity and the ability i we show up on time with the dialogue memorized and then take some chances or experiment and whether it works or doesn't and hopefully i what i'm doing is is adding to the creative process and inspiring the right the writers to write for me or say ooh we did this or she did that let's find a storyline for for um for these um characters deep into the future whether it's one season two seasons i mean that's that's gotta be um you have to have a certain mindset to write a show for that many seasons yeah i mean that's the that's the fun part about long-form television is as i mean when you're writing the pilot you haven't cast anybody yet right so you're just writing these characters and then as you find the right actors for those parts sometimes they come in and they're exactly what you had in mind and sometimes they come in and they really surprise you and you're like oh that's even way that's way better than what i thought um and i feel like summer was definitely not i was definitely not what you envisioned for summer if i remember correctly yeah no i think like holly was probably like yes more of the summer season one yeah like blonde like more maybe beach looking southern california even though i'm from l.a i'll have you yeah but the valley but i'm little in brunette so yeah but rachel came in and said i got a p you got to pee that was like her big line in the pilot and we're like that was hilarious just in the same way that froyo was hilarious and it's like these little moments where you just have a world into who that character could be could become so that's the fun part about long-form tv is that you get to kind of evolve the characters and and line up their voices with the actors you know and i mean that was a huge part of the collaboration with brody you know was kind of getting his idiosyncrasies and his performance styles and the stuff he would throw away and the stuff that he would lean into and you know peter and i mean everybody really it was about writing towards everybody's strengths and you did that so well you really did like pay attention yeah there's a lot of eavesdropping there's a lot of eavesdropping i mean that's like golden girls comes into play yeah i'm a big fan and uh or figuring out like that ben could be really funny even though the character was obviously written to be more dramatic in the beginning and getting what ben's comedic timing was and starting to lean into that a little bit and also just the the way he and adam would play off each other um there's just all those kind of opportunities anyway obviously peter and kelly and the family dynamics there was just there's there was just a lot of we always talked about also that you could kind of pull the kids out of the show and the show about this jewish guy from the bronx who's now a liberal who's now living in this conservative enclave in newport beach and is married like the blonde shiksa you know of his dreams she happens to be living next door to her high school or you know close by her high school sweetheart i guess next door actually yes um quite literally yeah quite literally we've had to use so many different locations as our exteriors but yeah so next door to her childhood high school sweetheart who's now married to this woman who's gonna like devour him alive and whose motives were not always clear in the beginning um and that that was a show in and of itself you know just the sort of the these four 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whatever you want to call it um and i feel like um you know the network had certain parameters that they wanted us to be able to to meet in terms of story and cliffhangers and angst and all that kind of stuff love triangles secrets um but it was also a great opportunity to explore family and friendship and um you know having a male friendship dynamic at the center of the show was pretty unusual for mateen soap um and having a father and two sons uh dynamic and then you know and having it be multi-generational having it be as much about the parents as it was about the about the kids and then obviously that became much more complicated when you started dating luke and then the parent kid line just came very blurred i just blurred lines like chris carmack just does he has a line i believe where he's just like your ass right doesn't he say that i don't know there's something that he says it's very all right later in the season anyway he's like no worries but he really is the epitome of the you know i grew up in in dana point which was pretty close and the water polo players did wear the puka shells and and he was he played it very very well i think like a big pressing question that most people want to know is why chino really most people want to know that have you researched this did you take it i've done some research people want to know why why'd you go 40 miles away as the crow flies well that's part of it i mean it was no knock on chino although i think we we didn't i mean it definitely wasn't necessarily embraced at first but then we were trying to be like our hero is from chino it's like that's a good thing yeah but it was you know there was a a prison in chino and so there was just sort of it made sense it made sense but we definitely made um i mean mostly it's rachel's fault for saying you chino but all right [Music] it was just also that you know it's no knock on chino which is is um like i said has lots of nice area nice parts to it it was more of just living in the newport beach bubble and not being aware that anything else outside of your bubble could be um recommended right i mean it really is there are some areas very close to newport beach um that are very different and yeah well yeah newport is a bubble and i guess that's exactly what you were trying to convey yes that these kids have no sense of their lives outside of their own world yeah and i would say back to your thing about the tone not to cut it off no um but the show became more self-aware as it went on like the pilot is pretty straight forward right it's it's playing a pretty pretty straight and then pretty early on uh we started deconstructing the show as we were going and you mentioned the bible which is um kind of your plan for the show but how much did it change after that the only thing in the future you know i should have if i i should have looked it up prior to coming here and i'm sure stephanie when she comes will be much more professional definitely be more prepared but also rachel literally has no questions written down on her notepad so i'm not really it just says like she has the same questions i do on that um that's my notes from breyer's kindergarten so she's super prepared so therefore i feel not bad at all for not having done by rereading of the bible i do remember that we had built in um a cliffhanger we knew that there was going to be a certain number of episodes that aired before the world series right so we're gonna be on in august right and there was gonna be like seven episodes yeah yeah and then we're gonna be off the air for the world series and so we needed to do some crazy cliffhanger and in that cliffhanger there was a terrible car accident and marissa's fate was up in the air um and then that evolved to becoming the tijuana overdose oh i'm going to say the car accident isn't that end that was later yeah and then the tijuana episode kind of evolved that was the cliffhanger when for baseball like you went off the air with that with that you want a cliffhanger of like i should know this you should know this yeah if marissa was you know hold you know in ryan's arms right i remember in the pilot my favorite i think monologue of all time is i stole a car crashed it my mom threw me or whatever i used to like know it verbatim because i feel like that's all i ever heard for months and months but ben's monologue when he meets marissa when he meets me who are you whoever you want me to be yeah i stole the car which crashed it you know do you want to get into the episode yeah we should probably should we you know re-watch up re-watch podcasts we should probably talk about it sure i'm ready the pilot itself yeah okay kiddos um troubled teen ryan atwood is arrested for stealing a car and meets public defender sandy cohen who instantly takes an interest in the boy after ryan's mom kicks him out sandy brings ryan home with him introducing him to the affluent world of orange county's newport beach trouble seems to follow ryan and while sandy's son seth is excited to have a new friend his wife kirsten ain't too happy so was that accurate we opened some of it the cold the cold open mm-hmm is um ryan with his brother trey uh stealing a car yes tray mystery and tray is definitely enjoying this and ryan doesn't seem to be enjoying this well that was important early on to indicate that ryan while on a nes not on the on the greatest path was still a good guy exactly moral compass there you go exactly uh yeah i know and it was very confusing for people when we first because every time you you test you know when you make a pilot you have to go test it and you sit and you watch an audience watch it and everybody thought it was a cop show they have no information when they're watching because the opening is so in its own tone yeah and i had a few friends thought he was like wait is this the right show are we watching the right show but you showed but you actually showed a very um different world that what he from from newport beach obviously yeah and the pilot is really i mean there's a couple places where we break ryan's pov but it really is very tied to ryan and seeing the world through his eyes you know there's a couple moments where you see marissa you know uh independent of ryan dealing with some of the stuff with jimmy cooper you see obviously this scene we were talking about the froyo scene um but almost all of it is through is through ryan's through ryan's eyes by experiencing the world as he is so it's important to start and make have the audience be aware of where he was starting from it was a very intense scene for what people thought they were tuning into for a teen dramedy or not a dramedy at the time it was a teen so but then um in juvie he gets to meet his pd sandy and um this was a great scene i hear that this was was this his audition scene ryan because he talks a little bit more than normal yeah definitely it was definitely yeah i mean that's probably on me kind of setting up an inconsistent um uh voice in the beginning for for ryan but it was important to get his point of view out there because he is such an observer and ben was is so good at um bringing you into like what he's seeing like you know some actors are really good listeners and can be compelling even if they're not talking which he can be but we wanted him to have an opportunity early on to kind of state his cynicism and kind of play off of peter and peter was the first person we cast in the show and i was super excited to meet him because i was such a huge fan of all of his work and having him as the first person cast and playing sandy um really sent the message that the adult part of the show was to be taken seriously you know that we were casting um really credible terrific actors to play these adult roles and i remember we were all sitting in mcgee's office meeting him for the first time as a journal meeting he was like well should we just read it should we just read it and uh he did this scene as well and it was just it was very exciting for me to see it come to life um it's really good rewatching these scenes i'm i you know i was a little nervous it's 18 years ago we were in pink juicy but it really holds up really it does really does well when ben so when ben read for the part and he did that scene did you know immediately that he was going to be ryan well i mean again he was different than what we imagined right apart what did you admit what was like the visual the visual to begin with just out of curiosity who else was up for the role who else was up for the role uh garrett hedland really who's up for the role yeah trying to remember um dj katrona who ended up getting cast on another fox show with olivia wilde who was awesome that's right who was up for the cooper olivia and misha were the two finalists for for marissa yeah um and olivia had just moved out to la it was like one of her first auditions and she was obviously super compelling and great but just so strong and like no one needed to you know it was hard to believe that she could be well misha was six what fifteen or sixteen she was crazy yeah yeah and just had a bit more of that sort of tragic error to her you know but uh so back to ben so we you know we we had looked at a lot of people and then actually he had read for a show for like a comedy i feel like for the then upn oh wow and and didn't get it and one of the executives at warner brothers said oh we just saw this kid he's really good you should see him so i think we were casting on a saturday and i remember walking up to the casting office um it was like me and steph and patrick rush and ben was just outside and i i believe i hope he's okay with me saying this i believe he was smoking i believe he was supposed to maybe he just did that that day to like come off more like he was method acting yeah yeah maybe i don't know and he wasn't super like i know he was nervous he definitely was just like gave us you know not a big warm hello and it's like oh this guy's really interesting like it's a kind it's a it's a different way than we had sort of envisioned it in a way but but he was so good and he felt so soulful and the key with ryan is you have to understand why every why this family is willing to take him in and bet on him why even though he's constantly getting into these situations like the car or fights or what have you he's he's got this kind of moral code and that he's driving his heart's in the right place even though it always blows you know not blows up in his face but can go sideways or he gets in trouble for a lot of yeah um that you have to sympathize with him um and he was just so sympathetic and you know again in later episodes like episode three uh when the family adopts him finally um his little smile is really heartbreaking i know yeah doesn't he isn't he like there's a moment where he's like mom where am i supposed to go and it's so like you feel i don't i don't know remember if that's the pilot that's the pilot it is the pilot where and he the way he delivered it and like as a mom myself you know my heart just broke and i was sobbing but just how he played it and portrayed it you feel for him and i think that was so important for ryan like you have to feel for him because you want to root for him and understand why he is being brought in which is why absolutely that scene as a mother now seeing this differently but that's when i actually saw scared 16 year old boy get out ryan mom where do i go that was heart-wrenching you did a really good job of conveying to the audience just this terrible plight that he's going through so that we were rooting for him from the beginning very much so adam wanted to read for ben for ryan he did yeah he did we'll talk about that talk about the atom casting process so seth and again admittedly my fault was way nerdier in the pilot like originally the cohens were called the needleman's like he was much much nerdier and the network had the note which wasn't wrong of like he's a little too nerdy we need this guy to be a co-romantic lead of the show he's the you know he and ben and then his opening shot like playing video games just like like he's such like a little goober you know but adam is like has such natural swagger and it's cool and good looking and funny and like he was able so him playing against that was really charming so you you totally believed him as the nerd um especially in that world where like luke is the ideal you understood why seth didn't fit in but you also understood why you know a few episodes in he had like summer and anna both fighting for him because you know brody could pull that off but when he first came in and read i've told this story before but he he i think it was the middle of pilot season you guys are all reading for a million things and going to a million auditions and he didn't really know any of the words to the scene like he just he was kind of i've been there it happened and i was kind of like trump like how dare you come in here and not know that not know the words and so we kept seeing other people after that and patrick was like there's something about adam we got to bring him back in let him get a little more prepared um and then when he came back in it was like oh yeah this guy's fantastic and as soon as the network saw him i rewritten the part somewhat uh to make him less nerdy although they wanted him to be more of a beautiful dreamer was the node and so he had a whole thing about sailing and tahiti tahiti and some of that stuff to answer that that was his audition scene too exactly on the boat yeah uh i believe that was one of them yeah yeah and uh but anyway that he he came in and they all fell in love with him and he was so funny and charming um and believable but also you could you could also buy him as a as a co-romantic lead and obviously occupying a very different lane than ryan and it was definitely like for for the female audience it was like team ryan or team seth yeah um or team luke i think when i saw that scene in the when we actually got to see the pilot because i you know i've read the script you have an image of what it's going to be i was so excited like i think that was the first scene where i went this is totally different adam is so endearing he's got such an original quality to him and it's this is my question then is how much of you is in seth hm i mean it was it started out i guess is my um way into the show as i was saying like as an east coast jewish kid like surrounded by these water polo players but very quickly it became about writing to adam's voice you know um and just anything that i would say uh if he said it it was just cooler and and uh and and he would put his own spin on it and you know there was we always gave room for improv um for everybody um and and wanted to create those spaces of like do it as scripted and now all right here's one for you or if you have an idea you know um let's hear it you know and and so often he would bring you know some new spin on the line or come up with some other line that was better or you guys would be riffing yeah um and that was super fun i mean that was part of it so it was really i guess it started as my point of view and then it kind of just became about writing writing toward to him you know i have to say foreign is his oh death cab was all him it was all him it was something again that i overheard one night when we were all hanging out and then it's just wrong you really just hung out with us just to eat yeah yeah but for me working with adam i mean that was my first thing and i learned so much from him because he was so confident in like everything he did he was he's obviously incredibly talented and really funny and just across the board though so good so i was fortunate for my first experience well to work with all of you guys you know people that were all so talented um that i'm like so grateful for it because i feel like it prepped me for you know my next move i guess so to speak my next moves and i'm glad we could just prepare you for stuff we actors we always you know we're only as good as you know the actors around us and we we learn from the actors and as um like peter it was really great to i always thought you just like we would look each other in the eye and you can just see how present he he was such a good time you know he was having a blast i was still outside you could tell i was having a lot of fun you could and you could feel it you could feel like how much fun and the and the whole the chemistry of the whole cast i mean i think that's really more that's why the show connected with people was because so they could feel that chemistry it was magic yeah right after the emotionally draining year we all endured in 2020 there are positive things on the horizon in 2021 it's time to take what we learned in 2020 and start heading in a new direction that's why instead of just celebrating a month of mental health awareness it should be our priority all year long take the first step with online therapy i believe in therapy you know whether a person is in crisis or feeling some anxiety or even some sleep issues or simply feeling blue having someone to talk to the right someone to talk to i think can make you know all the difference life happens and sometimes we need to process that with a licensed trained professional and not only can they help identify and help you process but then they can help you move forward so therapy should be affordable and accessible to everyone and talkspace is affordable it's a fraction of the cost of in-person therapy instead of waiting for an appointment you know you you can send unlimited messages to your therapist 24 7 and they'll engage you daily five days a week and you can sign up online and start therapy the same day as you sign up you can text video or send voice messages to your licensed therapist it's incredibly convenient to have virtual sessions from the comfort of your home rachel yeah no i think it's incredible i mean i don't think i would have gotten through this past year without therapy and everything's been online so to have something that's accessible for everyone is huge as a listener of this podcast you'll get a hundred dollars off of your first month with talkspace to match with a licensed therapist today go to talkspace.com make sure to use the code the oc to get a hundred dollars off of your first month and show your support for the show that's the oc and talkspace.com orate is a fine jewelry brand founded by women for women pieces range from classic to statement to completely original or rate makes the jewelry you've always wanted but could never find orates gold feels substantial and the diamonds sparkle and shine it's such high quality and so beautiful rachel i love jewelry that i can wear every day and when it's really good quality and it'll last forever because i i sleep in my jewelry sometimes so i have my 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fifth avenue brands at a fraction of the cost for fifteen percent off your first or rate purchase go to or ratenewyork.com oc and use promo code oc that's a-u-r-a-t-e newyork.com don't miss out on 15 off your first or rate purchase again that's or rate newyork.comoc what's interesting about playing against even though it's on this um it might be on the page written a certain way um for instance a lot of the stuff that julie says could be um construed as [ __ ] but you don't a [ __ ] or a villain you don't play it that way she just is what she is and therefore it came off a little bit more authentic i guess humor helps yes like you were so you were so funny and kind of you kind of knew you were funny you know in those scenes or there was a little bit of a twinkle so it never felt arch you know right right because it's pretty there's some pretty harsh ones i would i would sometimes bust out laughing because i couldn't say harsh dialogue but rachel i thought you did it so well you brought yours your personality to the character shut up i mean sometimes i was like that's rachel you know yeah i think i mean totally i think yeah as the show went on for sure you know and as josh was saying like you know just writing things literally that he would take from hanging out with us personally uh but in the beginning i feel like i was kind of imitating like girls from high school that were super just [ __ ] and unaware and just like oxycontin like just so like valley that's gnarly that's gnarly i found that this show i mean it it was so um there's a lot of freedom in that i could bring in some of my own goofy personality totally um obviously i have different priorities not necessarily money and fashion and gold digging but um but i did bring in my i'm not playing a covert you know government operative which is a little bit more you know limiting so this was a lot of freedom and it taught me so much and i loved going to work every day what do i get to do today and you know how you got cast which is you had read for a show that stephanie and matthew had done the year prior which was fascinating they did the show fastlane and stephanie loved you and wanted you to be cast in the show and they went with somebody else i guess and so when we were looking at julie cooper stephanie's like she might be too young but melinda clarke is awesome so we have to bring her out for this well i auditioned for kirsten i thought first but then i read that there weren't any julie cooper diet there wasn't dialogue i remember the first time i came in i i was literally stopping at wonderland it was you and patrick rush and i was driving to my mom's house in dana point and i made a big point of saying you know i'm from orange county why can't it matter but i wanted you to know and um and then you guys brought me back for julie dialogue and i had just done everwood with patrick rush so you had okay tape and then i was under contract for another show i think it was babylon five and they wouldn't let me out and it was literally you guys were already um shooting and we begged to get for myself to get let out of that other contract and i went to work the next day it was kind of like that's right down to the wire yeah so i remember i wanted to audition for marissa because our friend olivia who josh and i a mutual friend of ours was auditioning for marissa and i had read the material before i got the audition for summer and i was like i want to read for that part like i loved it and then i got i don't know you know called in for summer and i was like man i really wanted marissa and then here we are but i think we were also looking for actors who felt like there was some humor there too you know that everybody could play both the drama and the comedy so that's why when you came in it was a small scene it was funny it was just funny you're like oh this is a little spitfire this you can see and like a good contrast with marissa and then obviously once we started getting into scenes with you and seth like that chemistry became really clear and apparent oh oh right me and seth so when ryan can't um he gets kicked out and sandy picks him up i think this is important to note that first of all sandy shows up in a fancy car and then drives him from chino and you made a comment on the it's like has has ryan even ever been to the ocean or newport i mean has he ever left chino but but the photography shows you're selling the beauty of um newport and it's ryan has no idea what he's going into and all of a sudden the car drives up to up to this gated community this beautiful house um and then the next morning he wakes up and he's actually on top of the world with this epic view and where have i landed this is not what i expected yesterday when i was in juvie you know yeah so and we shot all that in malibu right and this is where we should uh shout out to doug lyman who directed the pilot that's right and doug is really great at um just kind of inventing shots on the fly and inventing moments on the fly and i just remember you know the sun setting and him running around with the crew just like making them grab shots and you know the the hills of malibu or the ocean or the car driving by and everybody's setting up a shot one way and him being like no no over there and then like everyone likes a card scrambling to get the sun down and there's one shot i remember him getting that we can get to at the end of the pilot that's my favorite shot in the show which is ryan's pulling out of the driveway and he looks back and he sees marissa and it's all like flared out like that was doug leaping into the car with the camera himself shooting i'm like we're never gonna get it it's fine you could tell the story without it and he was like no no and jumped into the car had the camera on him uh and got the shot that for me is like my favorite shot um wow yeah there's a lot of energy in his directing a lot of energy and he comes at things in a way that's not obvious or not cheesy um it feels more grounded yeah it's all organic and very passionate that man with his you know and it shows for sure he has his his point of view and he'll get it to kind of at any cost right um and even the way he shot certain things like when ryan carries marissa to the pool house again i'm jumping around but um shooting that on ryan's back you know and so you don't actually see them full-on it just it was surprising at first you're like is that going to work that we don't that run behind him and then it actually makes it more compelling and more interesting and it just kind of gives it a little bit more of a filmmaker an indie filmmaker you know what quality i have news for you it worked it worked i guess okay now we're at the driveway no it's not a straight you brought him home it's not a stray puppy sandy okay yeah we have the whole scene where peter comes in and tries to sell kirsten it's not a straight puppy sandy yeah right isn't it sorry and they had such a nice chemistry as well and you could and you felt like kelly was someone who felt smart incredible and even though she was of this world she didn't feel like the other noopsies you know that there's just something about kelly that she's rigorously intelligent oh yeah and um that she loves her son um and that there was you know but there was still a part of her that felt a little bit not like emotionally detached but just a little bit cooler than sandy who kind of just like leads with his heart right and they have this backstory that we you know that kind of comes out of like once upon a time they were driving around in a mail truck and they smelled like patchouli and that they were hippies and now she kind of went back to her dad's company and went back to you know being kind of the um the daughter of this you know donald brand type ceo um magnet and what had she compromised and was there a more fun youthful kirsten out there and was that represented in jimmy cooper potentially and so anyway kelly brought all of that to life in a really um with just so much integrity yeah at the moment with kelly where she's like he's like well where are you going she's like i'm going to put our stuff in the vault and then she's like to get fresh sheets you know and just it comes through and you're like okay there's the heart like coming through and then that's you know you it was such a great moment with kelly and for kelly showing that because you just get to know her you can see her which was what we were talking about ben too you know when it just kind of comes through and that moment for me really showed it with kelly you're building this relationship between sandy and kirsten they have such a mutual respect for each other and that that we can that's every audience member and child alike would say i want parents like that i want a relationship like that and but i also understand her concern as a mother because yes and obviously you find that seth starts living a life that's she's there's kind of a first and um so i understand anytime doesn't he yeah you know she's not wrong she's not wrong usually not a great move just to bring in like a straight teenager and let him just start partying with your teenage son but she also knew that like seth was hurting and the idea and felt lonely and this idea of like having a brother i mean i think originally i had written it as like is it almost like et and elliot you know this is seth ryan dynamic at first and then rc that evolved as well has that ever been told before i don't know i think it was literally like in the script at one point like elliot standing over e.t yeah that is cute um smoking yeah so the smoking was a big deal it's a big deal you cannot smoke you can't there's really nothing or taboo that you can do um and i went through this last year with looking for alaska because they smoke all the time and it's in the book and it was a whole thing and we had to get like a tv ma just for smoking cigarettes you could smoke weed on screen you can do cocaine on screen you can drink but smoking cigarettes because a lot of these places have taken studios have rightfully taken a kind of you know they don't want to glamorize smoking they don't want to do anything that they feel like will influence young people to smoke which is a great position to take yeah but it felt important to us that ryan be smoking in this scene because here's this moment where he's meeting this girl she's described in the script as like the most beautiful girl in the world you know and really is this princess in the tower you know and just someone the likes of which she's never really encountered and vice versa she's never really crossed with anyone like him either and they only have a short while in this driveway to connect and so him smoking and her asking for for a cigarette yeah right or a light sharing sharing with him do they share the cigarette or does he give him i think she has her own she has liked it yeah that's right she likes it yeah so anyway the idea that she would want a cigarette also indicated like oh there's more she's not such right the good girl that you might think she is given her breeding if you will right um so we had to go real far we had to have a lot of conversations with fox about it we had to make a big deal about sandy putting out the cigarette and being like there's no more smoking in my house and doug lyman's partner dave bartus was very helpful in us kind of dealing with broadcast standards and practices to get that scene in yeah but then they wanted to use that scene in the promos oh and they couldn't because of the cigarette because of the cigarette so they made ben re-shoot it against like a fake hedge and it without the cigarette and it just didn't work without the cigarette like it was just you needed the cigarette like what are they going to share a box of french fries you know what i mean like just didn't make sense so anyway we got one cigarette in i believe that is the last cigarette you will that was ever filmed in a broadcast like network show even in movies if someone's supposed to cigarette it's an instant r rating really yeah that's crazy i mean that's good you don't want to rachel be on the side of anti-smoking yeah i am don't come on what are you doing you're a mother yeah that's true but yeah i remember the cigarette like gets down to like the butt like you can see in the yeah i think i think the continuity i think the continuity on the cigarette is probably not great also when we shot miesha's side of this i do remember it became so windy like it was yeah there was no wind on benson all right and then when we shot miesha's side all of a sudden the wind picked up which actually gave it this kind of weirdly magical quality because yeah like her hair is blowing in the wind and it was like oh this is actually working for us but yeah there may be some continuity issues there there there aren't you know for the keynote observer yes basically this may have been the first hey hey yeah in the first of many every gag reel we ever did at the end of every season was just the hay montage the first ten minutes at each gag rail was everyone saying hey to each other hey hundreds of hey we talk we say hey hey do we yeah when you walked in did i say hey i did okay case in point casey boyd okay so then he goes to the pool luke rolls up oh yeah of course luke yes yeah hello sorry how long the truck the truck was key the f-150 with the surfboard on top oh yeah yeah it was just all you're getting a lot of information very quickly and chris was so good introducing these characters with um you know clearly we all recognize that dude with the pukka and the and the big truck and the truck immediately and immediately he doesn't like ryan and ryan doesn't like him and here we go then it goes on to ryan waking up with the view and he meets seth playing the video games and there's some stuff grand theft auto and immediately too i mean i think in hindsight like not revealing seth until the second act of the show it's a pretty you know you're pretty deep into the show until you're meeting like the other lead of the show which again i didn't really know what i was doing and we were just following ryan on his journey so it's like you meet seth when ryan meets seth and that's just the way the story was unfolding in a very organic way but then i remember even we were testing the the show the audience going like oh there's this whole other thing here right these kind of brothers and the wish fulfillment the sort of my bodyguard if anyone remembers that movie like that idea of like oh yeah the nerdy kid just like waking up and being gifted like for a second i thought you were referencing whitney houston and kevin costner yeah definitely see the pants yeah no definitely seth is whitney houston but no the movie but anyway everybody got it the movie with adam baldwin in it exactly yeah and so the idea of just like waking up and being gifted an instant like cool older brother who can like you know show you the ropes yeah right right and his iconic wife beater yeah cool i mean not cool but right yeah and then seth takes um ryan out on his summer breeze boat oh little mini catamaran type deal yeah which would obviously come back when he was going to sell that thing to tahiti yeah not a great player not a great plan not a great plan that may have been on account of me not knowing that much about boats but uh shocking you don't know anything about boats but that was a that was not that was i remember shooting that scene uh we had one boat strapped on top of another boat and we were because you were actually in the ocean we were well not in it i was in a boat yeah i was in a boat the boat was in the ocean i just picture like bug and scuba gear well well kind of so so their boat was like strapped to our boat right and then there was some stuff where they were like so the camera could be on the other boat yeah so we could kind of move around and then at some points they were we you know there was some pass-bys where they were on the boat and adam wasn't a sailor either shocking another shocking revelation but i do remember this which was that doug was prepping mr and mrs smith at the time that we were um shooting because he went immediately into production on that movie after we wrapped um and the guy who wrote that movie simon kimberg is a good friend of ours and so they they were out there these production meetings um all the time and i was constantly like who is this simon guy i hate him he keeps pulling doug's focus away from our show um and uh and then we became good friends later in life but anyway so doug realized he was late for a mr mrs smith meeting and jumped off the boat and swam to shore and i was like what are we doing out here in a boat without doug well that's his classic dog you know that is classic he's like i told him what to get what we needed and i'm good but again that was an important scene for the south summer relationship and ryan seeing that there's more to this seth kidd and he's romantic yeah and he's a beautiful dreamer right right and um and also just being so uncomfortable you know for brian being like i've never been to the ocean and now i'm on a boat in the middle of the ocean um but also showing like seth being really good at something like he might be this nerdy kid but when he's on this boat in the water he's kind of the man we're in marissa's house the feds show up and this is the introduction to jimmy tate donovan donovan the happiest most smiling human being on the planet the nicest coolest greatest guy he's just really awesome and again jimmy's kind of up to some sleazy stuff and he's got you know some skeletons and he's but tate is so likable and charming and trying so hard to keep his family together and juggle all these plates or plates you spin plates what are you doing you spin plates spinning all these plates uh juggling plates i don't recommend um but uh but anyway he's so he and he's just again so affable and so you never hate jimmy cooper even when he's um no you don't that's another thing all these people you know i feel like there's a theme here you just see like goodness yeah there's more to them yeah they're all outsiders in their own way that jimmy cooper seemed like the ultimate insider and he was like a newport beach golden boy but even he now is finding himself struggling to you know make ends meet you know he was probably trying to keep julie cooper and the lifestyle to which he was accustomed and you know started borrowing from peter to play paul of his clients and then things went sideways and now he's got the feds knocking on his door um yeah how could you ever be mad at tate donovan you can't be you can't no what about casting tate why don't we just or i mean or who were other people like how did that happen why take and you're from your perspective yeah i mean i knew of tate he had already been working like forever sorry friends reference he was on friends oh was that joshua that was his part on friends yeah with jen jennifer i knew him from love potion number nine oh i know that one too i know space camp no you lost me space camp yeah you've never seen oh come on 80s place clap gets me to the 80s class i wonder why why can't you speak today george i don't know why rachel so um uh again he just came in and he was he was just great i mean he just and we liked that you know he was again a name and had this body of work and felt like oh this is a character that uh is going to be significant and is lending credibility to this adult world to have somebody like him playing playing jimmy cooper yeah so then everybody's getting ready for the event and ryan um well sandy ties the tie which is probably something he's never had a dad tie it yeah it's really sweet yeah yeah uh my dad used to tie my ties for me that's why that method and it just feels like such a father-son act you know and here's a kid who had no real father presence in his life obviously as you said has never really worn a tie um and it instantly i think was such a strange feeling for ryan and something that he probably wasn't even aware of how much he was longing for you know and i think the sandy ryan connection is as important to the show as the ryan seth connection in terms of what which fulfillment you know um sandy sees himself and ryan sees himself and ryan um feels for ryan and i think and and ryan obviously sees this like incredible you know parental father figure also he's living in this we we kind of get skipped over at this amazing pool house on this couch the whole house yeah it was built for the pilot at that property correct right um and then we had to and then yeah it was built for this for the pilot and then recreate it on set um our fake grass in our pool that was two feet deep yep and the fake backdrop and i remember i think the first episode or two the grass was like real fluorescent oh yeah it was like fluorescent green it was like a film and uh and i was freaked out about it i'm like oh my god this looks terrible and bob d was just like listen one day years from now the show will be on it'll be like at a restaurant or a bar will be on tv and you'll just look up you're like that looks pretty good don't worry about it and he was right no one noticed the things you freak out about you think people are going to notice well you particularly tend to fixate on notice everything and remember everything i'm sure and remember so thank you slights just like what i remember slights like when people slapped me that's what i remember but most of the things you say to me i hold on to you because they're insulting yes this is what i do best though so let's go to the party let's just go to the party can we um not skip um the intro cooper and julie your bangs right you have a whole run on her on her hair we see julie and caitlin and um yeah shayleen woodley whatever i do remember that line are you going to wear your hair back um down like that or sorry are you going to wear your hair i thought you were going to wear your hair down pulled back like that's a little harsh on your angles that's really very very but i feel like right then and there you know everything you need to know about julie and marissa and their relationship yeah and that julie is both living vicariously through marissa because she's got this life that julie didn't wasn't gifted wasn't handed julie had to claw and scrap her way into newport beach and got jimmy cooper and i was like this is my ticket into the out of my riverside world into the newport beach world and unfortunately sometimes it may have manifested itself um yes with marissa a little self-centered sometimes she definitely had a um story arc so seth says at the party welcome to the dark side i think this scene i'm weirdly familiar with that this scene shows incredible editing by norman buckley and it was really just a beautiful epic um uh well our first epic party correct yeah wait is that why we meet summer did we meet summer at that party that's where we made summer summer yeah we could skip that part yeah not important but first before we get there shout out to uh todd sherry that's right who is patrick rush's casting associate on the pilot who played the waiter yep with the crab and bree philo mushroom league kevin brieffilo yep yes but that is where we meet summer and uh sandy's salting his game that's right insulting his game yeah he is that summer yeah that's a classic sandy cone uh sad scene right as a dad i get that now yeah totally i look at myself in that scene i'm like oh my god my hair and my makeup is just like well let's wait till we get to your fashion show oh yeah that's right that's nothing compared to the fashion show look which we work summers into ryan oh that's right who is that yeah i remember what i said who is that well i'm gonna find out and i'm like very determined to find out who that is i was determined summer was a thirst trap back before the term was a thing she coined it your favorite scenes and i love this little scene seth and ryan sit down at the table of kids with caitlyn and chester yes which was kind of your ode to the freaks and geeks yes yeah that was going to be its own show it was like really and like his only friends were the kids he gave sailing lessons to so cute and so they got sad at the kids table but in the course of editing that that was just we just could only really allude to that scene and then we're backstage at that fashion show and it's insane oh but there's one other thing uh at the party on the kirsten front which is when she catches ryan trying to order a seven and seven oh right and he's like i want to make sure you know he's right about you yeah yeah yeah that's santa again that was another scene of kirsten showing that she was gonna that she was rooting for ryan but she was also gonna be somebody that you know right ryan was gonna have to you know live up to you know that she wasn't just automatically inviting this kid into her house no questions asked right yeah so now we're at the fashion actual fashion show shot at the uh yeah i remember i remember that actually where was it weirdly the will she rebelled it's like oh yeah it's in the theater right yeah i remember that camera a camera guy fell off the stage watch a steady cam operator a little i don't know you do i don't but but yes rachel i think um you emerging on that runway with that eye shadow was pretty epic and the dress with like the dress it was poochies i remember adam brody always making fun of me and like said i like started out like a penguin or was that you that was not me okay that was produced definitely brody i would never talk that way to my actors but yeah he would make fun of my strut like but i was just really just living summer you know living in summer's world and that you're working as i was working it summer had no reason not to be confident yeah summer nothing bad happened to summer at that point i mean in her right i mean her parents have been it was a very privileged upbringing oh right yeah well you know it happens it happens but yeah but that's also where we see how you know backstage of the fashion show a lot is revealed which i really like the moment between summer and marissa where the vodka yeah she busts into the bathroom and has like glasses of champagne like look what i stole and then misha just pulls out a full bottle of vodka it's like but look what i stole you know you're like oh these girls are interesting yeah i know and again with misha she's so angelic and and you know she was so young and this idea that this girl who seems like she has it all has got this bottle of vodka that she's like yeah and that she's not drinking for fun she's not drinking a party she's drinking out of like anesthetizing herself or you know she's trying to like yeah and that there was this kind of darker more tragic element to her and misha was always great at embracing that and leaning into that and being more than you expected that character to be yes as well as being a fashion icon and the first person in the show who really broke out oh yeah completely first cover she was like cover of l and lucky magazine was the first cover that's cool she she often was able to bring did she bring some of her own dresses or to the to the show did she she was she was getting lots of stuff sent to her designers were sending stuff like i remember the first time she wore like a chanel or something and i was like holy crap that's chanel you know it's just like oh like just this pivotal moment of like oh wow she she almost instantly became a fashion icon i remember somebody early when the show was on was like the oc is that the one with that misha girl in it and i was like oh interesting yeah so she broke out immediately yeah um i remember you saying you're like no like she's gonna you had that feeling about her yes she was definitely gonna she was just somebody that was gonna be incredibly aspirational for for women and girls and a kind of a fashion icon yeah for sure i've always said that not only well you do reflect pop culture but this show ended up creating it maybe unknowingly but whether it was fashion or music or um you know even comic books became more popular i feel like um they're probably gonna be more popular but we were definitely they definitely tapped into that as it was before it became sort of mainstream and uh alan heinberg was a big part of that as well so the next thing is jimmy's got nerves at the table and um then he cries in the bathroom stall and ryan is at the sink and he hears right i think that's like oh this isn't the perfect society behind the manicured walls or manicure lawns and and gates so he doesn't know what's going on but jimmy's having a full-on breakdown and again that's the scene with no dialogue really and just you're seeing it as ben seeing it as ryan seeing it and and um seeing him kind of put the pieces together yeah brian's probably not quite sure what's going on no but he knows this marisa character that he's kind of connected with has got more more skeletons than he was aware of then summer you're inviting ryan to the beach house and flirting with him it was kind of it was actually kind of more of a cute little vulnerable you know hey do you want to show come to this party yeah and then and then ryan lies to seth to get him to go and it says that i invited both of them right yeah which is sweet yeah see ryan was just looking out for his brother heck of a jeep and away they go and away we go that was a cool car too that whole that's pretty it was that was fun to a pretty epic party with um now ryan says welcome to the dark side yep and brody has a great improv line oh hey cocaine awesome we shot i mean god we played missy elliott oh my gosh so like many times that night i feel like we shot it over multiple nights that part it was three days i feel like yeah yeah three nights all night all night the same missy elliott song on repeat for so much of it that i began to lose my mind yeah have you ever been able to listen to it which one is it do you know and i do but i don't want to talk about it i think it's a great song but yeah it's very triggering i hear you but you're showing yeah i i have to say that re-watching this i really looked at it and i went i do remember some parties like that in my teen years down in orange county and we would go to newport and you'd see the kids in the porsches and the fancy cars right yeah it was on the beach it was kind of um right now it was going to be a hotel suite like you know oh yeah where the fashion show was we did that in high school yeah sure then it took us to this beach house and it presented a whole other range well you also get the whole opportunity to walk out onto the beach get summer in a bikini well she was always in a bikini she could have been in the hotel in a bikini that was all rachel by the way we'd script like jacket sweater and she was like i have a vision for this scene i'm only wondering if i just wear a bikini yeah i'm so sure but what's interesting about this party is that this is where you first learn like luke's character too a little more because he immediately takes that girl out onto the beach she's like what about marissa he's like what uh it's all good or what do you say yeah and he just takes her out and and then you know seth's getting drunk ryan spots that oh ryan yes ryan clocks luke taking her out so that's yep that's an important but right before that you have your summer classic line of i'm gonna play him oh i'm gonna play him hot and cold i still don't really know what that means maybe you don't know what that means you're gonna play him hot and cold yeah i think it's pretty self-explanatory i just you know i never really thought it through clearly right hot and cold and you're cold okay just like hey what's up and then you've been ignoring never knew what it meant so how i delivered it i hope that made sense thanks for i mean you could have asked yeah you could have been like excuse me i don't understand this line like really i just went for it that's more my style yeah i don't ask questions okay then we jump to this completely different um atmosphere of jimmy with the dog dustin and kirsten chatting and that's where you kind of really get that backstory that we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast or um that there's a dynamic between jimmy and kirsten and then how julie just kind of like you know blows up their their little they're saying the froyo line which was like as we said everything you need to know about where julie cooper was coming from yeah and then in suburban death getting his wife ice cream isn't that the scene with kelly and tate or yeah where and she's like he's like they're not doing anything we didn't do she's like that's comforting right i always remember that moment with kelly and being like that was just delivered so good like well delivered well delivered well shut up she has that seth has never been to a party this is the first time he's been out i mean at least that's what happened and boy does he party yeah first night out and uh she's right to be concerned and you get the sense of like oh maybe kirsten was a little bit of a partier back in the day and what's the stuff with her her and jimmy all about uh yeah then you cut to seth and he's like at the keg and he's just just not doing great not he's not holding his licker well he's so good in that walking into like a threesome secret yeah whatever happened to the dog i mean he has no idea right yeah i just think shooting the dog not we didn't shoot the dog i mean like having to have a dog shooting the dog was the way to yeah it was an old yeller situation with dustin no um i just think having a dog was hard and maybe the location wasn't super dog friendly and we just were like i really need dustin to tell this story speaking of dogs your dog was not what happy yeah i was like what i'm like i'm not i swear i haven't replaced you um then back at the party marissa and ryan flirt what do you think in newport i think i could get into less trouble where i'm from marissa says you have no idea boy was she right mm-hmm again that was the idea of like you think you think this world that ryan comes from is scary and dangerous and morally compromised and really this other world that looks like it's perfect and as you said the well-manicured wands and and uh and the gated community is actually far more treacherous and uh the people there can be far more screwed up right mm-hmm next thing is um summer's wasted tumbling into ryan mm-hmm oh this is that's what you know this is where you know walks out gets upset when he sees her arms around him i named her my boat after her who are you ooh seth tells ryan to go back to chino summer then says yeah chino ew poor seth someone don't even know who he is i'm like who are you after yeah and she doesn't even know he exists no well hey she was a little inebriated right but she still doesn't know out of summer yeah yeah i believe so first i think she got into in that little really wanted to make that her uh what you're talking about willis catchphrase and then didn't you you tried to write what you're talking about well it's kind of line and you're like you didn't deliver no and then you missed it so this is like hot and cold you like didn't get it nope you just asked a simple question i think it was literally like what you talking about oh really you didn't want to go too big yeah and now i've learned my lesson as you know now i go a little too big yeah just overshooting the mark yeah so seth storms off and he starts getting pushed around by the polo players yep nordland and sanders named after two of mcgee's friends oh really yeah that's funny nordland you have these two guys who are from newport who like took us on a tour of newport and and showed us around and anyway nordland and saunders i always wondered how you got so familiar with um orange county like you really had to do some did some research and again having gone to school with those kids and spent some time down there with them and seeing it um and then a lot of it weirdly was also based on people i knew in providence you know so yeah i have a weird amalgam yeah that is kind of right what you know but then okay right right right you know they say right jewish cast gentile this was right east coast set west coast is that a thing i don't know but anyway so now we come to our karate kid homage on the beach the brawl goes down and with a pretty famous ryan hits him first though and fights with luke and then right iconic yeah welcome to the oc [ __ ] that's right which is also where we get our name for our podcast is that where it came from yeah welcome to wow you walked right into that and that was just uh again going to sc there were kids who would refer to orange county as the oc like it was like the lbc like they were trying to make it sound oh my gosh cooler that's funny you know this was a big controversy it was yeah people in orange county don't call it the but then it's interesting you could i could listen to the the um the weather on the radio and i'd hear uh broadcasters say so in the oc it's warm and sunny so it definitely caught on and yeah i know people from county were anti the show in the beginning because of that because it was the ocean we don't call it that i'm like i don't want to tell you i heard kids who are from there call it that right i'm not saying you all call it that but now it is that and then it became the name of the show um because there had been a movie orange county that had come out like a year or so prior with colin hanks who would appear yeah would appear on the oc and hopefully one day will appear on this podcast that's right um rumor has it and then um feeling like that came late that line into the script but i sort of felt like we needed to write the name of the show into the show yeah and who better to deliver right right yeah it was perfect i mean that is like i feel like that's the most famous line from the series welcome to the oc [ __ ] this is how it's done done in orange county then the boys are back in the pool house drunk except the totally the time of his life yeah having a little bit like this and a little bit of that was that that was that brody yeah i feel like that was some ad-lib i don't remember yeah i'm sure there was some element of it does kicks i thought it was funny and sweet and you just see for the first time seth um you know he's got somebody who's got his back and ryan's made such an impact and that brother bond is just like solidified mm-hmm seth's got a whole a whole new world it's based in fairy tales right it is and then we get to see what a good friend summer roberts is oh right just dropping her bestie off in the driveway that's right summer carrying her dropping off marissa just passed out wasted on her doorstep can't find the keys nope well later safe yeah she's here in the driveway don't awake the parents by the way they're shit-faced and driving which was right as a mother watching it i'm like these teeth we don't know how much holly had a drink sure yes she was the designated driver in a g wagon i feel like it resonated it's a very realistic scene definitely i remember in college girls being delivered to like the door of their sorority house like yeah not great and then ryan ryan yes so ryan sees marissa and uh talk about fairy tales right talk about fairy tales and and you you said and i remember thinking this uh oh he's going through her purse he's gonna get caught this is gonna be a problem but it wasn't about that it was about this guy rescuing this this girl yeah it could have gone that way but we actually wanted and there's and to have some degree of suspense of like the audience anticipating that this could happen and once again ryan's good intentions were gonna look like something that um that they weren't but but wanted the scene to be actually about this sort of like knight in shining armor you know and here's somebody who no questions asked is he's going to pick this girl up he's not there out of lewd with lewd intentions he's not there to steal anything he's just there to make sure that she has a soft pillow you know to sleep sleep it off on like he's just app yeah he like puts her in bed he's just noble yeah yeah it's really sweet yeah stephanie i have to say hated the sheets the color because they're black yeah they are black and stephanie was like because she pays much more attention to stuff like that than i do sure and uh it's very masculine though it's very big it is masculine but see i remember her saying they look like like the death shrouds of taran or something like she was just like she's like how did we land on like all black sheets and how did i not catch it in the moment and she was she was like thought the scene would not work because of the black sheets it's funny i did notice the black sheets when i watched it this time i didn't i didn't uh until we were in editing and they're like well well what are you gonna do so this um ryan carrying her becomes a pretty iconic as we um go on through the series this is going to repeat and you have um maisie star into dust maddie mazzy star mazzy okay you guys this is this is my um weakness music so sorry okay we're here for you we're here for you so next morning kirsten not happy and again kind of right yes that's like still drunk he's like he got black eye like it's not great not a good look right mm-hmm so she rosie and um sandy comes home from surfing and conf by the way she completely really leaned into the surfing thing the idea of this brooklyn jew with the surfboard under his arm and the wetsuit like he that was all that was a super fun part didn't you say he like went out and surfed once or something to try to get into character yeah yeah i mean i would believe it like once or twice and he said done this a few times yeah and [Laughter] coming back from the beach anyway so it'll be fine [Laughter] i've remembered this as the scene that i read in um when i first auditioned so this is probably um the kelly's or sorry the kirsten audition scene where she says um definitely he has a family he has a family mm-hmm we compromise now while we do when we're older yeah yeah we are older she i don't think um you know what i think she's disappointed kirsten she really didn't want to kick him out but this is like sorry done i can't hear this happening to seth anymore right so then she goes in to tell ryan but he's already packed and he's making bacon as a parting gesture oh yeah that's because i don't know how to make any breakfast so the act of making breakfast seems like these kids can this kid's got gifts and he can make bacon right yeah yeah it's really sweet and he's like what if he says something like he always had to do the cooking yeah again this idea that ryan had to raise himself man yeah that's sad sweet so then ryan goes to seth's um to seth this is the first time we see seth's room um to tell him that he's got to go home figure some stuff out e.t phone home i'll be right here sorry yeah i was doing the e.t elliott thing that's again part of that dynamic yeah this is the first time we see seth's room and by the um stuff on the walls you kind of realize what a cool kid seth really is with some of the memorabilia yours and stephanie's uh probably some of the posters and that room evolved you know and then obviously kept notes came into that space and that was an invention originally of jane espenson who was a writer who was only with us for a few episodes because she was on another show um and the first time that was written in the script i think it was like episode three it was hilarious and captain notes then stayed he sure did he's here today he is he's reunited yeah where is he he's back there where is captain oates and mrs er oh there he is princess sparkle with his lady princess sparkle back there so what are we up to seth and ryan saying goodbye oh right right right honey and moon by joseph arthur plays gosh that brings back a timer it does it does and i actually saw him perform at the troubadour in the opening act for him was alexi murdoch who sang orange sky and that's how that got itself into the later episode wow but that song was written into the script and when i was first starting to write the show and just listen to that song a lot and was like however this show is going to go all the story beats weren't worked out or whatever but like it's gotta feel like this it's gotta feel like this song at the end well do songs inspire you for scenes or do scenes inspire music because music's obviou i mean very both words it goes both ways i mean uh definitely like again the image and heap hide and seek song from season two you know um not to get ahead of ourselves but like with alex patsavis our music supervisor sent it on a comp of different back then we would send me cds with a whole bunch of new songs on it and heard that song was like i don't know where that's gonna go but like can you just hold it and reserve it and i'll figure it out for later in the season and so it kind of goes both ways sometimes you're in search of the perfect song and the scene is written and sometimes you hear a song and it can help um help you see the scene were you listening to anything in particular when you wrote the pilot do you remember joseph arthur honey that was the one yeah he just said yeah i did thanks for listening i'll be here yeah well you are responsible i mean talking about the music so for um a lot of somewhat unknown bands got a lot of um exposure from the show based on your tastes correct uh yeah i mean it was it was it was stuff i was listening to it was stuff that the cast was listening to like i said death cab came from brody bright eyes um it was you know stuff that stephanie and i were in like it was just all music that just felt like what was in our lives it was helpful also because we didn't have all the money in the world for music uh in our music budget in the beginning and then that evolved i think by the end of season one like the beastie boys were premiering their new song on the show right and that's cool youtube put it yeah whenever at the end of the show they premiered a song on the show and then obviously season two with the bait shop we went nuts with music i got a little too much of like a kid in a candy store but in the first season so uh for for uh audiences listening there was no you know spotify there was no itunes there was no pandora like there was the radio which had gotten like incredibly consolidated in terms of what how much music they would play like the same five songs there was mtv which was playing a very different kind of music and again more sort of a consolidated thing um and so a lot of these bands we could get for less money because they were indie bands um and even if they had some qualms about being on a fox teen soap they were happy to have you know some revenue and what we found was there was this huge audience out there who was looking for this kind of music and just didn't have a place in that moment to get it you know um and so we were able to kind of which was like right place right time write music um obviously now all that you know music is ubiquitous you can get so much music so much choice all the time um but back then you really didn't have a lot of other options so the show then became um a destination for discovering new music because that was just the only place you were going to get it and it was cool because that was all stuff that we were we were listening to and it was super fun to be able to write it in and the idea was the music was it was not orange county bands which had its own scene but music that would sort of illuminate the emotional lives of the characters right that's like as opposed to traditional teen soaps would probably just go to top 40 music for their shows but yeah yeah well we are at the end scene he's gone home sandy takes him to his home and he enters his home to find dawn's gone mom's moved out it's gone everything's come on kid sandy answers and he takes him back or he leaves and um they leave ryan takes or sorry sandy takes him and you left the pilot open-ended mm-hmm like what's going to happen yeah that's kind of again that's not what somebody traditionally do with with tv pilots network pilots they're usually by the end of the show you're supposed to know what the show is right um and i guess because ryan had had this time you kind of knew when he was going back even though he was this kind of cliffhanger and it wasn't like oh the show was just complete now um you still you knew you had a sense of of when he went back he was going to be facing kirsten's skepticism his rivalry with luke the marissa love triangle the seth ryan stuff complicated by the seth summer and if summers into ryan piece of it um just ryan as an outsider in this world the parent triangle story lines the fall of jimmy cooper would julie cooper get her froyo on time there was a lot of things that were unexpected so even though it was kind of an untraditional way to end the show and it's more of what they call a premise pilot right now um right it's still hopefully we we had told we had told the audience what to expect and we kind of designed the first three episodes as its own little mini story its own little mini arc to get ryan um to become a cohen and welcome to a life of paralyzing insecurity and self-doubt is it fair to say that being that outsiders are the prevalent theme yes that everybody feels like an outsider uh in that world even people who appear to be the ultimate insiders i don't know does summer feel like an outsider eventually yes okay and she falls for the ultimate outsider and then all of a sudden you know then she's an outsider yeah and like oh my god i can't believe i'm this guy yeah right yeah you kidding me we have some quiz questions for josh what are ryan and seth drinking while they ride on seth's boat in the pilot what are they drinking yeah right on set's boat can i have a hint no it's not alcoholic no i know it's of the juice variety really they had a drink they're on a large body of water and that large body of water is called they're drinking pacific sun [Laughter] yeah no it's close ocean spray cranberry juice by the way which blew up this year all we should have played we should recut that scene to fleetwood mack's dreams and it will be a whole lot right yeah foreign yeah yeah but it is they were drinking ocean spray cranberry juice wow we were on that early you were okay all right okay uh next question which of these groups did not have a song on an episode of the oc okay beck the killers ben folds gwen stefani nothing against benfold's just we just couldn't afford him maybe we did a whole episode of beck's song so that i felt pretty kind of you knew that one yeah the mall episode was all back songs oh when we got when we played hockey in the morning was it really yeah it was it was the whole thing was scored his new album at that time i remember finding out about jen and brad that night while we were shooting in the mall what a big night for you it was a big night for me is it time for some voicemails what was your favorite outfit that you were or like an iconic one mindy josh what was her favorite outfit can we deconstruct ryan's choker yeah what was the deal with ryan's choker i want to know who made that choice and why i wish i i don't remember it felt like the bad boy leather i feel like that's the opposite of the bat like i re-watching it now it was so distracting that he had a choker on maybe like george lucas we can go in and like read like cg and remove the joker you know watching just on the fashion note it feels like kids still i mean especially um kind of the surf cultures or southern california culture kids everyone still kind of dresses the same it feels like and everything comes back especially brody's um clothing hi i have a question how awesome is josh schwartz and how lucky are you that you got to work with him and how amazing of the person is he and is he the greatest person you've ever met or like just one of the greatest people you've ever met and will you tom i said hi and um i really like his glasses great question great question yeah i don't know it's a great question guys you want to answer the greatest or one of the greatest save that just for you thank you i can't believe i got through the line to be able to leave that message yeah i mean what that was you leaving that message if that was me i'm just a fan of the glasses no i mean we are here because of um your creation and your creativity and i genuinely genuinely thank you for the experience it was really one of my favorite times in my life so he's a pretty cool dude i appreciate you coming here and taking your time to talk about this this has really been awesome i feel like i'll be back i feel like i'll be back well you should you're gonna run out of guests at some point hey and i remember you're a two-parter you'll do another one i'm saying we'll make it a two-year-old i'm not gonna where am i welcome just yeah you know enjoy you know i i guess 18 years now and i'm still but i don't know what i'm gonna say still on the daily with the schwartz i don't know you know it's true family he's my brother yep and that's just we're stuck together so he'll he will be back he doesn't have a choice we'll put it that way yeah thank you but what what warm words he's like the gum on the bottom of my shoe like the annoying brother you can't shake anyway i'm michael i love you schwarzenegger i love you guys thank you for having me thanks for coming thank you so much follow rate and review welcome to the oc [ __ ] wherever you listen to your podcasts if you like to watch us check it out on youtube [Music]

Channel: Welcome to the OC, Bitches!

Views: 39,555

Rating: 4.9883137 out of 5

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Id: cUJDl78DgDs

Length: 96min 15sec (5775 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021