Almost 20 years later, the previous stars of The O.C. discover the surprising third-season second that Marissa Cooper dies, in a fiery automotive crash soundtracked by Imogen Heap’s haunting cowl of “Hallelujah,” troublesome to observe.
Still, Mischa Barton, the actress who performed Marissa, agreed to observe the scene with former co-stars Rachel Bilson and Melinda Clarke, throughout an look on Tuesday’s episode of Bilson and Clarke’s podcast, Welcome to the OC, Bitches!, a preview of which debuted Monday on People. It was Barton’s first time on the present, which looks back on the juicy teen drama that aired on Fox for 4 seasons, from 2003 to 2007.
“I don’t particularly want to, but I will,” Barton says of rewatching her character’s death.
Bilson reassures her that she will not be alone, “I feel you. I’m with you. I don’t want to. It is so hard to watch.”
When they do watch, Barton says, “Poor Marissa. She really, really goes through it.”
Bilson even begins to cry.
“Oh no, I’m getting really sad too,” Barton says. “You can’t cry, Rachel!”
Barton’s departure from the present that catapulted her into the mainstream was enormous information in 2006, and she or he later defined that there had been conversations about her departure for the reason that center of the second season.
“It’s a bit complicated,” Barton advised E! News of her departure in May 2021. “It started pretty early on because it had a lot to do with them adding Rachel [Bilson] in last minute as, after the first season, a series regular and evening out everybody’s pay — and sort of general bullying from some of the men on set that kind of felt really s*****. But, you know, I also loved the show and had to build up my own walls and ways of getting around dealing with that and the fame that was thrust specifically at me. Just dealing with like the amount of invasion I was having in my personal life, I just felt very unprotected, I guess is the best way to put it.”
According to E!, neither Fox nor Warner Bros. TV would remark on the time. But Bilson later described Barton’s statements as “perplexing” and, within the case of her hiring, “not what happened.”
Barton additionally stated producers had given her the selection of an exit that might give her the choice of returning to the present or ending Marissa’s story altogether.
Barton selected the latter; amongst different issues, she wished to just accept the film components she was being supplied. And she stated then that she did not remorse the tip of Marissa.
I “really love that she had this epic death and that it ended like that because it’s memorable and it’s not just another flash in the pan,” Barton stated in 2021. “People still come up to me to this day and they’re like, ‘I remember where I was when your character died!’ And they’re still emotional about it, like it was really me. I think that that’s cool that people actually took something away from it. There were lessons to be learned from Marissa, for better or for worse.”
The O.C. was canceled in January 2007, following a decline in rankings that started back within the second season.
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