Rachel BIlson, 2006 At 3:25 Clarifies To Kimmel That Mischa Was Fired.

Welcome to the O.C Snippets

A random assortment of Mischa-related screencaptures from the new Welcome to The O.C book. Highlights include:

• The casting process for Mischa. • The driveway scene in the pilot. • What are Marissa's interests outside of Ryan? Discussions on a storyline relating to her being a Mean Girl, and/or helping the girl Luke cheats on her with and gets pregnant. • TJ was originally supposed to have her drunk driving off a cliff and involved a cliffhanger with her to allow for Fox to re-cast Mischa if they wanted. • Filming the Luke / Marissa sex scene. Mindy acknowledging the Ben/Mischa chemistry at the start and how by the end they were not on good terms. • References to Mischa reading on set (gasp!). • References to her being isolated on set (I wonder does anyone ask her about this). • Mischa's concerns around the material and expressing her frustrations. • Mischa refusing to speak about the Trey attempted rape scene and implying it was very uncomfortable for her (and directly contradicting Stephanie in the paragraph above). • The original S1 ending involving Eddie, domestic violence and Ryan getting revenge and getting into trouble. • Potential idea of Marissa being imprisoned at the start of S3. • Josh suggesting Marissa could have survived the crash and sailed away on Seth's boat.

Stills from Season 1 Episode 15 - The Third Wheel.

There's a new book out by an entertainment journalist about various early 00 shows. And I have screencaptured the Mischa tidbits (and one Ben tidbit that amused me, lol how did Mischa get all of the blame with being the 'difficult' one in the discourse at the time? jfc).

Some observations:

The ferris wheel kiss was UNSCRIPTED. And they enjoyed it!

Can we please stop with the 'Olivia looks strong, Mischa looks weak' discourse. Please, I am begging you.

Great to get more info about the screen test. Thank you Patrick Rush for containing yourself and not commenting on Mischa as an actress like you so rudely did on the podcast.

Mischa's Eric Cartman request might be the cutest thing I have ever heard. God, she was so young.

The reference to RM being in love by the TJ episode.

Wish they had mentioned how much of a role Mischa played in developing Marissa, "she didn't ad-lib" doesn't do her justice.

Random assortment of stills from Season 1 (Part 1).

The OC Strikes Back (IGN, 2004)

Looking through some old media and will post some of the things I find. This old IGN article from 2004 promoting the second season stood out and in particular this quote (images of the article at the end of the post): "The show's creator says he isn't worried about this season's evolution turning fans off, because the relational fabric of the series remains intact.  "I think the sort of core relationships that we have on the show, the Ryan/Marissa dynamic, the Seth/Summer dynamic, are the core, iconic relationships of this show," Schwartz said.  "They're like the magnetic, polarizing force of the show in that you can throw as many new characters and hurdles and obstacles in front of those characters as you want, but you can never break free of those original dynamics. That's the foundation of the show. Even when you see scenes where Ryan and Marissa aren't together, if they're off with other people, and then you see them share a scene together, you just feel like 'God, they should be together.' They have such unbelievable chemistry; there's something pulling them together. So to quote George Bush, we 'can run, but we can't hide,' and that's where our show lives and breathes in those core relationships."

Stills from Season 1 Episode 16 - The Links.

Random assortment of Season 1 stills (Part 2).

Remember that in a vault somewhere there is a recording of the full OC cast singing this song. Someone release it already!

Insightful article about the making of the show with JJ Philbin. She talks about Marissa's pivot in S3 with the Volchok storyline, as well as the changes to the Marissa/Berkeley episode (which we know from the original sides that are thankfully still out there)

Ben McKenzie's interview in Elle (Volume 20, issues 1-2, 2004) was not a good look then and is definitely not a good look now. Really interesting to think how little controversy this generated compared to another cast member's Elle interview the same year. ELLE: Comprehensive list. Anything you might actually respond to favorably? BEN: A political point of view is really sexy, especially in L.A. Women here are exotic and beautiful, but it's like you're in a zoo. You look around thinking, Wow, look at all those pretty animals, and then when one opens its mouth and speaks, you're like, Holy [Censored], the monkey's talking to me!

ELLE: Would it bother you to find out that a woman you were dating had had significantly more sexual partners than you had? BEN: I think it has to affect you.

ELLE: So what's an acceptable number? BEN: In the teens is understandable. But get into the twenties and that's not good at all. Over 50 would be like, Who are you?