CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME

The O.C.’s Creators Are

Going Right Back Where
They Started From
Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, creator and
executive producer of The O.C., exclusively discuss
their new book, Welcome to the O.C., why they
regret killing Marissa, and the problematic side of
Seth Cohen.

BY I L ANA K AP L AN

AU G U S T 1 4, 2023

FROM MAARTEN DE BOER/GETT Y IMAGES.

S AV E

B
ack in 2003, no one knew that the messy,
glamorous lives of Newport Beach teens
Marissa, Ryan, Seth, and Summer would
change TV forever. But 20 years on, The O.C. and
its Juicy tracksuits, scandalous hookups, and
unparalleled indie-rock soundtrack remain the
pinnacle of teen drama.

Spearheaded by Josh Schwartz and executive

produced by his creative partner Stephanie
Savage, the series told the story of Newport
Beach’s elite through an outsider’s eyes as
brooding, troubled teen Ryan Atwood (Ben
McKenzie) is thrust into a world of privilege and
water polo when his lawyer, Sandy (Peter
Gallagher)—and his family, the Cohens—take him
in.

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The series, which at the time made Schwartz the

youngest showrunner in history, was a runaway hit
that defined the early-aughts zeitgeist, evangelizing
viewers into Death Cab for Cutie fans,
immortalizing lines like “Welcome to the O.C.,
bitch,” and turning its four leads—McKenzie,
Adam Brody, Rachel Bilson, and Mischa
Barton—into heartthrobs. After a 27-episode first
season that was so buzzy it inspired the popular
reality series Laguna Beach, The O.C. spent three
more trying to recapture lightning in a bottle. But
even if the show never again reached the same
heights, it’s had an insurmountable cultural impact
—so much so that we’re still swooning for Seth
Cohen and considering Chrismukkah a real-life
holiday.

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To coincide with the show’s 20th anniversary,

Schwartz, Savage, and writer Alan Sepinwall are
releasing a new book about the series: Welcome to
the O.C.: The Oral History, out November 28. In
their extensive first interview about the book,
Schwartz and Savage reflect on the 20th
anniversary of The O.C., the actors almost cast in its
most iconic roles, and the spin-off ideas they
explored and, eventually, discarded. (Because of the
book, Schwartz and Savage were permitted to speak
with Vanity Fair despite the ongoing writers
strike.)

Vanity Fair: How long have you guys been

working on this oral history with Alan
Sepinwall?

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Josh Schwartz: We’ve been working on it over a

year. Luckily, Alan did an amazing job of pulling it
all together quickly. It wasn’t inspired by the
podcast. [Bilson and her costar Melinda Clarke
host an O.C. rewatch podcast called Welcome to
the OC, Bitches!] Obviously, there’ve been other
oral history books that were probably more directly
inspirational for this, but I think we were heartened
by the participation in the podcast and felt like [it]
had been very therapeutic for a lot of people.
Having the opportunity to reconnect and talk about
this experience [of being on The O.C.] set us up for
success when reaching out about the book.

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What do you think will surprise people the

most about the book?

Schwartz: My takeaway when the show ended was

that we had failed. I think that’s the fog of war—
that’s life inside the making of something when you
don’t necessarily have the perspective. Obviously,
when the show is ending, you don’t have the ability
to see 16 years into the future from that moment
that people are still going to want to be talking
about [it], discovering the show, or how much [it]
impacted them. I think we all learned a lot. We
were young and inexperienced ourselves, and that
was part of what I think made the show creatively
exciting, but it also was probably a reason why we
burned bright, but fast.

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Stephanie Savage: We came of age making a

coming-of-age show.

In the book, you’re quite vulnerable about

the missteps you made during The O.C.—
your regrets about not discussing the idea of
Marissa leaving with Mischa, how becoming
friends with the cast complicated your
experience being the boss.

Savage: I think the 20 years since it happened has

given everybody a little bit of grace and mercy to be
able to feel vulnerable, be honest and not pretend
that everything was perfect—and that was exactly
how we wanted it to be. If I did not know anything
about television and I was reading the book, I
would’ve assumed that it was much more
professionally run with more mechanisms in place
to guide the process, and it was not quite as chaotic
as it was. But as Josh said, that life is in the show.
You feel that sense of going from episode to episode
as they’re being made and going on TV.

Schwartz: It’s easier to be vulnerable when you feel

like, “Oh, people like the show.” We made it to the
20-year mark, and it feels like—and we mentioned
this in the book—that more people want to talk, at
least anecdotally to us, about the show now. Even
then, the number of people who said, “I moved to
California because of the show” or “My memories of
high school or gathering with my friends or getting
in the dorm and watching it together,” or “This gave
me my taste in music…” you realize that for the
people who love the show, they love it deeply.

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The first few episodes of the series set up

Summer’s interest in Ryan, but that was
never really revisited. Was there ever a plan
for Ryan and Summer to date?

Schwartz: No, there was never a plan for it. I mean,

everything is kicked around the writers room at
some point, but so much of the core of [it] was the
Ryan and Seth friendship and brotherhood. Any
version where Ryan’s dating Summer or Seth is
dating Marissa just felt like a path that we couldn’t
take, because it would violate that brotherhood.
And now we look back on it, we’re like, “Oh,
actually it would’ve been really fun for Summer and
Ryan to have dated,” or some other recombination
of the core characters that we just didn’t do.

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For many millennial women, Seth became

an aspirational love interest in real life. But
as this generation has gotten older, some
have reconsidered the quirks that made
Seth appealing. How do you feel Seth
defined what many women were looking for
in their partners?

Schwartz: Well, look: When people think about

that version of the character, they’re thinking more
[about] the first couple seasons where he was a
little bit more of the underdog. Look, anything
that’s made 20 years ago is going to be viewed
through a different lens today, so things that might
be more problematic about Seth didn’t present
themselves that way then. Although, there were
plenty of people at the time who felt like, “Alright,
now he’s getting all the women?” And Adam
[Brody] has just a natural charisma and he’s much
more confident, I would say, than Seth was, so
sometimes it’s the kind of natural bleeding in of the
actual person playing the character.

I just think there was a shift where that character

went from being the underdog to getting all of his
wish fulfillment, which was the fantasy of the show
too, to a degree. We’ve heard a lot from guys who
felt like it gave them permission to feel good about
themselves, and a lot of women who were like, “I
went to college to find Seth Cohen.” And I think
really what that means is when you’re in high
school—and this is how we always thought about
Seth too, especially in the beginning—if you are
nonconformist, you’re not an athlete, you’re going
to feel like an outsider. But all of those qualities are
going to serve you very well when you get to college
and beyond. I think it gave people permission to
feel confident about their outsiderness, which is
really nice.

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Is there a particular song you wish you had

gotten for the show that you still think
about?

Savage: Arcade Fire is the big one. Everything else

I feel like we either got what we wanted, or what we
ended up getting, we liked better than what we
originally wanted to use.

Ryan and Marissa’s New Year’s Eve kiss in

season one is one of the most romantic TV
moments. Which directors, films or TV
shows influenced the scene?

Schwartz: Personally, the two most inspirational

filmmakers for me then—and probably now—were
Cameron Crowe and John Hughes. So, I think
that is definitely what we’re going for in that
moment and in a lot of those moments.

Savage: For season one of the show, Rebel Without

a Cause was a big reference with “The Model
Home” [episode], and even a little originally before
Summer became such an integral part of the show.
The Ryan, Marissa, Seth combo very much
reminded me of that trio [from the film].

Ryan and Marissa’s kiss also reminded me

of the end of When Harry Met Sally.

Schwartz: Obviously When Harry Met Sally is

literally New Year’s, so we probably owe them a bit
of gratitude and inspiration—but we had all kinds
of weird inspiration. I remember talking about the
Thanksgiving episode and Seth keeping Summer in
one room and Anna in the other, and pitching it
like a Mrs. Doubtfire–level farce. But yes, When
Harry Met Sally…it’s like saying, I owe breathing
to oxygen. It’s like, how do you even separate it
from your own consciousness? It’s just there.

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I was surprised when I was reading the book

to hear that originally, Seth was an even
more annoying version of himself. You
pictured Jay Baruchel for the role. Who else
did you have in mind for playing Seth?

Schwartz: I think on our original poster board that

we pitched with, it may have been Jason
Schwartzman, who was coming off of Rushmore
at that time. Gail Berman [the then
entertainment president at Fox] was rightfully
challenging us on this. Obviously the model was
90210, in terms of if you’re Fox and you’re putting
on another teen drama and that had two potential
male leads. So we get that one guy’s the brooding
outsider and one guy’s the nerdier sidekick, but
how do we make that character a viable romantic
lead? [She] challenged us correctly about that and
shifted the character a bit. When Brody walked in
the room, it solved a lot of problems for us. He was
able to take some of that material and own it in a
way where it didn’t feel as nerdy. It felt more
sarcastic. He was bringing a Vince Vaughn–
Swingers vibe to the character.

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As a very secular Jew, it was really cool to

see such a relatable, visibly Jewish
character like Seth. Did you feel like it was a
bit groundbreaking at the time to have this
type of Jewish character on TV?

Schwartz: When we were doing the Passover

episode in season one and Summer is reading the
Four Questions, and Ryan and Sandy are wearing
yarmulkes and celebrating Passover, I did have a
moment of like, “Oh, this is pretty cool.” Because
when you’re growing up and you’re a Jewish kid,
sometimes you don’t feel like all of the coolest role
models. As you get older, there’s a lot of people you
can point to [where] you start to feel really good
about it. So the idea that we had two of the biggest
heartthrobs on television at that time wearing
yarmulkes and eating matzah, was pretty cool. I
think [it] hopefully gave some people an
opportunity to feel good about their identity. I
know we got a very nice write-up in the Jewish
Journal, which my mother told me about. I hope
we made Judaism feel more accessible if you were
living in a part of the world where you didn’t know
a lot of Jews and you were able to watch this on TV.

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Savage: A Seth Cohen character would not have

been in a nighttime soap. The Cohen family’s
Judaism would not have been in a nighttime soap.
There wouldn’t be bagels and “yogalates” in a
nighttime soap. So bringing that level of humor and
cultural and familial specificity felt, to me, very
unique.

Olivia Wilde originally auditioned for

Marissa, and then you guys liked her so
much you brought her back for Alex. Was
there any point in time where you guys
wanted to turn her into a permanent cast
member?

Schwartz: Yeah, I mean, we obviously loved her

from the first moment we saw her read. And when
we came up with this Alex character, she was the
first person we reached out to and the only person
we saw for the part. I think we talked about this in
the book—we didn’t always keep the people around
as long as we should have. Whether that was Luke
or Anna, there were a handful of characters that if
we had a mulligan, we would’ve kept around longer.
They were really terrific actors and fun characters,
and the audience really embraced them.

The bisexuality storyline between Alex and

Marissa was quite groundbreaking at the
time, but faced some criticism. Do you think
it could have been treated differently in
retrospect?