It’s the One Tree Hill reunion we’ve all been waiting for!
Sophia Bush, Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz starred together on the hit series One Tree Hill for several years during its eight-season run back in 2006-2012. Since then, fans have been missing seeing them act together and wishing they would reunite on screen.
Now, that wish has come true! The ladies reunited on-screen when Hilarie and Joy guest-starred together on Sophia’s show Good Sam. The medical drama’s March 23 episode saw the three former OTH co-stars share scenes together again — and their chemistry is still totally off the charts!
The ladies opened up to ET about their much-awaited reunion, saying it was a very easy “yes” when Sophia called up Hilarie and Joy about making a guest appearance. Sophia shared:
“It’s funny because when we were doing press around the [show’s] premiere in January, we’re talking about the show and someone I was chatting with said, ‘And Drama Queens. You’ve got your new show on TV and you and your best friends are doing this rewatch of your old show. Would you guys ever want to cross over?’ I was like, ‘All the time. Immediately. All I want is for my friends [to cross over] all the time.’
And [producers] Katie Wech, Joanna Klein, Jennie Snyder Urman — these are the women who run my show. Katie called me and said, ‘I saw your interview today and next week you’ll have the script for [episode] eight, but there are these two sisters in it. Should we call Joy and Hilarie?’ I was like, ‘Yes! Of course!’ And then I was like, ‘Wait… What are the roles? What do they do? I don’t have any information!’”
Hilarie and Joy chimed in to say the roles didn’t matter – it was just such a joy to act with each other again. Sophia said:
“It’s so much fun. We’ve all talked so much about the kinds of roles we want to play and we get asked by One Tree Hill fans and at conventions, ‘What do you think each of your characters is doing now?’ We’ve joked among the three of us and on the podcast that we especially would love to see Haley breaking the rules more often.
So when I got the script for [episode] eight from Katie Wech, I was like, oh man, one of these sisters is real messy. Joy, do you want to play her?
And Hilarie… can tell you she really signed up to lean into the more conservative, square sister. She took it to the most delicious places. Watching Peyton Sawyer be all grown up in a sweater vest is a moment I will cherish for always.”
Hilarie spoke about how fun it was to play a character who was on the straight and narrow for a change:
“It was fun to flip-flop roles. I always get cast as the jerk and Joy always is the sweet one. So this was a fun opportunity for me to get real square and for Joy. We had so much fun in the hair and makeup trailer. Me drawing tattoos on Joy… That was a fun day.”
The threesome went on to open up about how it was being back on set together again, with Hilarie saying:
“We were real hyper. I felt bad for all of Sophia’s castmates because we are just, we’re like a tornado when we’re all together. We were so happy to be together.
We’d done a live event for Drama Queens back in October but it’s rare that the three of us can be in the same place at the same time. Thankfully her cast was so gracious. And they had us come watch the episode with them and they were so nice to us on set.”
Joy added that it felt natural to be acting together again:
“It felt like second nature though. I mean, getting back in the hair and makeup trailer with you three. Yeah. We were hyper. We had a lot of fun but it was just, we fell right back into the old routine.”
Sophia sweetly revealed how everyone was just so happy to have Hilary and Joy on the Good Sam set:
“Everyone was so excited for you guys to be here. Also, so many people on the crew came up to me and were like, ‘OK. So we’re going to really play it cool because we really want to be respectful. And we know that these are your friends and also this is your place of work. But like, we’re super big fans and when they wrap can we maybe ask for pictures? Like how does this work?’ It was very, very sweet and people were so touched.
My cast here has built such a great camaraderie and set family. They were like, ‘This is so crazy to see your best, oldest friends from work come in here when we all feel that way and it’s a preview of our future if we’re lucky.’ And it was, I mean, they could tell you, I cried the whole time. I was just like, ‘This is really great, you guys.’”
And the three of them also revealed that they are constantly “tossing around ideas” on their group chat for future projects to work on together — and that one idea that Joy had from back in their OTH days may finally be coming to fruition. Hilary said:
“Just recently we revisited it and we were like, ‘Yes. It’s time.’”
Joy confirmed it may potentially be a TV show that may bring on the waterworks, with Sophia jokingly saying:
“If it’s not deeply emo, would it be from your girls?”
