One Tree Hill alum Bethany Joy Lenz received a short and not-so-sweet synopsis about the teen drama prior to landing her role.
Per Entertainment Weekly, Lenz reflects on a discussion with her manager ahead of her last chemistry read for the part of Haley James Scott in her memoir Dinner for Vampires, during which her manager was asked to share some intel from one of the show’s execs.
“I have a direct quote that I’ve been asked to relay to you, to make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into before you sign this contract,” Lenz remembers being told. As for what came next?
“You tell her this show is about fucking and sucking and if she’s gonna have a problem with that, she shouldn’t come in tomorrow,” she pens.
Lenz, who also details in her new book her religious upbringing as an evangelical Christian and turning down a role on the sitcom What I Like About You, still took the role, writing that the series “felt different from most bubble-gum TV with subliminal agendas” and that “grit didn’t scare [her], and the One Tree Hill pilot had grit.”
“I didn’t feel too at risk of being objectified,” Lenz — who describes her role as “the awkward girl next door” and the “most wholesome” among the show’s cast of characters — explains in her memoir. She noted that she “believed in this show and its ability to send meaningful, uplifting messages to the audience.”
“Just tell him I understand what he’s saying,” she recalls telling her manager. “I’m not gonna try and stop them from writing about real teenagers. I believe in this show and I want to be a part of it.”
However, the warning she received would remain with her whenever she “stood [her] ground as a matter of religious modesty,” as she writes that her “manager would get a call” whenever she did so.
“‘She’s being difficult again. We told you what this show was about,'” she recalls. “And, in fairness, they did. The ‘fucking and sucking’ executive has been very clear about that. I guess I just looked at my character and figured that would be other people’s storylines.”
Lenz publicly identified the cult she was part of when announcing that her book was on presale back in March. She also previously opened up about how her cast mates “were all trying to save” her in an August 2023 interview with Variety.
Lenz’s One Tree Hill co-stars Hilarie Burton Morgan and Sophia Bush are working on a series reboot, one which Burton Morgan teased to People last month as being produced “through a female lens.”
Dinner for Vampires is out now. One Tree Hill is streaming on Max and Hulu.