‘It Wasn’t An Overnight Decision’ – Mischa Barton On Why She Decided To Join The Hills: New Beginnings

In 2003, The OC (the teen drama based in the luxurious area of Orange County, California), made its TV debut. It centred on Ryan, a teenager from humble beginnings swept into a world of cotillions and pool houses, but it was Marissa Cooper who drew focus. Beautiful, strong-willed and troubled, her popularity made an overnight star of a then 17-year-old Mischa Barton and took the actor on a well-publicised, much scrutinised journey through the peaks and pitfalls of fame. Now, at the age of 33 and after years of calm, she’s back in California to join the cast of The Hills: New Beginnings – the returning staple of the constructed-reality genre - and show the world who she really is.

‘It wasn’t an overnight decision,’ Mischa tells Grazia. ‘It was a process to even decide to do it. And by that, I mean three months thinking about it.’ So, what clinched it? She ponders. ‘There’s always been a bit of mystery surrounding me. And people not really knowing, quote unquote, who Mischa really is. And sometimes it gets a little old, answering those questions.’ We are sitting on a roof terrace at a hotel in Knightsbridge, amid a flurry of flowers and large pink balloons. The mood of the room is decidedly perky, but for Mischa, returning to California to shoot the programme means confronting a decidedly toxic past.

‘You see some of my relocating back to Los Angeles after having taken some time off and really stepped away to the East Coast, to a much more normal life’, she explains. ‘I was in upstate New York, in a very, very relaxed and real environment.’ This quiet existence provided sanctuary when it was needed most. After the success of The OC, Mischa became friends with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and became a fixture on the Hollywood party scene. In 2009, she had what she has called ‘a full-on breakdown’ and was committed to a psychiatric ward. ‘There’s something about the business that you love and hate,’ she explains. ‘Los Angeles is so intense, and you have to be in the right frame of mind to get into the audition game. And I suppose that’s sort of what you see me beginning to do: which is to try to get back into that.’

Did Mischa’s role in The OCmake this transition easier? ‘It’s all very meta, isn’t it?’ she laughs. ‘Strangely, lines got blurred over the years anyway, with people not even really remembering which was which. I used to get really insulted. I’d be like, “I died!". The death of Marissa, at the end of the third series, was seen by many as the prompt behind The OC’s falling ratings. The show was cancelled after one more season. She stays in touch with some of the cast. ‘Everybody’s sort of gone off in their own directions,’ she says. ‘But if we see each other, it’s lovely. Adam [Brody, who played Seth] has a baby now, and Ben [Mackenzie, who played Ryan] is on his show Gotham. And I stay in touch with Peter Gallagher [Seth’s father, Sandy]. He’s been such a huge part of my life.’ She does not mention Rachel Bilson, who played the role of her best friend, Summer.

Finally, after years of hitting headlines, Mischa seems relaxed and comfortable in her own skin and hopeful about what’s coming next. After all, as the show’s earworm of a theme tune extols, the rest is still unwritten...

‘The Hills: New Beginnings’ premieres Tuesday 25 June at 8pm on MTV UK

Read more below for everything we know about The Hills: New Beginnings so far...