Peter Gallagher Is Grateful O.C. Co-Star Mischa Barton Is ‘Still Alive’

Peter Gallagher reveals which of his former co-stars on The O.C. he’s “very protecting” of.

The actor, who performed Sandy Cohen within the hit teen drama, lately opened as much as The Unbiased in regards to the destructive affect of fame and the way he at all times discovered himself searching for Mischa Barton, who performed Marissa Cooper on the present centered on rich teenagers residing in Newport Seaside, California.

“I’ve at all times felt very protecting of her,” Gallagher mentioned. “First fame is poisonous. First fame can kill you. She was 16 years outdated when she began working with us, so simply the truth that she’s nonetheless alive, I’m simply so grateful.”

Gallagher and Barton labored alongside one another all through the primary three seasons of the present, which ran from 2003 to 2007. Marissa was the love curiosity of Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), who was taken in by the Cohen household, together with Peter, Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) and Kirsten Cohen (Kelly Rowan). (Spoiler alert!) Nevertheless, Barton’s character didn’t return for season 4, as Marissa was killed in a automotive crash within the season three finale.

Following Barton’s fast rise to fame, the actress confronted a number of challenges, together with a DUI arrest in 2007. She was later hospitalized in 2009 as a consequence of profession and stress-related causes.

Gallagher could really feel protecting of Barton as a result of his personal rise to fame was far more gradual and with much less scrutiny. The actor bought his begin on Broadway, taking part in Danny Zuko in Grease in 1978.

“It was a good time to be younger and doing Grease as a result of the critics didn’t come,” he informed the outlet. “I did 500 performances of that present. It wasn’t going to make you well-known. It wasn’t going to wreck you. No one was reviewing it, nevertheless it was an ideal coaching floor.”

Final 12 months, Barton opened as much as The Sunday Instances in regards to the “trauma” she endured working within the trade when she was a youngster.

“You possibly can go to remedy daily for the remainder of your life,” she mentioned on the time. “However there’s simply a specific amount of trauma [from] all that I went by, notably in my early 20s, that simply doesn’t go away in a single day.”