The O.C. alum Ben McKenzie isn’t necessarily shutting the door on his time as Ryan Atwood for good.
Speaking to Australia’s KIIS 1065 on Friday, September 4, McKenzie, 47, admitted he would be open to a reboot of the series.
“I don’t know that there has ever been serious talks, but I’d be up for it,” he said. “Yeah, I think so, under the right circumstances. It was a great show. We had a great time. I learned a lot. I was so young, we were all young.”
McKenzie shot to fame on the teen series, which premiered in 2003 and ran for four seasons until 2007. He starred alongside Mischa Barton, Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson.
Meanwhile Barton, who portrayed McKenzie’s love interest Marissa Cooper, teased that there could one day be a return on the horizon during an interview with RTL last month. (Marissa was killed off at the end of season three.)
“There might be a reunion coming up; we’ll see,” she cryptically told the outlet. After being pressed for more details, she said again, “We’ll see.”
Bilson has also expressed potential interest in reviving her character Summer Roberts.
“I would always be up for it. But it’s also this thing that people still watch and are still discovering,” the actress, 45, told Variety in June 2024. “So do you just leave that special moment as it is?”
Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody, Mischa Barton and Ben McKenzie. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown)
She added, “You weigh both sides because obviously it would be fun and I love everybody and it would be awesome to go back and we need to somehow bring Marissa back to life and do the whole thing if we do it. But also leaving it for what it was and how special it kind of was, is also a positive.”
Brody, who played Seth Cohen, has been less enthusiastic about bringing back the beloved characters — suggesting it may not work as well decades after the show’s peak popularity.
“I kind of don’t think it can be done because I feel like, socially, I think we’re in a different place. And I think we’re in a more conscious place,” Brody, 46, explained on the “Welcome to The O.C., Bitches!” podcast in October 2021.
He continued, “I feel like The O.C., while it claims to be in a similar sense of Gossip Girl, while it would sort of say it’s a critique [of affluence], it’s not. It’s a celebration. It’s a celebration of affluence, in my opinion.”
Brody argued that the world is such a different place than it was in the 2000s that it would likely be hard for audiences to stomach some elements as easily as they once did.
“But I guess my point is like, for me, in a post-Donald Trump America, to go, ‘Let’s go to Orange County,’ I feel like you have to have a real reckoning politically and socially,” he continued. “And is that what people want to see with this show? I don’t know. And is there a way to do both? I mean, there is I suppose, but in my eyes, I’d probably want to torch it more than, like, the fans would want. So, I don’t know who would be happy.”
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