Hilarie Burton is looking back at a very uncomfortable day on set of One Tree Hill with the show’s creator Mark Schwahn.
During the latest episode of her re-watch podcast Drama Queens with co-hosts Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz, the 41-year-old actress recalled how Mark, 57, wrote himself into a scene when she she wasn’t on speaking terms with him.
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“I wasn’t speaking to him in real life, and so he wrote himself into the episode of me hugging him,” Hilarie recalled while she and her co-hosts talked about the season five episode titled “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace.”
“That is so psychotic,” Sophia, 41, responded. “Can you guys imagine Shonda Rhimes or Aaron Sorkin casting themselves on their own show?”
Hilarie – who refers to Mark as “Voldemort” on the podcast – decided to have her dad and brother on set so she could have extra support.
“It was so creepy. I got the script and I was like, ‘All right, it’s one day of work. It’s just one day of work,’” Hilarie recalled. “And you know my boyfriend’s dad [Gregory Prange] was directing, and my brother’s on set. There’s all these dudes on set and it just wasn’t quite enough, so I invited my dad to work this day and my dad came and sat behind the monitor the whole day.”
In between takes, Hilarie stayed close to her dad so that Mark couldn’t talk or touch her.
“You can’t touch me, you can’t pull me into a sidebar conversation, you can’t do any of that if I’m just making jokes with my dad,” Hilarie noted.
When the crew took a lunch break, Hilarie‘s dad sent a not-so-subtle message to Mark to stay away from her.
“Voldemort goes off to the production office where his office has like a view of the parking lot,” Hiarie recalled. “And my dad and [sound mixer Michael Rayle, a former animal trainer and fellow whip enthusiast] proceed to go out to parking and pull out bullwhips and start doing all these tricks and cracking them real loud. It was just like a message, like: Don’t.”
“What an awkward day at work,” Hilarie added as she and her co-hosts laughed.
During another recent podcast episode, Hilarie recalled how Chad Michael Murray confronted Mark after an alleged assault.