Trivia / One Tree Hill

• Acting in the Dark: Colin Fickes, the actor who played Jimmy Edwards, revealed in an interview that he had no idea Dan was going to kill Keith after Jimmy's suicide until the day the scene was filmed and was genuinely thrown off by the twist.
• Actor Allusion
  • In episode 7x08, the guys discuss their favorite sports movies.
    • Skills, played by Antwon Tanner, mentions Coach Carter as his—Antwon Tanner was one of the stars, and Mark Schwahn, the show's creator, was a co-writer.
    • Nathan, played by James Lafferty, mentions Hoosiers, and one of Lafferty's early roles was in a movie based on the Hoosiers.
  • Daunte picking up a basketball & acting as if he’s going to shoot a three, and his implied history as a Tree Hill Raven - Rick Fox played in the NBA before moving into acting.
  • On Dawson's Creek, Dawson (James Van Der Beek) dreamed of being a movie director. So when Van Der Beek appears in Season 6, he's a director...a high-strung, womanizing, cocaine-addicted director who wants to subject Lucas's movie to all kinds of Executive Meddling - namely to have Lucas end up with his best friend Haley whilst Peyton dies, mimicking Dawson's two big relationships.
  • One of Peyton Sawyer's defining characteristics is her love for music - Hilarie Burton was working for MTV as a VJ prior to being cast as Peyton, and continued in the role alongside her shooting schedule for One Tree Hill for a time.
  • During Lucas & Peyton's wedding reception in episode 6x23, Julian rants about Brooke bringing Nick Lachey as her date, asking how he can compete with "the guy from Dancing with the Stars" & when Missy points out that he's thinking of Nick's brother, Julian then snaps "Laguna Beach then!" which Chase retorts was "Some other tool." The tool in question was Stephen Colletti, who plays Chase.
  • The Reveal in the final season that Miss Lauren and David (Quinn’s ex-husband) were in a relationship and expecting their first child was largely a nod to Allison Munn and Scott Holroyd’s real-life marriage.
• Actor-Shared Background: Much like Dan abandoned Lucas before he was born, Chad Michael Murray's mother walked out on her family when he was young. This is part of the reason Chad requested the role of Lucas over Nathan.
• Artist Disillusionment: Sophia Bush has made it vehemently clear that she doesn’t agree with fans claiming that Peyton was a bad friend to Brooke because of the love triangle with Lucas, with Bush stating that those fans “don’t understand what Peyton Sawyer did for Brooke Davis.”
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: When Lucas realizes that Peyton is the one for him in “Some Give You Away” following the State Championship game, he says "When all my dreams come true the one I want next to me, it’s you. It’s you, Peyton" and never says “It’s always been you.” Despite this, both fans and cast alike (Including the two actors in the scene) have come to remember the latter as being part of Lucas’ confession.
• Billing Displacement: Sophia Bush was initially billed sixth in the cast; whilst this made sense for the first season, with Brooke being the least developed of the teen main cast, the second season made a point of giving Brooke more screen time and fleshing the character out to the same level as the other four teens were. Brooke remained a significant character for the remainder of the series, but Bush received a more appropriate billing starting season 5, being rightfully placed fifth in the opening credits right after the other four main actors and then had another upgrade following the departures of Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton, who were billed first and third until their exit in the season 6 finale, resulting in James Lafferty passing from second to first, Bethany Joy Lenz from fourth to second and Bush herself from fifth to third.
• Blooper: Despite dying on the same day, Jimmy and Keith have different dates on their tombstones; Keith's marker lists the date of death as the 23rd of an unspecified month in 2006, whilst Jimmy's lists the death as taking place on 1st March 2006 - the airdate of the episode in which the deaths took place.
• California Doubling: Averted, Tree Hill is explicitly stated to be in North Carolina and the show was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. Additionally, episodes were both set and filmed on location in Texas, Utah, and Puerto Rico.
• Cast the Expert: James Lafferty & Paul Johansson were cast as Nathan & Dan in part because of their skills as basketball players.
• Channel Hop: By virtue of the WB & UPN merging into The CW.
• Colbert Bump: "I Don't Want To Be" being used as the show's theme gave sales of Gavin DeGraw's debut album a significant boost.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
  • The Wiki for the series features a lot of misinformation about the series, to the point of actively making up names for characters.
  • As the Drama Queens podcast covered Season 5, Sophia Bush made reference to a cut storyline from "Hundred" in which Brooke asked Lucas to be a sperm donor; however, Bush talked about the storyline as if it was still a factor in the finished episode, and continued to bring the deleted storyline up as they discussed the remaining episodes of the season as if it were still a factor in the progression of the season, despite being cut from the show entirely in favor of Brooke becoming a foster parent.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Mark Schwahn (Series creator & showrunner) stated that the ending to episode 2x10, in which Lucas gives a speech about someone he cares about drifting away & then turns up at Brooke’s house, didn’t make any sense. He added that his actual intention was for Lucas’ speech to be referring to Peyton.
  • Chad Michael Murray has stated his displeasure over the infamous scene in which a stoned dog eats Dan’s donor heart, even admitting that he tried to get out of being in the scene.
  • Danneel Ackles has talked about her final appearances on the show, mentioning it was unfair that Rachel was left penniless & humiliated by Dan as he unceremoniously dumped her while literally every other character was successful.
• The Danza: Among the bit players, it's happened a couple times.
  • Antwon “Skills” Taylor is played by Antwon Tanner.
  • Bevin Mirskey is played by Bevin Prince.
  • Grubbs the bartender is played by Mike Grubbs of Wakey Wakey.
• Dawson Casting:
  • All of the kids actors were subject to this, with James Lafferty being the youngest at 18 when production began on the series whilst Chad Michael Murray, Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy Lenz, Sophia Bush & Lee Norris were all in their early twenties, Brett Claywell (Tim Smith) & Bryan Greenberg (Jake Jagielski) were in their mid-twenties, and Antwon Tanner (Skills) was 28, a full 10 years older than Lafferty & only 7 years younger than Moira Kelly, who was playing Lucas’ mother. As the show took four seasons to narrate two years worth of story, the gap only widened & became more apparent. Part of the reason for the four-year jump was so the actors could play characters closer to their ages. While it showed with most of them sans Lafferty who was extremely close to his character's age to begin with, Lee Norris looked very convincing as Mouth, to the point that after the time skip he actually looked less believable as a character his own age than the others.
  • Danneel Ackles was 26 when first cast as Rachel Gatina in the third season, almost a full decade older than the character.
  • Stephen Colletti was 20 when he was first cast as Chase Adams during the fourth season.
  • Robbie Jones was 30 when he was cast as Quentin “Q” Fields in the fifth season - making him 12 years older than his character, and older than most of the regular cast who were supposed to be 4 years older than Q. However, he looked surprisingly convincing.◊
  • Daniella Alonso (Anna) is over four years older than Michael Copon (Felix) despite playing his younger sister.
  • Lampshaded during Season 6, when Lucas' book about their high school years was becoming a movie. Everyone joked about who they wanted cast in their role, and when Lucas replied they were supposed to be high school students, the response was usually along the lines of "But have you seen how old the actors playing high school students are these days?"
  • It's worth noting that while James Lafferty was a downplayed example as listed above for the first four seasons, he actually became an aversion after the Time Skip, as he was 22 when the fifth season premiered, the same exact age as Nathan.
• Defictionalization:
  • Peyton's website from the first season could be found at www.punkndisorderly.com and featured a blog and gallery for Peyton's artwork. However, it wasn't updated after the end of the first season, and went offline in 2018 - but it can still be viewed through the use of the Internet Archive.
  • The second soundtrack album, Friends with Benefit, was the subject of a storyline on the show where Peyton and her birth mom made a benefit album to help breast cancer patients. Similarly, the third soundtrack album is ostensibly supposed to be Peyton's road mix from "It Gets The Worst At Night".
  • Peyton's podcasts, which she records over the course of the third season, were actually recorded & put online for fans to download.
  • Peyton’s MySpace page, mentioned in Season 4, can be found here
  • Clothes Over Bro's branded clothing was sold via the official Warner Bros web store during the show’s run, and continued to be sold for several years after the series concluded.
• Development Gag: Lucas writes a book about his time growing up in Tree Hill, called "An Unkindness of Ravens", the original title for the series. In Season 6, the book is adapted into a film which is ultimately cancelled, with Julian instead adapting the book into a television show in Season 9, just like One Tree Hill started as a movie before Mark Schwahn adapted his pitch to be a television series.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • Paul Johansson (Dan Scott) - Episodes 2x17, 3x07, 3x18, 4x06, 4x15, 5x02, 5x08, 5x15, 6x04, 6x19, 7x10, 7x14, 8x15 & 9x03.
  • Moira Kelly (Karen Roe) - Episodes 3x19 & 4x12.
  • Chad Michael Murray (Lucas Scott) - Episode 6x14.
  • Bethany Joy Lenz (Haley James Scott) - Episodes 6x16, 7x17 & 8x09.
  • James Lafferty (Nathan Scott) - Episodes 6x22, 7x07, 8x05 & 9x06.
  • Sophia Bush (Brooke Davis) - Episodes 7x09, 8x06 & 9x12.
  • Austin Nichols (Julian Baker) - Episodes 8x18 & 9x07.
• Dueling Shows: With The O.C., which debuted the same season.
• Dyeing for Your Art: God knows how many hairstyle/color changes there have been between seasons.
  • Just try to keep track of Haley's hair color changes and styles (dark brown, light brown, blond-ish, long, short...) over the course of the series.
  • Brooke goes from no bangs in Seasons 1 and 2 to bangs in early Season 3.
  • Peyton goes from long curls in Seasons 1 and 2 to shoulder length & straight in Season 3, before gradually going back to long curls by the end of Season 4, with varying shades of blonde during this time. In Season 6, her hair goes from blonde to brunette.
  • Lucas shaves his head in Season 2, grows his hair out over the next two seasons; goes for a more mature haircut in Season 5, briefly has a mohawk, shaves his head again, and then grows his hair back out over the course of Season 6. When he returns in Season 9, he's grown his hair out & has gone brunette.
  • Nathan shaves his head in Season 3 & grows it out over the course of the next two seasons. At the start of Season 5, he's grown a beard & has longer hair due to his depression, before going back to his more sensible haircut & being clean-shaven. He shaves his head & opts for Perma-Stubble again in Season 9. Other than that, he actually has the same haircut throughout the show.
• Fake Nationality: Felix is Hispanic, but his actor Michael Copon is half-white and half-Southeast Asian (Filipino). Averted with his sister Anna, however, whose actress Daniella Alonso has Puerto Rican and Peruvian descent.
• Fake Shemp: Tyler Hilton wasn’t available to shoot the scene where Chris Keller kisses Haley whilst wearing a Batman costume under the guise of being Nathan, as such James Lafferty shot the scene - meaning that James was impersonating Tyler playing Chris impersonating Nathan who is normally played by James.
• Friendship on the Set: Although Jimmy only appeared in a few episodes and (mostly) had a hostile relationship with the other characters, this was not the case in real life - Colin Fickes not only got along with but became good friends with his castmates, even those who never interacted with him on screen. Even to this day, he still remains in touch with the cast, even appearing alongside the three female leads on the Drama Queens podcast in a retrospective of his final episode almost 20 years later.
• God Never Said That: In the context of their claiming that Brooke and Lucas weren’t endgame just because of Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush’s real-life divorce, Brucas fans often went so far as to insist their theory had been confirmed by Word of God. In reality, series creator Mark Schwahn not only explicitly denied that speculation, but he also repeatedly stated the exact opposite, that it was always meant to be Lucas and Peyton, even going so far as to say in several occasions that the characters were designed to be each other’s soulmate.
• Hey, It's That Place!: Consciously averted - per Mark Schwahn on the DVD Commentary for "You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil's Brain)" shooting in Wilmington created a problem for the production team in that Dawson's Creek had also used the town for the base of their setting & had only wrapped months before One Tree Hill premiered - the decision was made to avoid locations (Or shoot the location in such a manner that it wasn’t obvious) that were iconic to the earlier show through the first five seasons so that people didn’t draw comparisons to the two shows, with this self-imposed mandate being dropped in the sixth season, once One Tree Hill had outlasted Dawson’s Creek.
• Hide Your Pregnancy:
  • Moira Kelly in Season 1.
  • Barbara Alyn Woods at the end of Season 4.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray got together - ultimately getting married - at the end of the first season, but separated at the beginning of the production of the third season before finalizing their divorce during the fourth season.
  • In the midst of the #MeToo movement, various female members of the cast and crew accused series creator Mark Schwahn of sexual harassment, with Hilarie Burton later confirming that this was the reason she left the show after the sixth season. Chad's reason for departing at the same time has been speculated as him not being satisfied with his income, but given that every single male cast member has backed up the allegations against Mark, it's also possible he left in protest given his closeness with Hilarie.
  • Whilst interviewing James Lafferty on her podcast in February 2020, Jana Kramer noted that the two didn’t hang out on set, and spoke of an unnamed third party who “made life hell” for the new cast members in the seventh season by putting them in a situation where they had to choose who to be friends with on the set.
• I Am Not Spock:
  • In one interview, Paul Johansson tells the story of one fan who hit him with her handbag because he was "so mean to that boy" and he had to explain to her that he was an actor and not Dan Scott.
  • Even though Colin Fickes (Jimmy Edwards) has retired from acting, he revealed as late as 2023 that many people still refer to him as Jimmy. However, he stated that he does not really mind this and continues to appreciate fans telling him how much his performance impacted people.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Lucas Scott is one of the best basketball players in the Ravens line-up... But Chad Michael Murray cannot play basketball. In the DVD Commentary for the first season finale, the cast all get a good laugh about how the one time Chad was supposed to miss, he couldn't stop putting it in the hoop; and the Season 5 Gag Reel features a montage of Chad's misses, hilariously matched up with 6-year old Jackson Brundage repeatedly making free-throws.
• One-Take Wonder: Lucas and Peyton’s kiss following the Ravens’ State Championship win had to be shot in a single take due to the falling confetti in the scene.
• The Other Darrin: Peyton's dad Larry switches actors between Season 1 and Season 3, after being absent throughout the second season.
• Playing Against Type: Chad Michael Murray as Lucas Scott. Before One Tree Hill, Murray had made his name playing antagonistic characters, with that leading to series creator Mark Schwahn feeling it was "only natural" to cast Murray as Nathan instead of Lucas.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • A long standing rumor amongst the Brucas fans is that Brooke & Lucas were meant to stay together, but Chad Michael Murray & Sophia Bush's real-life divorce led to the producers resurrecting the Lucas/Peyton ship instead. No-one involved with One Tree Hill has ever confirmed this as the reason for the Lucas/Brooke relationship ending, with Word of God repeatedly asserting it was always meant to be Lucas & Peyton. People who argue against the theory generally point to the timelines not gelling together - the couple announced their separation in September 2005, which, if the real-life break-up was actually influencing the writing, was early enough in the production of the third season that the show could have aborted the Brucas storylines immediately entering the second half of the season, instead of holding off until the beginning of the fourth season, with the brief Brucas romance precisely taking place in that said second half of the third season.
  • After the airing of episode 9x07, featuring the return of Chad Michael Murray as Lucas Scott, Sophia Bush was forced to come out & dismiss rumours that she had asked not to have any scenes with Murray, noting that she actually told Mark Schwahn to write scenes with Lucas meeting with the rest of the old gang if he wanted.
  • The actual circumstances behind the departures of Chad Michael Murray & Hilarie Burton at the end of Season 6 weren't confirmed until November 2017, nearly a full decade after the fact. Amongst the rumors of both actors wanting more money, are rumors that one of the two was willing to return but the producers didn't want to keep one half of the pairing without the other. It was ultimately revealed in the midst of the Hollywood sexual harassment scandal in late 2017 that Hilarie chose not to renew her contract at the end of the sixth season due to sexual harassment she received from Mark Schwahn during her time on the show. However, Chad's reason still has yet to be disclosed.
• Postscript Season:
  • Whilst it has all the hallmarks of a Postscript Season, this wasn't the case with Season 5 - Season 4 wraps up most of the loose ends from the first 3 seasons, and ends with the main characters graduating from high school whilst Dan Scott begins his prison sentence for murdering his brother Keith, and Season 5 saw a massive retool thanks to the 4 year Time Skip; Mark Schwahn states on the Season 5 DVD that when they were planning Season 5, it was decided to go with the Time Skip because they'd already done most of the typical college storylines whilst the characters were in high school, and it allowed more freedom with the plot since they could pick up with the characters returning to Tree Hill after college & they would be able to jump right into Jamie starting school rather than having him age naturally.
  • Season 9. Season 8 wraps up all of the character arcs, and even features a Book End to the very first shot of the series as it's closing shot, however The CW renewed the series for a final Season 9, which featured James Lafferty absent for half of the season, after Nathan was kidnapped in episode 9x03 and provided closure to the few loose ends left from Season 8, namely Quinn & Clay get married and ultimately, Dan Scott's redemption.
• Production Posse: Moira Kelly and Sheryl Lee previously played best friends on Twin Peaks.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Allison Munn (Miss Lauren) and Scott Holroyd (David, Quinn’s ex-husband) are married in real life.
  • During Season 8, Lydia Scott was played Bethany Joy Lenz’s actual daughter out of sheer convenience as Lenz gave birth during the season.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Peyton's change in hairstyle from long curls to short & straight in the third season, and the general toning down of her dye jobs over the following seasons, was due to the damage done to Hilarie Burton's hair over the course of the first two seasons by the constant bleaching of her hair.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: With the show expected to end with Season 8, James Lafferty and Jana Kramer both made plans that left them unavailable for Season 9’s shooting schedule. Subsequently, Kramer’s character of Alex Dupree was written out of the series following the first two episodes of the season, whilst Lafferty’s absence was accounted for by having Nathan be abducted by Eastern European assassins for the majority of the season.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Gavin Degraw's I Don't Wanna Be in the first four seasons. In Seasons 5 to 7 & 9, this was replaced with No Theme Tune - merely the words "One Tree Hill" on a black background as a title card. Previously, this opening was used only when the episode would run over the allotted time, or when the episode dealt with sensitive issues.
  • Rearrange the Song: Season 8 used a different cover of I Don't Wanna Be in every episode, with the opening titles using some original shots from the earlier seasons for each of the old regulars (Nathan, Brooke, Haley, Mouth and Jamie) and some great new shots because it was believed to be the show's final season.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Karen's going to Italy in Season 1 was written so Moira Kelly could go on maternity leave.
  • Lucas's tattoo in Season 1 was necessitated by Chad Michael Murray getting his initials tattooed there during the production of the season.
  • Haley leaves to pursue her music in Season 2, and is subsequently Demoted to Extra for a large chunk of the season, because Bethany Joy Lenz was on the One Tree Hill tour at the time.
  • Whilst Peyton's room was constantly changing over the course of the first four seasons, the wall behind her bed (Which held the gallery of images relating to people who were no longer in her life) vanished during the third season. This was in part because Hilarie Burton reprised her role of Peyton Sawyer in the music video for "The Mixed Tape" by Jack's Mannequin, and the video featured Peyton repainting that part of the room.
  • Rachel's Maxim cover shoot in Season 4 mirrors an actual photo shoot that Danneel Ackles, Sophia Bush & Hilarie Burton did for the magazine.
  • Deb doesn't show up until "What Do You Go Home To?" in Season 5 due to Barbara Alyn Woods being on maternity leave.
  • Brooke’s romance with Owen in season 5 is abandoned after 5x12, with the explanation that he freaked when she mentioned wanting kids, because Joe Manganiello’s contract expired during the WGA Strike & he took the lead role in an action movie.
  • Skills begins Commuting on a Bus in Season 7 due to Antwon Tanner's real life legal issues.
• Role Reprise:
  • Lindsey McKeon returned as Taylor James in the Season 7 episode "Weeks Go by Like Days" after last appearing during Season 2.
  • Hilarie Burton, Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz reprised their roles of Peyton, Brooke and Haley in 2020 in a brief video encouraging voter registration in the run up to the 2020 Presidential Election.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Chad Michael Murray (Lucas) and Sophia Bush (Brooke) got together (eventually getting married) at the end of the first season. By the time the third season began airing, they had already announced their separation & were ultimately divorced by the halfway point of the fourth season.
  • Sophia Bush later dated James Lafferty (Nathan). She also had a relationship with Austin Nichols (Julian) that lasted until after the series ended, but he took the role of Julian after they began dating.
  • Hilarie Burton (Peyton) dated Ian Prange, one of the show's assistant directors, from season 2 to season 5.
• Star-Making Role: The show launched the careers of the core five characters' portrayals Chad Michael Murray, James Lafferty, Bethany Joy Lenz, Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush.
• Technology Marches On: Seasons 3 & 4 are set between 2006 and 2007, as indicated by Keith & Jimmy's tombstones listing their deaths as taking place in 2006. Season 5 follows a Time Skip of 4 years, which would place the season in 2011, around the time smartphones started to become commonplace. Whilst the show had the foresight to have Peyton & Brooke using iPhones, by 2011 it's a visibly outdated model & some characters (Notably Lucas, by this point a published writer) still shown using the cellphones from the previous season. Season 9 depicts Jamie using a PSP, yet further time skips place the season around 2016 - The console's successor was released in 2012.
• Throw It In!: In the Pilot Episode, Lucas’ first words to Peyton are “That’s me inside your head” - quoting the NoFX song “Linoleum”. The script called for Lucas to simply repeat the sentence, but Chad Michael Murray instead sang the line, which meant that the production had to pay to license the song.
• Troubled Production:
  • Season 5 was originally supposed to have 22 episodes, However this was affected by the 2007 Writers Strike. Knowing that the strike was a possibility - and increasingly likely to happen - Mark Schwahn rushed production on the first 12 scripts of the season to guarantee the series hit 100 episodes & could be sold into syndication, which would make a premature cancellation less likely. After production wrapped on the initial 12 episodes & the strike was lifted, The CW chose to renew the series for another season, and order a further 6 episodes to wrap the fifth season.
  • During the late 2017 Hollywood Sexual Harassment Scandal, the female members of the show’s cast & crew accused series creator & showrunner Mark Schwahn of sexual harassment & assault, even going so far as to allege that it was an open secret in Hollywood about how toxic a work environment One Tree Hill was. Hilarie Burton and Danneel Ackles specifically cited the harassment they received as the reason they left the show, and the accusations were corroborated by not only almost every male cast member, but the cast & crew of The Royals, Schwahn’s next project, as well. Schwahn was fired from that show after an internal investigation.
• Underage Casting:
  • Despite Haley being the youngest of the James children, Bethany Joy Lenz is actually the eldest of the actresses who play the James sisters, with Lindsey McKeon & Shantel VanSanten being 1 year younger & 4 years younger respectively.
  • Chris Keller is implied to be older than the rest of the Tree Hill kids while Tyler Hilton is actually younger than all of the actors except for James Lafferty. Hints point to him being around early college age at the start (19-20 years old), the same age his actor was during filming of the second season.
  • Ernest Waddell is the same age as on-screen sister Hilarie Burton, but dialogue implies a 17 year age gap between Peyton and Derek. It's particularly egregious as while he could maybe pass as a bit older than her, they more-or-less actually look the same age.
  • Kelsey Chow as the college-aged Gigi Silveri when she returns in the sixth season after the 4 year time skip - Chow was a notable exception to Dawson Casting when she was first cast, and upon her return in the sixth season, was 16 playing a college student.
  • Jules's documents reveal her year of birth to be 1974, which would've put her in her early 30s. Maria Menounos was only in her mid-20s when she played her.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to the Drama Queens podcast the show was originally supposed to air in January 2004 as a mid-season replacement, but another planned show for the 2003 fall season ended up not happening, so One Tree Hill was chosen to replace it.
  • One Tree Hill existed for several years as a pitch for a film titled Ravens.
  • The series was originally going to be set in Illinois, the home state of creator Mark Schwahn. Executives suggested the producers look at warmer states, and the production settled in North Carolina, which allowed for the show to use Wilmington (The town where Michael Jordan grew up & base for Capeside, Massachusetts) as the base for Tree Hill.
  • Haley (Bethany Joy Lenz/Galeotti) was not in the original Pilot, with her role instead being filled by a different character named Reagan portrayed by Samantha Sheldon. It should be noted that, beyond the change in actress, there was no difference between Haley and Reagan's scenes.
  • Chad Michael Murray was originally slated to play Nathan. He requested the role of Lucas, as he better resonated with the elder Scott due to their similar backgrounds.
  • Jimmy Edwards was originally planned to be part of a Laurel and Hardy esque duo with Mouth, but the show's budget in season 1 forced them to cut the character after the second episode.
  • Whitey's wife Camilla was originally going to be seen speaking with Whitey early in the first season, before it was revealed that she had died before the series began. This idea was later used in Season 7 with Clay & Sara.
  • The original intention was for Lucas/Peyton/Nathan to be the Love Triangle, rather than Peyton/Lucas/Brooke.
  • The original idea for the school shooting in Season 3 was to introduce a brand new character to serve as the shooter. This changed when one of the production team remembered that the show had never explained why Jimmy Edwards stopped hanging out with the rest of the River Court guys when the show was forced to cut the character after two episodes.
  • Quinn was originally only going to be around for a year.
  • Peyton & Lucas were intended to return for Brooke's wedding in episode 8x13, but those plans were dropped at such an early point in production that Hilarie Burton was never actually asked to come back for the episode.
  • According to Michael Trucco, he was supposed to come back to the show full-time in Season 5 and Uncle Cooper would enter into a relationship with Brooke, but due to Battlestar Galactica (2003) being scheduled to film in Vancouver at the same time, these plans were abandoned.
  • Sophia Bush mentioned on Drama Queens that there was originally supposed to be a romance between Brooke and Dr Ethan Copeland, but his actor Chris Beetem was let go due to Mark Schwahn feeling threatened by other male actors on the set due to his possessiveness over Sophia.
  • Robbie Jones admitted on the Drama Queens podcast that Quentin was originally only intended to be around for a five episode arc, but the role was expanded to the point that he was a major recurring character in Season 5 and discussions were had for him to be bumped up to main cast in the following season; ultimately, negotiations between the production and Robbie's manager fell through and the decision was instead made to kill Q off in the second episode of Season 6.
• Word of God:
  • Series creator and showrunner Mark Schwahn has stated on multiple occasions that Lucas and Peyton were always the endgame couple, even going so far as to say the characters were designed to be each other’s soulmate.
  • When discussing the subject of Anna Tagarro's sexuality, showrunner Mark Schwahn stated that Anna was bisexual but came out as gay when confronting her homophobic brother Felix as it was felt to be a stronger declaration for the character.
• Word of St. Paul:
  • Hilarie Burton stated in an interview around the time of airing that the reason Peyton didn’t return with Lucas in the show’s final season is due to Peyton being pregnant again. Chad Michael Murray, whilst not specifically agreeing with Burton’s claim, has also stated in interviews that Lucas & Peyton probably had more children after leaving Tree Hill.
  • Hilarie Burton stated on the Drama Queens podcast that the reason the show replaced Reagan with Haley was because the producers had their eye on a potential romance with Nathan, and didn’t feel the chemistry was there with the original actress, they also thought Samantha Shelton looked a little too old to be convincing as a teenager.
  • Hilarie Burton mentioned on a couple of occasions that she was told Lucas/Brooke and Jake/Peyton were endgame back in season 2, much to her confusion since until that moment she was always told Lucas and Peyton were endgame. Considering that Word of God repeatedly stated that it was always meant to be Lucas and Peyton (who in fact turned out to be the endgame couple), it is unclear if what Burton was told was meant as the overall endgame of the show or just in the contingency of the show not being renewed before they could put Lucas & Peyton back together. Burton herself commented on Jana Kramer’s podcast that she was not sure if this was genuinely the direction the show would have gone or if it was just to force her to play Peyton without the knowledge of her unconscious feelings for Lucas.
  • Both Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz stated on the Drama Queens podcast that upon joining the series, they were told that Lucas and Peyton were endgame; when Hilarie Burton mentioned being told that Brucas and Jeyton were endgame during the second season, Lenz and Bush both expressed surprise at this.
• Written by Cast Member: Chad Michael Murray wrote Episode 6x11, "We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)".