You can read them in the following list!
1. James Lafferty, who played Nathan Scott for all nine seasons of One Tree Hill, was the only actual teenager of the main cast during the first season of the show. Lafferty was 18 years old when the show premiered in September of 2003. Bethany Joy Lenz and Chad Michael Murray were both 22 years old when they first began to play Haley and Lucas respectively, while Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton were 21 years old at the beginning of the first season. Antwon Tanner, who played Skills Taylor, was the oldest as he was 28 year old during season one.
Read here some interesting facts about Chad Michael Murray.
Read here some interesting facts about Sophia Bush.
2. The court where the Tree Hill basketball games were shot is the same one Michael Jordan played on when he was in school, proving legends really are born in the Tree Hill High gym.
3. Lafferty took the Ravens jersey he wore in the pilot and the NS23 shoes from the set.
4. Though Jackson Brundage was only 6 when he was cast as Jamie, he was really good at memorizing lines.
5. was named one of the top television shows in 2009 by the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards. In 2004, the drama received nine nominations at the Teen Choice Awards in the categories of Choice Breakout TV Star Female for Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz and Choice Breakout TV Star Male for James Lafferty and Chad Michael Murray. Murray would take home the surfboard in the category. After 2004, the show received 18 more nominations and one win, which would again go to Chad Michael Murray in the category of Choice TV Actor: Male.
6. When Jamie was first written into the show, a lot of his scenes were dictated by what Brundage wanted to do. He would tell Schwahn he wanted to eat ice cream, and in nearly every scene, he’d be eating ice cream. Then, he’d want to play with Antwon Tanner, who played Antwon “Skills” Taylor, so Schwahn wrote storylines for them.
7. When the series premiered, Schwahn had it in his mind that it would end with Keith (Craig Sheffer), Karen, and Lucas living happily ever after. Things changed a bit.
8. To separate her from co-star Hilarie Burton (Peyton), Bethany Joy Lenz (Haley) was told she had to dye her blonde curls before starting to shoot One Tree Hill.
9. Moira Kelly (Karen) found out she was pregnant after the pilot was shot, but Schwahn didn’t want to write the pregnancy into the show, so they used an array of props to hide her belly.
10. Sheffer thought the way Keith died was “brilliant.”
11. Haley has a huge arc surrounding her singing chops because Schwahn overheard Lenz singing in a parking lot and decided to give her character a singing career.
12. Music was such a huge part of One Tree Hill that the fictional club Tric was written into the show in Season 2 so the writers could feature more bands and artists.
13. There is a book with the same title as Lucas’ novel, An Unkindness of Ravens, that was published in the mid-’80s.
14. James Lafferty didn’t have to fake too much to play Nathan. The actor was on his high school basketball team before being cast on One Tree Hill.
15. Just like their characters, Lenz joined Tyler Hilton (Chris Keller) on tour.
16. Burton, like Peyton, was a cheerleader at her high school.
17. One Tree Hill was originally set in Illinois, but The WB asked Schwahn to set it in a warmer climate, which is how the show ended up taking place in North Carolina.
18. Schwahn created Peyton’s infamous album wall in her bedroom because he saw a wall of old movie posters in a theater and thought it looked cool.
19. Johansson filmed Season 1, Episode 12 with pneumonia and was quite high on cough syrup during most of the shots.
20. The show title comes from the U2 song “One Tree Hill” from the Joshua Tree album.
21. Schwahn was inspired to write the school-shooting episode (Season 3, Episode 16) after hearing someone talk about Columbine and whispering the name. He felt someone should “say something loudly” about the tragedy.
22. Sophia Bush read for the role of Brooke three times. The first time she was told she didn’t look sexy enough, the second time she was told she looked too sexy, and the third time she was offered the part.
23. Johansson, on the other hand, “hated” the script for Season 3, Episode 16 when he read it because he didn’t want to pull a gun on Sheffer.
24. In Season 4, Episode 17, the cast goes to Honey Grove, Texas, to rescue Marvin “Mouth” McFadden (Lee Norris). The episode was really filmed in Honey Grove after the town won a contest in which fans wrote in, saying why One Tree Hill should come to their city. All of the extras in the episode are kids from the town.
25. Paul Johansson (Dan) was a great basketball player when he was young.
26. One Tree Hill uncharacteristically jumped ahead four years to bypass college so the actors would play their own ages.
27. Creator Mark Schwahn originally wrote One Tree Hill as a feature-length project called Ravens.
28. The most popular season of One Tree Hill was the second season. It averaged 4.3 millions viewers each week and was the 117th ranked show for the 2004-2005 television season. The show saw an increase in viewers from season one by 800,000 viewers, which is a lot for show on The WB. When the show moved from Tuesday nights to Wednesday nights for season three, the show lost roughly 1.5 million viewers. The lowest rated season was the eighth which ranked as the #138 most watched show and averaged only 1.8 million viewers. Season 9 was ranked at #180 but had 55k more viewers.
29. In Season 8, Episode 11, there is a terrible thunderstorm in Tree Hill in which Brooke and Jamie get stuck in a car in the river and the dam breaks. The scene was really filmed in a lake with tons of fake rain pouring down. The whole crew was nervous about putting Brundage in that situation, but he wanted to do it and said he had a blast.
30. Schwahn makes a cameo in two episodes as Max, the record store owner.
31. When Haley gets pregnant in Season 8, Lenz was pregnant in real life.
32. Chad Michael Murray was the very first actor to be cast on One Tree Hill. Series Creator Mark Schwahn thought Murray would be better suited to play Nathan, the bad boy. He had seen Murray’s work as Charlie on Dawson’s Creek and thought he made a good villain. Murray insisted on playing Lucas because he felt he connected to the role more. Murray was abandoned as a young child just like Lucas and was able to bring that real life experience to the character. After Schwahn agreed, the part of Nathan would be given to James Lafferty.
33. Like his character Julian, Nichols really wanted to direct. And did direct two episodes of the show: one in Season 8 and one in Season 9.
34. One Tree Hill was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, and you can visit a lot of the shooting locations still today.
35. AT&T had been a long time sponsor of One Tree Hill. During the series’ second season, the company had fans text whether or not they felt that Nathan should kiss Taylor. Whichever answer had the most votes was how the storyline would play out on the show. Sunkist was another popular sponsor and held a contest asking fans to pick which town the gang would visit in the episode, “It Gets the Worst at Night.” Honey Grove, Texas was the overall winner. In season 4, Rachel was photographed for Maxim, which coincided with the real-life shoot that Dannell Harris, Sophia Bush, and Hilarie Burton did.
36. Executive producers Brian Robbins, Mike Tollin, and Joe Davola spent four years convincing Schwahn to turn the movie into a TV series.
37. Nanny Carrie (Torrey DeVitto) going crazy was originally just a joke Mike Daniels threw out in the writers room. But going into Season 5, Schwahn decided he wanted to actually incorporate the idea.
38. When One Tree Hill was renewed for a seventh season, it was not clear to fans which of the show’s stars would be back particularly Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton. A video was released to the public that showed Murray saying he was not asked back to the show to cut down on productions costs. Though it appeared he was unaware he was being taped, he did ask his fans to rally with him and boycott the show. Another video came out where Burton said she would have stayed on with the show if she has been granted creative control instead of having to leave because Murray did.
39. 300 N. Front Street, which housed Karen’s Cafe and Clothes Over Bros, is currently a fully functioning coffee shop called Port City Java.
40. Brooke and Julian (Austin Nichols) had such great chemistry on screen because Bush and Nichols were dating in real life at the same time.
41. Lenz’s last scene for the series was her walking across Julian’s soundstage.
42. Though he was credited as a series regular during Season 9, Lafferty signed on for only half the season, which would explain why Nathan was missing.
43. Bush was the last actor to finish filming One Tree Hill.
44. Schwahn directed the series finale.
45. Bush directed the second-to-last episode in the series.
46. At the end of every season of One Tree Hill, the cast and crew put together a basketball game with all the proceeds going towards a different charity. At the end of season two, a football game was also held. In 2005, the team at One Tree Hill had two charity events when they also hosted a softball game to benefit the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. The entire cast and crew will be split up into two teams when playing the games at these events. In 2008, tickets to watch the basketball event cost $25 each. That year, the show raised $66,373 and donated the cash to Wilmington Family YMCA.
47. A majority of One Tree Hill is filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. That is the same location shows Dawson’s Creek, Eastbound & Down, and Under the Dome are filmed. Countless movies have filmed all or parts of their movies in the city including A Walk to Remember, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films. The gym that is used to shoot the basketball games is the located in the high school Michael Jordan went to called Emsley A. Laney High School. The school mascot is the Buccaneers.
48. Not only did Chad Michael Murray star on One Tree Hill, he was also a writer and director. Murray would direct the fourteenth episode of the sixth season entitled, “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene.” In this episode, Brooke has figured out that Jack’s brother is a murderer and has him arrested. Episode eleven of the sixth season entitled, “We Three (My Echo, My Shadow, and Me),” was the episode that Murray penned. It was set in the 1940’s and was named after a Frank Sinatra song. The entire episode is from a dream Lucas is having when he dozes off at the start of the show.
49. Jackson Brundage was only seven years old when he began playing James Lucas Scott on One Tree Hill. During his four years on the set, the cast created a swear jar to refrain from talking inappropriately in front of the young star. Each time a cast or crew member swore in the presence of Brundage, they were required to put $20 in the jar. At times, filming certain scenes would cause the cast to become frustrated, making the jar full quite frequently. The money in the jar went to a very important cause. Brundage would get to keep the cash and put it towards a college fund.
50. In earlier episodes of One Tree Hill, you may have noticed that Nathan has a nipple piercing. James Lafferty did not have his nipple pierced, so the ring you see had to be glued on before a scene was going to be filmed where Lafferty had to be shirtless. Putty was used to give the illusion it was in his skin. The tattoo that Chad Michael sports as Lucas is also fake. The only reason the tattoo was added was because of Murray’s own tattoo of his initials that he has on his arm. Murray has to get extra makeup put on his arm to ensure that the real tattoo is not visual.
51. All the episodes are named after songs and album titles. “Crash Into You” is a Dave Matthew’s Band song, Sheryl Crow sang “The First Cut Is the Deepest” and they even used 50 Cent’s “In Da Club.”
52. One Tree Hill’s Sophia Bush was cast in the role of Kate Brewster in the film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which came out in 2003. Bush even worked on the set of the movie a few days before being let go. Director Johnathan Mostow felt Bush was too young to play the character. Bush was 20 years old at the time the movie was being shot. Claire Danes was the actress who replaced Bush in the movie. Danes is three years older than Bush. The film would go on to gross $433 worldwide, which was far less than the $520 million Terminator 2 made.
53. Bethany Joy Lenz, who plays Haley on One Tree Hill, had a brief stint playing Teenage Reva Clone on Guiding Light in 1998. The producers thought that Lenz did such a good job with the character that they rehired her to play the character of Michelle Bauer later that year. Lenz would stay with the soap opera until 2000 and guest star on other WB series Charmed and Felicity before getting her big break on One Tree Hill. Most recently, Lenz starred on the final season of Dexter as Cassie and just finished the pilot for the sitcom Songbyrd.
54. A normal day on set started at 6:30 in the morning.
55. Sophia Bush’s character, Brooke Davis, was named after her college roommate. Brooke wasn’t even in the pilot, but she was introduced during the second episode.
56. Haley doesn’t drive a car until season 5! Peyton, Lucas, Nathan, Skills and Brooke play her chauffeur.
57. Hilarie Burton got the role of Peyton because she had “pain behind her eyes.” The director really liked that and wanted Peyton to have the same look.
58. Sophia Bush & Chad Michael Murray not only had an on-screen relationship — the two also dated in real life. They even had a short-lived marriage back in 2005.
59. After divorcing Murray, Bush went on to date two more of her cast members. She briefly dated James Lafferty and then Austin Nichols for about four years.
Read here some interesting fact about Chad Michael Murray (Lucas Scott!)
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