Asked to name her favourite perk of TV stardom, Rachel Bilson, who plays sweet but spoiled good-time girl Summer Roberts on The O.C., doesn’t think long. “I got a Chanel purse,” she says over tea at a café in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. “Black, one from the New York collection.” But Bilson, wearing a chocolate-coloured sweater over a white T-shirt, black jeans and vintage Cleopatra-style sandals, is self-aware enough to know what rhapsodizing over celeb freebies comes off like. “It’s backwards. When you can afford it, you get it for free. But, you know, as a girl, when you get a new purse it makes you happy.”
Which is not to say that she isn’t actively contributing to the retail market. “I have a shopping problem. Am I getting help? I should be. It’s bad! I’m a huge vintage person. I hate malls. I go to little boutiques. I love flea markets and all these amazing smaller designers,” she says, listing Mayle, Vena Cava, Jenni Kayne and Derek Lam as favourites. Of the pressure to nail a “look” every time she leaves the house, Bilson, who is often clocked in Marc Jacobs, says, “If I like something, I’ll wear it. You can’t please other people.” She gets a little help along the way, too. “My friend Nicole Chavez is starting to be a stylist. We’re on the same page. She’ll help me out, get the clothes for me. You have to have someone.”
But Bilson is devoting her current O.C. hiatus to hunting bigger game than handbags. Ticking off “privacy” and “a pool” as prerequisites, she’s spending her time off looking for a new house—and relaxing. “I needed a break,” she says of a tumultuous O.C. season that ended with the surprise demise of her onscreen best friend, Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton). “I was shocked. We cried, Mischa and I. You become family when you work on these shows, and I did almost everything with her.” Bilson didn’t find out until nearly the end of the season. “They were like, ‘Someone is going to die.’ They wouldn’t tell us who.”
So why Barton? “The producers thought her character had done everything,” says the 25-year-old Bilson with a shrug. “She didn’t want to leave the show. It was sad. I can’t even fathom [being there without her]. I feel like the show is over. Like she’s dead, the show’s dead in a way. I guess we’ll see what happens.”
At least Seth Cohen (Bilson’s onscreen squeeze), played by Adam Brody (also her real-life boyfriend), survived the axe. Though she won’t discuss their relationship, we know that humour is high on Bilson’s list. “I’ll never date a guy who doesn’t make me laugh.”
When it comes to managing a relationship in the spotlight, Bilson—who admits she’s “not the Lindsay Lohan of The O.C.”—admires celebrities who keep a lower profile. “Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake are a huge power couple [but] not in your face like other people are.”
Speaking of the P word—this is the Power Issue, after all—when does Bilson feel most powerful? “When I have a really good audition. You know instantly [if it was good].”
One really good audition certainly landed Bilson in lofty company. The Last Kiss, out this month, sees her starring as a college coed opposite Garden State auteur Zach Braff—as well as heavyweights Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson—in a film written by Oscar-winning Crash writer and director Paul Haggis. That’s a long way from Orange County. “[The role] was different than what I play every day. I really liked playing her,” she says. “It’s a pivotal character. She is the last kiss.”
Clearly, it isn’t forever Summer for Bilson, a talented comedienne who likes “getting lost in books,” lists Annie Hall as her favourite film and particularly admires Reese Witherspoon’s comic turn in Election. “I want to do movies,” she says, holding up former Dawson’s Creek-er turned Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams as inspiration. “Back in the day, I’d say I admired Katie Holmes for going from [television] to a movie career, but it’s cool how Michelle Williams didn’t take the paycheque. And she came out with an Oscar nomination. She took a part that was practically nothing and made it this amazing thing. That’s admirable.”
“Amazing” is also the word Bilson uses to describe this time in her life. “I’m having fun. I’m so grateful that my life is in a good place. I can support myself. That’s the best feeling in the world.”
First published in FASHION Magazine September 2006
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