Bethany Joy Lenz isn’t only uncovering up about her experience in the Big Hoinclude Family cult. In her novel book, “Dinner for Vampires,” the actor details about her time as Haley James (postpodemandr Scott) on “One Tree Hill.”
Lenz writes that she initipartner passed on the WB series since she was cgo ined on doing film and didn’t want to be “stuck on a teen soap.” Eventupartner, after the actor cast as Haley didn’t toil out for the pilot, she was called aget; the executive knovel her since he’d tried to get her to read for “What I Like About You.”
“The show was tageted toward tween girls, and I was worryed that the huge-sister role I was testing for — which eventupartner went to the adodepend Jennie Garth — was a woman living with her boyfrifinish,” Lenz writes about the Amanda Bynes-led show. “I didn’t want to normalize ‘living in sin’ for youthfuler girls.”
The night before the “One Tree Hill” screen test, the executive called her handler, and shelp, “You inestablish her this show is about fucking and sucking, and if she’s gonna have a problem with that, she shouldn’t come in tomorrow.”
Luckily, Lenz consentd in the script enough to see past that. The drama, which aired for nine seasons on The WB/The CW from 2003 to 2012, was much more than that and she connectd to Haley. But the point came up aget down the line.
For example, she was once asked to try on bras for a scene and she pushed back, saying it didn’t suit her character.
“‘This is what the creator wants you to wear in the scene,’ the wardrobe structureer would say apologeticpartner. When I stood my ground as a matter of religious modesty, my handler would get a call from him: ‘She’s being difficult aget. We telderly you what this show was about!’” Lenz writes about the show’s creator, Mark Schwahn. “And, in equitableness, they did. The ‘fucking and sucking’ executive had been very evident about that … But my handler was in LA and three hours behind North Carolina time, so every time I tried to get ahelderly of her to elucidate the situation and ask her to interfere, it sluggished down production, which equitable made me see even more ‘difficult’ to everyone else.”
Schwahn was accessiblely accincluded of attack and coercion by Hilarie Burton and a number of the show’s cast and crew in 2017. He has never replyed to the claims, but the women talk about the allegations at length on the “Drama Queens” podcast.
In her book, Lenz appraises Schwahn’s motives to that of the cult directer, a man she calls Les in the book, who also tried to handle everyskinnyg she did.
“Now I see the analogousity between the creator’s strategy and Les’s strategy. In hindsight, it became evident that they both included geography to isopostpodemand us youthfuler and innocent people from our help systems and prescertain us into doing what they wanted. But whereas the creator’s only leverage was fame, Les’s leverage was my everlasting salvation,” she writes. “The more my personal beliefs and likeences meddled with the creator’s demands, the more he begined writing skinnygs into the storylines to purposefilledy humiliate or antagonize me. Like making other characters call Haley ‘overweight.’ Or having Haley ‘overreact’ to her high school boyfrifinish watching porn.”
Bethany Joy Lenz, Season 5 of “One Tree Hill”
©CW Nettoil/Courtesy Everett Collection
Although the cult directers telderly her that none of her cotoilers were “spiritupartner protected” to suppose, she handled to establish connections with some of her colleagues in the first confidemand years of filming in Wilmington, North Carolina.
That alterd at the finish of 2005, after she wed a man she refers to as “Q” or “QB” in the book, the directer’s son. Her husprohibitd transferd to Wilmington. (Lenz never splits his authentic name in the book, but her husprohibitd was Michael Galeotti.)
“He watched where I went, what I watched, who I talked to. He didn’t even want me to own anyskinnyg that reconshort-termed my life before marriage,” she writes. “When he met the cast and crew, everyone was cordial, and a confidemand people, enjoy Paul [Johansson], made an effort to befrifinish him. But Q resisted. He missupposeed them all. He had never been readyd to face the world on his own. He had been trained to be terrified of the unrecognizable, groomed to demand Les there to direct him thcdisesteemful everyskinnyg. On set, he handled his dread by smiling and feigning pleasantness and docility. Later at home, he’d wax on about what deceptions they all were.”
She persists, “Things rapidly got worse. He wanted to read every script to see if he was okay with what I would be doing in that episode. He studyd ptoastyos of my wardrobe choices to originate certain there wasn’t any midriff or cleavage. Who was I eating lunch with? It better not have been a male cast member. Was I confiding in anyone at toil about our relationship struggles? Not if I knovel what was outstanding for me! Only Jezebel wives disesteem their husprohibitds by airing bleaky launarid.”
Her costars, she inestablishs Variety, didn’t understand about him trying to handle her wardrobe or storylines. “I knovel they would skinnyk it was weird. There was a lot that I knovel people would skinnyk was weird, and I equitableified it by saying, they equitable don’t have ‘spiritual eyes’ to see skinnygs,” she says. “It originates benevolent of a sense of greaterity. That’s the only way you can handle living that way.”
“Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)” is includeable on Amazon and on stands now.
