Peter Gallagher thankful ‘The O.C.’ costar Mischa Barton ‘still alive’

Sandy Cohen still thinks about Marissa Cooper.

Peter Gallagher, who played Cohen for on all four seasons of The O.C., explained in a new interview that he has a soft spot for former costar Mischa Barton. She, of course, portrayed Cooper, the love interest of Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), who had been taken in by the Cohens.

“I’ve always felt very protective of her,” Gallagher told The Independent in an interview published Oct. 27. “First fame is toxic. First fame can kill you. She was 16 years old when she started working with us, so just the fact that she’s still alive, I’m just so grateful.”

The two worked together on the first three seasons of the series, which aired from 2003 to 2007, but not on the fourth. Barton’s character was infamously killed in a car crash in the third series finale of the series about teen and parent drama in Southern California.

In their 2023 book Welcome to the O.C., authors Alan Sepinwall, Josh Schwartz (the creator of the series), and producer Stephanie Savage recalled that they felt pressured into the storyline by Fox executives, who wanted them to do something shocking in the season finale to gin up falling ratings. Another producer, Bob DeLaurentis, said writers were out of ideas for the love story between Marissa and Ryan, so removing one of them seemed like the right solution. Ryan was the main character, so the choice was obvious.

Still, in January 2023, Barton was sad about her character’s death when she appeared on a rewatch podcast hosted by her former costars Rachel Bilson and Melinda Clarke.

“Poor Marissa,” Barton said of the scene when her character dies. “She really, really goes through it.”

Producers also said later that they regretted their choice and wished they had chosen a way that allowed for Marissa to return.

They said they were thinking about the movie offers that Barton had been forced to turn down, but they didn’t speak with her beforehand.

“Instead of talking to her about it as adults, we were like, ‘Well, we think that would work out great for her.’ And then just made this decision,” Savage said.

Aside from Marissa’s death, Barton’s quick rise to fame, in the wake of the show’s phenomenal popularity, was not smooth.

She was arrested for DUI in 2007 and, two years later, she was hospitalized after feeling “completely stressed out” over factors including her career.

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