Chris Pine On ‘The O.C. Casting Director Saying He Lost Role Due To “Really Bad Skin”: “The Man Didn’t Have To Talk About It”

Armando Tinoco
·2 min read

Chris Pine shares his thoughts after a casting director for The O.C. said he lost out on a role due to his acne.

In 2023’s Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History, casting director Patrick Rush talked about Pine reading for Ryan Atwood, which eventually went to Ben McKenzie.

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“I hate saying this, but it’s the truth: Chris Pine was at the age where he was experiencing really bad skin problems. And it was at that point where it looked insurmountable,” Rush said in the book via the AV Club. “And as a kid who grew up with horrible skin, it just broke my heart.”

Pine appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast where he was asked about Rush’s comments and said, “It’s a part of my life. The man didn’t have to talk about it. I mean, it’s his prerogative.”

Although Pine didn’t end up in the teen drama, he would go on to star in The Princess Diaries 2 shortly after losing The O.C. role.

The actor acknowledges he had “awful skin as a teenager,” noting, “Look, I was going out for The O.C., like a teenage melodrama. I can understand why they wanted to have pretty people doing pretty things. And bad acne is not a key to [success].”

Pine said that reminding him about losing the opportunity to star in the Fox series gave him “a little bit of PTSD,” adding, “It’s no fun having bad skin. It’s no fun going to auditions when you have bad skin. It was one of the most traumatic points of my life, but it is my story.”

The actor would have a successful career starring in 2009’s Star Trek as Captain Kirk, Wonder Woman, and its sequel Wonder Woman 1984. Pine most recently made his directorial debut with Poolman, in which he also stars.

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