Romancing Ryan Atwood. Sidling up to Seth Cohen. A spur-of-the-moment marriage in France. Yes, Taylor Townsend has had a whirlwind love life during her time on “The O.C.” ““ good thing her real-life boyfriend is a little more down to earth.
“I met him here at UCLA,” said Autumn Reeser, who played the perky, neurotic Townsend on the final two seasons of the Fox teen drama.
But it’s her relationship with UCLA itself that got her started on the path to Newport.
Reeser is a former Bruin, having attended the university from 1998 to 2001 before professional acting gigs got in the way. The musical theater student has three classes left and plans on coming back to finish her degree … eventually.
“There’ve been two years that I signed up for fall quarter but I had a show both years, and it doesn’t really work, to try and do (school) and do acting professionally,” she said. “You have to be in a position where you can say, OK, I’m taking a break. Maybe I’ll do it down the line when I’m married and pregnant.”
With past roles on shows such as “CSI” and “Grounded for Life” and a burgeoning film career in addition to her work on “The O.C.,” Reeser has made her lifelong dream of becoming a professional actress a reality, in part thanks to a very important admissions letter.
“I only applied to UCLA,” she said. “Everyone kind of thought I was crazy but I was like, no, I’m going to go to UCLA and be in the musical theater department. If I don’t get in, I’m just going to move up to L.A. and find an apartment and get a waitressing job.”
Ironically, Reeser still ended up at restaurants while she was a student, working at the Gypsy Café as well as covering the midnight shift at Jerry’s Famous Deli for a year. And though UCLA was her dream school, it wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined it.
“It was a lot harder for me than I expected,” Reeser said. “I had to live in the smallest dorm with two girls.”
Transitioning from a triple in Rieber Hall to the wealthy world of “The O.C.” (where her character was outfitted with $3,000 Dior purses) took a few years, but after landing the role of Taylor Townsend during season three, she became a series regular during the show’s fourth and final season. While “The O.C.” enjoyed its highest ratings and status as a cultural phenomenon during its initial episodes, critics considered the lighthearted last season a return to form.
“By season three, everyone suspected we only had one more season left, so the writers took the opportunity to just be like, fine, we’re going to make the show we want to make,” Reeser said. “It was great because suddenly … we had this renaissance. I think the problem with TV shows is you get a lot of cooks stirring the pot. Everybody wants to have their input, especially when it’s a successful show. Sometimes that’s not the best thing for a show.”
For Reeser, being part of the regular cast meant more screen time, as well as replacing Mischa Barton (and several intervening actresses) as Benjamin McKenzie’s love interest. By season’s end, she’d won his heart ““ and apparently those of thousands of men across the country. She appeared on the cover of Stuff magazine in December and Maxim magazine named her No. 57 on its 2006 “Hot 100.”
“(My boyfriend) was like, “˜Awesome,'” she said.
In contrast to the soap opera flings of “The O.C.,” Reeser has maintained a five-year relationship with writer-actor and fellow former musical theater student Jesse Warren.
“It’s a hard career to have a traditional relationship. You read all this relationship advice and it’s like, “˜Make sure you go to bed at the same time.’ It’s kind of impractical a lot of the time if you’re … working at 9 p.m. and getting home at 5 in the morning,” she said. “But since he’s in the same business, we both understand the energy that it takes so we just try to do everything we can to support each other.”
Despite the music-heavy focus of “The O.C.,” Reeser ““ who grew up on show tunes ““ couldn’t tell Modest Mouse from Fleetwood Mac when she started on the show.
“I’ve just literally learned who all these bands are,” she said.
Still, as a musical theater performer since childhood, music has always played a big role in her life. Until jetting off to Toronto to start work on her latest film, she’s been singing in the Upright Cabaret, a West Hollywood performance group whose rotating membership includes Hollywood stars and Broadway singers alike.
Surprisingly, she’s “terrified” of singing in public.
“(In musical theater), you work on your song for months, you know exactly what the stage looks like, who you’re going to be singing it to ““ that’s different because you’re playing a character,” Reeser said. “I want to be able to count on myself, I want to be able to know that I can go in there and not be so nervous that I’m going to, like, blow it. So that’s how I got involved in Upright.”
Singing isn’t all she’s been working on. In addition to the cabaret, she spent her time off after “The O.C.” taking art and dance classes and unearthing skills she hasn’t used since her college days.
“I like being with artists. I love being around people who are trying to be the best that they can be at their respective art; I think it’s so inspiring,” Reeser said. “I think every aspect of art that you can cultivate in yourself, it just highlights whatever art is your main art.”
Whether or not she ever gets that theater degree, there’s no question that Reeser’s main art is acting.
“I just find it more fascinating than anything else in the world,” she said. “To make this person who didn’t exist before, and to make the writer’s words come to life ““ it’s just such a beautiful collaboration, to take these words and make them into a three-dimensional person. That person didn’t exist until the writer wrote it down and you brought it to life.”