Mischa Barton: The Free Spirit

Q: How well do you think you're handling the scrutiny?

A: There was a time I was really paranoid, sure everybody was either looking at me or calling the press. I just hated it. I didn't want to go anywhere. I'm never going to enjoy hamming it up for the camera and being watched when I'm walking down the street and, at first, I was easily affected by things. I had to learn to shrug things off. I still get annoyed every time someone shoves a camera in my face when I just want to go to the movies or the store. But I think I've adjusted well. Overcoming this stuff is a process. This whole thing has made me more reclusive. But it's a waste of time to become really reclusive.

Q: What's your take on the quality of Hollywood friendships and romantic relationships?

A: It's very difficult to have true relationships in a town where people are so caught up in all the wrong things. For every hundred people who aren't straightforward, there may be one person who can actually be a friend. I've shed a lot of people and been really pressed to find my perfect social world here. In New York, all my friends are in college and have a wider outlook on life. Here, people are very accepting of you if you're on a hit show. It's a very beneficial lesson to learn whom you can trust and whom you can't. If I was not working on a television show, I probably wouldn't even live in this state, much less this country.

Q: Like others who are very famous, do you ever tune-in spiritually?

A: I allow myself to take on way too much stress, but I'm not good at relieving it through anything but acting. But I'm not one of these people really into the latest fetishes like yoga or the Kabbalah. I can't imagine anything worse than wearing a trendy red bracelet around my arm and running around saying, "I'm at peace with myself" [laughs]. To me, that's totally hypocritical.

Q: How do you react to The O.C.'s being a tamer show in subject matter than in earlier episodes?

A: America is a very conservative country. I learned that the hard way when I did that lesbian storyline on Once and Again, which was banned in certain states. We've regressed, I think. When we first started doing the show, it addressed teenage sexuality and drugs. Not to blame anybody, but Janet Jackson on the Superbowl had a direct impact on us. The other day, we had to re-cut an entire scene because a line--something so stupid, just nothing--was found too controversial. Personally, I'd push the limit as far as anyone wants to. Honestly, I don't care if we lose five million viewers if I think the show is better. For me, the banal is not so interesting. Not that our show is banal, but we have to play a lot of scenes now where things are toned-down.

Q: Are you political?

A: My family is very political. My sister studied law, politics and economics in college. She's a barrister and very political, as are my grandfather and little sister. I'm a British-Irish citizen, but if I were an American citizen, I would back John Kerry. This country is very split. So many young people don't realize the difference voting makes. They think voting is for "those people."

Q: Recently you've been mentioned as the star of a couple of movies, like Hexxx, a horror film set in New Orleans with a voodoo background.

A: It's cool finally to be in a position where people attach you to a script, want you to develop the project and let you have a lot of artistic freedom with it. They're not forcing, like, teen comedies on me. Hexxx is a better-written horror movie than most, a really good page-turner. It's got some clichéd things in it, but in a very good formula kind of way. It's about a school where a girl committed suicide a long time ago. It could be quite dark. I'm also going to film Black Autumn for [20th Century] Fox on the weekends. It's also pretty dark and is mostly about a really bright orphan girl--that'll be Evan Rachel Wood--who finds out she has powers and learns all this weird shit about the expensive school she is in. I can't do anything bigger than the role I'm doing, which is the bitchy roommate.

Q: You live with your mother but, now that you're making more money, are you itching to move out on your own?

A: I'm probably going to buy a place soon. I want something that is European, like Spanish or Mediterranean. I hate Art Deco--anything that looks like it belongs in Palm Springs is exactly what I don't want. Every place my family and I have ever lived in is a fixer-upper and there's something rewarding about buying a place like that. In New York, we bought a loft space that was in a factory and converted it into a real loft. In London, we pretty much built the whole house. My decorating taste used to be very minimalist, a very New York attitude, but I've changed completely. I like Middle Eastern and Asian-influenced things--I love Thai things, Indian colors, things that are soulful and embellished, with a worldly feel.

Q: Have you bought a car?

A: I haven't even learned to drive. When I could have gotten my license, I went to France for a month. I don't go out that much, so there's really not been much need for me to drive. My mom takes me places, even though I know she's getting tired of it [laughs]. I don't need any more freedom than I already have. I'm perfectly comfortable if, on a whim, I want to go somewhere and I'll get a taxi. I don't feel the need to drive myself to work and stress myself out. It's something I know I have to do, but when I see how the paparazzi follow cars I'm in, I'm so glad I'm not driving because I know I'd get flustered.

Q: When you have time, what do you like to read?

A: I loved A Confederacy of Dunces. I started reading Dostoevsky, but it's not really good for reading on the set. It wasn't going fast enough for me. Everybody says you have to read "this week's classic," books like The Devil Wears Prada. I started reading that but put it down. I loved Howards End. I like classics.

Q: What should we not be surprised to hear about you in the next couple of years?

A: That I go back to my roots again, like theater. I mean, I ran into Tony Kushner at the Emmy Awards this year and he's the playwright who first cast me as an 9-year-old in his play off-Broadway. I've come so far from what I started out doing. When something takes off like The O.C. has, you long for what you once had. My life and career are a bal¬ancing act between New York and L.A., a balancing act between television and film. But that's the thing--I'm finally finding the balance.

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