Ben McKenzie says he’d consider trading in Ryan Atwood’s leather jacket for Sandy Cohen’s cardigan, floating the idea of returning to “The O.C.” nearly two decades after the Fox drama ended.
The actor, who played the brooding Chino transplant across all four seasons of the show from 2003 to 2007, addressed the possibility during a radio interview on Sydney’s KIIS 1065. When the host suggested he come back as one of the show’s father figures, an apparent nod to Peter Gallagher’s Sandy Cohen, McKenzie didn’t rule it out. “I don’t know that there has ever been serious talks, but I’d be up for it, sure,” he said. “Yeah, I think so, under the right circumstances. It was a great show. We had a great time. I learned a lot. I was so young, we were all young.”
No network or studio has floated an actual revival, and McKenzie’s remarks reflect his own openness rather than any deal in motion. Still, the comments land amid a steady drip of nostalgia for the series, which followed a troubled teenager taken in by his public defender’s family in a wealthy seaside enclave and helped launch the careers of Adam Brody, Rachel Bilson and Mischa Barton. Bilson and co-star Melinda Clarke have spent the past year revisiting old episodes on their rewatch podcast, “Welcome to the OC, Bitches!,” while Brody has continued fielding questions about the show’s legacy in interviews tied to his newer projects.
McKenzie, now 47, said the show still finds new audiences two decades after it left the air. “I now have kids come up to me, teenagers, and they talk about what a fan they are of the show,” he said, noting they weren’t even born when it premiered. “They watch it with their parents.”
Reviving the franchise would have to compete with a packed schedule. McKenzie recently stepped behind the camera for his directorial debut, a documentary about cryptocurrency called “Everyone Is Lying to You for Money,” and continues to make guest appearances on “Sheriff Country,” the police procedural starring his wife, Morena Baccarin. He’s also raising three children. Even so, when the radio host pressed him on committing to a comeback, McKenzie sounded game. “Let’s make it happen,” he said.
