Chris Pine Says His 'Bad Acne' Cost Him a Leading Role on The O.C.: 'I Had Awful Skin'

Chris Pine is opening up about the one very specific reason that he lost out on a starring role in The O.C., nearly two decades later.

During an appearance on Josh Horowitz’s May 9 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Wonder Woman actor, 43, reflected on his near-casting as Ryan Atwood (the role eventually went to Ben McKenzie) opposite Mischa Barton. The ultimate reason that casting directors passed on him to star in the teen drama series?

“My bad skin,” Pine said. “…I had awful skin as a teenager and then when I came after college, my skin started breaking out again.”

By the time the drama premiered on FOX in 2003, Pine was 23 years old. Although he said the reasoning behind the casting decision hurt him to this day, he understood what had happened — and even joked that he was thankful that his career had gone down a different path.

“Look, I was going out for The O.C. Like, a teenage melodrama,” he said. “I can understand that they wanted to have pretty people doing pretty things.”

“I don’t want to say I’m grateful for not having landed but… it’s a different different path,” he said, to laughs from host Horowitz. “I’m all right… but it is a little PTSD — it’s no fun having bad skin. It was one of the most traumatic points of my life, but it is my story.”

Pine also have younger listeners or those suffering from acne some advice, too: “I get you. I hear you. I’ve been there. I know how depressing it can be and the kind of depths of sorrow it can it can drag you to. But there is a brighter day.”

This isn’t the first time a former O.C. crew member spoke out about Pine’s audition for the role of Ryan — in the 2023 book Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History from Alan Sepinwall, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the show’s casting director Patrick Rush says that Pine’s audition was “really good” — but “was at the age where he was experiencing really bad skin problems,” per E!.

“It was at that point where it looked insurmountable. And as a kid who grew up with horrible skin, it just broke my heart. But Chris Pine’s fine now. He’s all right,” Rush says in the book.

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Pine has been making the interview rounds since the release of his directorial debut Poolman earlier this month. Speaking with Horowitz, he opened up about how he copes after the film received a lukewarm reception after the it premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival in September.

“I was like, ‘Maybe I did make a pile of s—,'” Pine admitted. “I went back and watched it. I f—ing love this film. I love this film so much.”

Discussing how he learned to take over behind the camera in an interview with PEOPLE in April, Pine said that the process involved him getting into “a flow state for months. There wasn’t time to think or get in my head.”

“It’s ultimately been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s forced me to double down on joy and really double down on what I love most about my job — which you kind of forget, it’s fundamentally about play.”