One Tree Hill's Robert Buckley Reveals His Favorite Guest Star — and It's Not Who You'd Expect

Drama series don’t often feature star athletes, but when they do, it’s pretty memorable.

In the episode of November 7 Drama queens podcast titled “One Tree Thrill,” ex One Tree Hill stars Sophia Bush, Bethany Joy Lenz and Robert Buckley answered fans’ questions about the beloved series. The first question was who are their favorite guest stars.

“Favorite in nine years?” – asked the 42-year-old Bush. Lenz, 43, decided to limit their answers. “It has to be a guest star. It cannot be repeated. Like a real guest star,” she said. Lenz first chose Gerald McRaney, known for shows like Simon & Simon and Major Dad. He also had a recurring role on This is us.

Bush broke Lenz’s restriction and chose Daphne Zuniga, who played her on-screen mother Victoria Davis early in Season 5. She started out as a guest star, and “then we kept her forever,” Bush said.

One Tree Hill The cast talks about where they think their characters would be now

Lenz then chose Sharon Lawrence, who played Julian Austin Nichols’ mother in Season 8. Buckley, 43, chose Amanda Schull, who played two different characters related to his character, Clay. She also played the ghost of his dead wife, Sara, and a new lover who “looked” like Sara, named Katie.

Jerry Rice 2024

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But then, he explained, if he had to choose a “real, tried and true guest star” it would be … Jerry Rice. “Because he was Jerry Rice and he was also really good at acting, so his stuff is funny,” Buckley explained. Bush said Buckley got “gold” for that answer.

Rice, 62, appeared as himself in the season 7 premiere titled “4:30 a.m. (Apparently They Traveled Abroad).” In the episode, viewers learn that Nathan (James Lafferty) has become a successful NBA player and has grown close to his new agent, Clay. Clay surprises Nathan and Haley’s son Jamie (Jackson Brundage) by having Rice show up at his birthday party.

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Although Rice, a three-time Super Bowl champion widely regarded as one of the greatest wide receivers of all time, appeared on One Tree Hillin fact, he appeared very little on TV scripts. After a 2009 episode of OTH, his only other credit is a 2015 episode. Hawaii Five-0.

One Tree Hill Cast reunites for basketball game in honor of series’ 21st anniversary (Exclusive)

In September, news broke that Bush and Hilarie Burton were developing a One Tree Hill a sequel to the series set 20 years after the end of the series. “What if you could really come home?” they wrote then on Instagram. “If there’s an opportunity to team up with brilliant creatives and build a space where all our friends can showcase their talents? Own our history? Take back our turf? Treat our fans? Sign us up.”

Hilarie Burton (left) and Sophia Bush in 2024.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

The series will follow Bush’s Brooke and Burton’s Peyton as they “now parent teenagers and face challenges not unfamiliar to what they dealt with in the original series, such as love, insecurity and grief.” It is not yet known which other characters will return.

One Tree Hill it aired for nine seasons, from 2003 to 2012. It began on The WB and continued on the network’s successor, The CW, in 2006.

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Source: HIS Education