Shailene Woodley Calls Her Short-Lived Role on The O.C. Her 'Proudest Accomplishment'

People
·2 min read

Talk about a throwback!

Shailene Woodley reflected on her short-lived role on the hit teen drama The O.C. on Monday, calling her time on the show her "proudest accomplishment."

"Yes, yes I was on 'the OC.' and yes, it is still one of my proudest accomplishments. california, here i (can’t) come..." she captioned a photo of herself with her former television family.

Woodley had a reoccurring role during season 1 of the beloved series, starring as the Kaitlin Cooper, the little sister of Melissa Cooper (Mischa Barton). She only appeared in a few episodes, and although the character was mentioned, she was never seen in season 2. Kaitlin returned in seasons 3 and 4 but was recast, with Willa Holland taking over the roe.

The O.C. ran for four seasons from 2003 to 2007 and followed the lives of the Cohen family as they took in a disadvantaged teen, played by then-newcomer Benjamin McKenzie. The series, which inspired reality show Laguna Beach, also launched the careers of Barton, Rachel Bilson and Adam Brody.

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While The O.C. wasn't quite the breakout role for Woodley as it was for her costars, she became a household name five years later when she starred on her own teen drama, as pregnant high schooler Amy Juergens in The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

"When I signed onto Secret Life, I read [three] episodes and I signed a contract for six years," she told Bustle in a recent interview. "[Those episodes] all hit home. I had friends in high school who were pregnant. It felt like everything that I wanted to be sending into the world."

But looking back, Woodley said she struggled with the show's promotion of abstinence.

"There were a lot of things that were written into the scripts that not just me, but a lot of the cast, disagreed with," she continued. "There were belief systems that were pushed that were different than my own. Yet legally I was stuck there. To this day it's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. So being on Secret Life propelled me to be more vocal about my own belief systems."