She was the It-girl of the early 2000s. Now, MISCHA BARTON is relaunching her acting career at 40. This is how the former OC wild child wound up in Eastbourne

Two decades ago, actress Mischa Barton was one of the biggest names on the planet. A child star who featured in blockbusters such as The Sixth Sense and Notting Hill, at 17 she found global fame playing Marissa Cooper in the beloved teen drama The OC, the troubled high-school It-girl every teenager wanted to be. Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld called her ‘a fashion role model for an entire generation’.

Yet after she left the show in 2006, aged 20, things seemed to go horribly wrong. Barton became a paparazzi favourite, with a trail of rock-star boyfriends and wild-child friends. She was arrested for drink driving, spent time in (court ordered) rehab and a psychiatric unit.

In 2024 she told the Call Her Daddy podcast she went through a period of thinking she was going to ‘join the 27 club’ – the list of famous people who died at that young age. Why? I ask her now. ‘Well, I was pretty reckless in my early 20s,’ she says. ‘I was going out all the time, having a lot of fun and putting myself in… situations.’

Yet happily, having just turned 40, Barton’s life is firmly back on the straight and narrow. Statuesque, blonde, as gorgeous as ever and dressed for the chilly afternoon in check wool trousers and a white jumper, she’s sitting in a south London studio on a freezing afternoon in a break from rehearsals for Double Indemnity, a stage adaptation of James M Cain’s novel, best known as the classic film noir directed by Billy Wilder.

Set in Los Angeles during the Great Depression, it’s the story of Phyllis (played in the film by Barbara Stanwyck and now by Barton), who plots with an insurance salesman to murder her husband and bag his life insurance payment. The play is about to tour the UK for three months, with Barton set to visit the likes of Nottingham, Eastbourne and Southend.

It sounds a touch humdrum after Hollywood, yet Barton is delighted. ‘I was really drawn to Phyllis,’ she says in her deep, slightly raspy voice. ‘She’s a real femme fatale and a bit of a psychopath. The main thing about her is, at a time when women just sat there and looked pretty a lot of the time and were simply seen as sex objects, she hates being bossed around by men. It’s great to play someone so human and flawed and interesting.’

It’s a departure for Barton, who for years was offered little but Marissa-like racy, spoiled, California girls. ‘And for a long time when people met me they expected me to be Marissa. It was bizarre, because she’s so far from who I really am. Even when they cast me in The OC they said they’d done it because I was nothing like Marissa – I was from New York and had never been to California before and they thought that was interesting. So I always felt very far from her.’

In fact, not only is Barton not Californian, she doesn’t possess a drop of American blood (although she holds a US passport). Her English father Paul is a foreign exchange broker; Irish mother Nuala is a producer and photographer. Barton was born in west London, where the family lived until she was five, when Paul’s job demanded they relocate to New York.

‘I’m British Irish but I grew up American and when I’m here I often feel American. But I really relate to British humour, so in America I feel very British and gravitate towards Brits.’ She indicates her cup of builder’s tea. ‘That I’m drinking this, not herbal tea, tells you a lot about where my loyalties lie.’

What’s also very British about Barton is her character: she’s polite, yet simultaneously forbidding, quite unlike The OC’s touchy-feely Californians. She was a ‘painfully shy’ child, and at her high school for the performing arts ‘a loner, goth kid’.

‘I’m still very private and reserved,’ she says. ‘I don’t need a constant group of people around me reassuring me. I’m better than I used to be, but my idea of a good time is still to be alone. I don’t love big social situations, I can only do them for a limited amount of time and I’m perfectly happy to go to a resort or retreat by myself. I might invite a friend but it’s got to be somebody I know I can travel with because otherwise I feel they can hold you back.’

I suspect her aloofness is what made people previously assume Barton was far more capable of coping with what was being slung at her than was actually the case. She nods.

‘I think I come across as quite self-assured. People are constantly calling me a very strong woman, and sometimes I find that weird, almost like a backhanded compliment – “you can cope with anything” – because I’m really sensitive as well. I like the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi [finding beauty in imperfection]; you can be strong but also bendable.’

Barton was eight when she was signed by an agent who saw her perform a monologue she’d written at a summer camp. She rapidly landed her first role in an Off-Broadway play and by 11 she was modelling for Italian Vogue. As with many child stars, she perhaps grew up faster than was ideal: her first kiss was on screen at the age of 13 when she starred in the crime drama Pups.

When she was cast in The OC, she felt self-inflicted pressure to have sex as soon as possible, the better to understand Marissa’s hard-partying world. She lost her virginity to co-star Ben McKenzie, who played her on-screen romantic interest Ryan and was seven years her senior, prompting the producers to complain to her parents. This led to a ‘complicated’ atmosphere on set – not least after she broke up with him and began dating other people.

These pressures – combined with the show’s relentless schedule – made Barton yearn for the life of her non-showbiz peers, who had gone to university. ‘Sometimes I’d show up at their campuses and sit in their lectures, just to get a taste of what it would have been like. But it was probably better to live in my world.’

As frustrating as she clearly finds it to constantly be asked to reflect on those times (not least because The OC is a perennial Gen Z favourite thanks to endless reruns on various channels), she refuses to be bitter about her experiences.

‘I don’t look back at it poorly any more. When you’re too close to something, you don’t have clarity, but when you move on you can be healthy and grow. I look at the positivity and the fashion and the fun that we had. It was a great time and I feel very lucky to have experienced it. It’s very different to what this generation experiences, where there’s less one-on-one time with people and everyone is obsessed with their phones.’

After three years on the show, during which time she became known for being the ‘hot girl’ in music videos by Enrique Iglesias and James Blunt, and the face of various brands including Neutrogena, she left The OC to pursue opportunities in film. First came the romantic drama Closing The Ring, followed by indie comedy Assassination Of A High School President and a role in St Trinian’s.

She became a gossip-column favourite with – in that size-zero era – constant talk about her fluctuating weight and numerous shots of her leaving LA nightclubs with the likes of Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan, and hanging out with Amy Winehouse, or with rocker boyfriends who included The Kooks’ lead singer Luke Pritchard. Is she still in touch with that gang? ‘No, I don’t really hang out with anyone from around that time.’

As mentioned, at one point she ended up in a psychiatric unit, the equivalent of being sectioned, while in 2017 she had to take a career break to concentrate on an (eventually successful) legal battle to prevent an ex publishing ‘revenge porn’ photos of her.

At the same time, there were huge family ructions. In 2015, Barton sued Nuala for £18million claiming she bullied her, withheld earnings without her knowledge and threw her out of her own £5.2million Beverly Hills mansion. The lawsuit described ‘the tragic tale of a greedy stage mother posing as a talent manager who, instead of acting in the best interest of her daughter/client, schemed to defraud her unsuspecting victim’.

Barton won’t speak about any of this today for legal reasons, but she told Call Her Daddy their relationship now was ‘not healthy’, adding: ‘I don’t rely on any one chosen family member any more.’ Yet she’s clearly still at least close to her elder sister Zoë, a barrister (her younger sister Hania works in real estate in Utah), spending this Christmas at Zoë’s second home in the Cotswolds, enjoying time with her nieces, aged ten and 12. ‘I love being an aunt,’ she smiles.

When in London, she stays near the family, in a rented flat in upmarket Kensington, walking Zoë’s dog in Hyde Park. In the US, she’s based in Manhattan’s bougie Upper West Side where she goes vintage shopping (she proudly shows me her Purple Label Ralph Lauren military jacket, draped over a chair – ‘I love it’) and is a theatre fiend.

‘Eventually, I’d like to get a place with some land and my own dog. Right now I’m travelling constantly, and there’s no room for that level of stability, but that’s what I strive for.’

Is Barton in a relationship now? ‘Kind of,’ she shrugs. Does she see herself married with kids? ‘I don’t know. I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself about that kind of stuff. I’m working constantly, and not in a very settled situation. But I’m not a pessimist about relationships. I’m actually really a big romantic. I tend to get into pretty intense relationships – but in a good way. And I love kids.’

With all the dramas whirling around her, there were times when she wondered if she should quit acting. ‘I’d taken time off and wasn’t even sure if I was going to go back. But bizarrely, for better or worse, the second I said that, someone would approach me with something that was too good to be true and I got sucked right back in.’

Presumably The OC made her enough money never to have to work again. ‘I guess I could have [retired], but where would be the fun in that? I view acting as a profession; I went to school for it. There’s a lot of stuff I turn down, but it’s more interesting to be working than not working.’

Recently, Barton has mainly appeared in small, independent films, as well as guest-starring in the recently rebooted Neighbours, playing billionaire’s daughter Reece Sinclair. She was also in reality TV show The Hills: New Beginnings and competed in the US equivalent of Strictly, Dancing With The Stars, finishing in 11th place. Right now she has several projects on the boil. After Double Indemnity tours, she’ll be off to South Africa to film the third part in the Invitation To A Murder film trilogy, in which she stars as detective Miranda Green.

It helps that Hollywood is finally starting to be more amenable to casting older actresses, with many of our biggest stars (such as Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet and Reese Witherspoon) now in their 40s and 50s. ‘The roles are more interesting for women in their 40s now; women want to see themselves reflected on the screen more literally, there’s no longer this, “Oh, we’ll hire a 25-year-old to play her.” It feels more authentic. I’ve been reading some really, really great scripts so that’s exciting.’

Barton has ‘no issue’ with having just turned 40. ‘I’ve never had a wobble about getting older. I’m just not that person. The older I get, the more interesting the roles I’m offered, and the more comfortable I am with myself. I know what I want and I’m more settled.’ Marissa’s flighty ghost has finally been exorcised? ‘Yes,’ Barton smiles, ‘and the payoff has been worth it.’

Double Indemnity will tour the UK from Thursday until May 9. For information, visit doubleindemnityplay.co.uk

Hair: Alex Price at Eighteen Management using Dyson Beauty and Living Proof. 

Make-up: Julie Read at Carol Hayes using Lisa Eldridge.