James Lafferty, best known for his role as Nathan Scott on the beloved drama One Tree Hill, once thought his acting career was over before it even began. Now 38, Lafferty remembers how thrilling it was to land the iconic role after nearly giving up.
“For me, it was the culmination of my entire childhood in the acting game,” he tells PEOPLE. Fast forward more than a decade since One Tree Hill’s finale, and Lafferty is back in the spotlight with a new project.
He’s co-written and co-starred in Everyone Is Doing Great, a comedy about former teen drama stars navigating life after fame and is eager to find it a streaming home.
Lafferty thought his days as child actor were over before appearing on One Tree Hill
From 2003 to 2012, Lafferty played Nathan Scott in the drama. He remembers how it felt like landing the role after growing up acting. Seeing the Dawson’s Creek cast photos on the walls at the Warner Bros offices, Lafferty says he thought, “Oh man, that would be so cool someday.”
“When I got the audition for One Tree Hill — when I got the script it was originally called Ravens — and the role was a basketball player and he had an edge to him,” Lafferty remembers. “At that time in my life, it was a chance to do all the things I absolutely would have loved to do.”
As a 17-year-old, Lafferty and his mom stayed in a hotel in Burbank during the “super nerve-wracking” audition process. “It was my last chance,” he says. “If I didn’t get this role, I was just going to go to college, and I was going to go to Long Beach State and do that for a while.”
He adds, “It just felt like fate.” Although Lafferty initially considered Nathan to be a “villain” when he read the script, he was “completely comfortable with that because he was so well-written.”
The way his father, Dan Scott, played by Paul Johansson, is, he says, “You could instantly recognize that he was the way he was for a reason.” He continues, “It was simply an opportunity to play a really complex character who was going through a lot, and it was manifesting itself negatively.”
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James Lafferty reminiscing his early auditions for the role of Nathan
In addition, he recalls that the writers told him very early on, “‘He may not always be a villain. He’s going to make a turn.’ And I was like, ‘I’m fine, either way. This is fun.’”
Ten years after the show ended, Lafferty is now looking for a streaming home for the series he co-wrote with Stephen Colletti, Everyone Is Doing Great, which he describes as a “Comedy about the cast of a teenage drama starting over after their early success.”
Currently, the first season of the show is available for purchase on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video but Lafferty hopes to make the season along with season 2 more accessible via a streaming service.
“One of the most exciting things for me is knowing where the show will land,” he says of what lies ahead. “Hopefully, we’ll find out by the end of the summer, and I can’t wait to see the world’s reaction to this thing we built in the fall.” The first season of Everyone is Doing Great is available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.
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