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Chris Carmack Doesn’t Stay in Touch With Any of His The O.C. Costars

Chris Carmack on OC
Chris Carmack spoke about his time on The O.C.

No plans to catch up with Seth and Summer! Chris Carmack made a name for himself in 2003, when he nabbed his first feature television role on The O.C. and uttered the unforgettable words “Welcome to the O.C., bitch,” but more than 10 years later, he has very few ties to the show. 

“I didn’t even really stay in touch with anybody from the show or the cast,” Carmack, 34, said in a new interview with The Huffington Post. “I had this perception that I was just going to see them all the time.”

Related: PHOTOS: The O.C. Cast: Then and Now

The Nashville star appeared on the teen drama as high school jock Luke Ward alongside Benjamin McKenzie (Ryan Atwood), Adam Brody (Seth Cohen), Rachel Bilson (Summer Roberts), and Mischa Barton (Marissa Cooper), among others. He exited the Fox show in the second season, three years before the show’s 2007 finale.

“I was from small town Maryland, and I had been in L.A. for a year and a half, so I guess I should have had more of a perception of how L.A. worked and its size, but I literally just thought I was going to see these people all the time,” Carmack added to HuffPost. “Then my character is written off the show and I never saw any of them again!”

Chris Carmack
Chris Carmack attends the 48th annual CMA Awards in 2014.

Related: PHOTOS: TV Shows Gone Too Soon!

In the years that Carmack spent on the show, he and his fellow costars became huge sensations. The young actors were in the early stages of their careers when the show began, and all are still defined by the roles in the California series to various extents. 

“I can speak for myself, I can’t speak for other young people on the show, that I had no idea what was going on,” the Just My Luck actor explained to HuffPost. “I had no idea what the job was, I had no idea that the job would end, I had no idea about any of it. All I knew was, each day, I had to go into work and attempt to do my best with the acting training that I learned.”

Related: PHOTOS: TV's Most Shocking Deaths: Major On-Screen Moments From Television Shows

“I’m somebody who values anonymity — not just in terms of not wanting people to recognize me or wanting my privacy, but I value anonymity in conversation,” he continued. “That anonymity was largely taken away from me, permanently. It’s something I mourn, and it happened overnight… I’m much better with it now, but I really do mourn the absence of a certain anonymity when it comes to meeting people and learning about them and them learning about me.”

Other former O.C. stars have had a less-than-favorable view of the show, including actor Cam Gigandet, who played villain Kevin Volchok. Asked by Elle magazine last year whether he keeps in touch with his costars, Gigandet said, “No. Actually Ben McKenzie was kind of mean to me. I hadn’t done anything at that point and he was a little bit of an ass… Mischa? I didn’t really…Was she there? I don’t even have memories of her… I learned a lot. But the things that I remember now — none of them are good.”

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