Costar connection! Barry Watson knew that his 7th Heaven castmates Jessica Biel and Beverley Mitchell had big crushes on him when they worked together.
“I think they were always, sort of, lingering around my trailer,” the 47-year-old actor exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, October 28, while promoting Lifetime’s Highway to Heaven. “I’d walk out and they [would] just, like, pretend [that] they weren’t really there.”
The Michigan native played big brother Matt Camden on the drama from 1996 to 2006, but the show continued through 2007. Biel, now 39, portrayed his sister Mary Camden, while Mitchell, now 40, played their middle sister Lucy Camden.
The Camden siblings also included David Gallagher as Simon and Mackenzie Rosman as Ruthie. Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks portrayed their parents, Reverend Eric Camden and Annie Camden.
Earlier this year, Biel admitted she once had a crush on Watson — something he didn’t know.
“I don’t think I thought about it at the time. I think years ago, you know, they had joked to me about it or whatever,” Watson recalled. “And I’ve joked back, [saying], ‘Well, I’m sure you still have a crush on me,’ or something. But I think at the time I didn’t really think about that.”
The A Dog’s Way Home actor was 21 when they shot the pilot, while all of his other TV siblings were much younger. He remembered “working all the time” on the show, so he didn’t actively think “these kids must have a crush on me.”
However, looking back, he said, “I do remember them lingering around my trailer quite a bit.”
Biel previously spoke about her and Mitchell’s infatuation with their older costar during a June episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast, saying, “No one ever dated anybody.”
The Cruel Summer producer remembered Watson “dating, like, real-life women” when they first started acting together, nothing that she was only 14 when season 1 began. “There was no chance for us. It was not happening,” Biel added.
Mitchell, for her part, commented on her childhood crush on Watson in a 2016 entry on her Growing Up Hollywood blog. “I am pretty sure every teenage girl had a crush on Barry, I mean look at him. Jess and I did for a minute. I mean it really isn’t fair that he had better hair,” she wrote at the time.
Watson told Us on Thursday that he was always “busy” working “crazy hours” on the show, so much so that he didn’t have much time for anything else — including noticing his teenage costars’ crushes or watching the hit series. In fact, as the only sibling over the age of 18, he remembered working until “2 o’clock in the morning” without any scene partners.
That work ethic, however, has proven to be a good thing, as Watson is still acting. His most recent project, Highway to Heaven, premieres on Lifetime next month.
“It’s a fun film and I think it’s something that’s needed right now,” he told Us of the movie, which is inspired by the original Michael Landon series by the same name. “When this came my way, it was sort of a no-brainer for me to jump on board. And on top of that, Jill Scott is playing Angela, [who is] Michael Landon’s character from the original series in this reboot.”
He gushed over his “really great” 49-year-old costar, calling her a “dream” to work with.
Highway to Heaven premieres on Lifetime Saturday, November 6, at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
