10 Famous Stars You Forgot Were on ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ — And What They’ve Said About Their Experience

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10 Famous Stars You Forgot Were on 'Beverly Hills, 90210' — And What They’ve Said About Their Experience

Every Beverly Hills, 90210 guest star has a story — and they didn’t all split a piece of pie with the cast at the Peach Pit. The drama which aired on Fox from 1990 to 2000, starred Shannen Doherty (Brenda Walsh), Jason Priestley (Brandon Walsh), Tori Spelling (Donna Martin), Jennie Garth (Kelly Taylor), Brian Austin Green (David Silver), Ian Ziering (Steve Sanders), Luke Perry (Dylan McKay) and Gabrielle Carteris (Andrea Zuckerman). And while there was plenty of drama onscreen, some of the behind-the-scenes tales from the set have continued to make headlines years after the show wrapped. Doherty and Garth, for example, have been open about their rocky relationship during the first four seasons of the series. “We were locked in this sound stage for 14-16 hours every day,” the What I Like About You star wrote in her 2014 Book, Deep Thoughts From a Hollywood Blonde. “There were times when we loved each other and there were times when we wanted to claw each other’s eyes out … It was more of just young girls finding their way and finding their individual voices. … Poor Tori, the youngest of the three of us was, inevitably, often caught in the middle and she was always trying to smooth things over.” Garth later recalled a physical fight with Doherty during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in August 2019. “I can only remember one incident and that was when, yeah, we took it outside,” she said. “I’m a midwestern girl. I spent some time in Glendale, Arizona, and that makes you tough.” [jwplayer NgPDNPVb-l3ahXupL] Spelling provided more context of the altercation. “You guys were teasing each other and she, like, pulled your skirt up,” she told Andy Cohen. “I stayed in my dressing room when it was happening, shaking.” During an interview with Us Weekly, however, the True Tori alum noted that Doherty “had an unfair rap” all these years. “She took it and took it like a champ. Once they gave her that label, it lived with her, her whole career, and that’s unfortunate,” Spelling said while promoting the show’s short-lived quasi-revival, BH90210, which aired in 2019. “I know what it’s like to get a label of something and that’s the one story that stays with you forever, and it just wasn’t true.” While Spelling, Garth, Green and Ziering were the only original cast members to stay on for the show’s entire 10-season run, several famous faces were featured on the series over the years — and they’ve also been candid about their experience. Scroll through to read Jessica Alba, Hilary Swank, David Arquette and more had to say about their time in the iconic zip code:

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Jessica Alba

The actress, who played Leanne, a teen mother who sought Kelly’s help at a clinic during season 8, didn’t have the fondest memories from the set.

“I couldn’t even make eye contact with any of the cast members, which was really strange when you’re, like, trying to do a scene with them,” Alba claimed during an episode of Hot Ones in October 2020. “It was like, ‘You’re not allowed to make eye contact with any one of the cast members or you’ll be thrown off the set.’”

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Hilary Swank

The Oscar winner’s run as a series regular during season 8 of Beverly Hills, 90210 was cut short after she was fired from the show. “They were like, ‘Look, it’s not working.’ And I couldn’t move. I was like, ‘What’s not working? Me? Am I bad? I’m not working because I’m bad?’” Swank, who played single mom Carly Reynolds, recalled in 2018.

The actress also spoke about her time on the show during a 2014 interview on Conan.

"I was on 90210 during the eighth season when no one watched anymore and Luke Perry was long gone,” she quipped, referring to Perry’s season 6 exit. Swank added that she was “devastated” after her character, a love interest for Steve, was written off after 16 episodes.

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Matthew Perry

“Wasn’t that something?” the Friends alum, who played suicidal high school tennis player Roger on season 1, told the Los Angeles Times in 2012. “That was some of my finest acting. If that’s not mentioned in my obit down the line, my tennis elbow will have been for nothing!”

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Ryan Seacrest

For Seacrest, a cameo on season 10 of the drama was a dream come true.

“I had a very short role as a game show host for a couple’s game show,” he explained on Live With Kelly and Ryan in 2017. “I was very excited to get that role because when I was a kid in high school, I just wanted to meet Jason Priestley — Brandon Walsh — he was the guy I looked up to. Part of the reason I moved to L.A. was because I watched Beverly Hills, 90210 and thought the world was just like that. It’s not.”

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Adam Levine

Before Maroon 5, Levine’s band went by Kara’s Flowers — and they played the Peach Pit After Dark on a season 8 episode.

“We were 17, it was, like, the biggest deal ever. I couldn’t wait to go tell my friends,” he recalled. “To me, at the time, it was like playing a stadium. There was nothing greater back in the day to play the Peach Pit. … It was like a right of passage.”

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Dean Cain

“Here's the weird thing about the show. I was supposed to break up with [Brenda] when I found out that she was sort of a fraud and she was lying to me,” Cain recalled on the Today show in 2017 about his character Rick, who Brenda met in Paris during season 3. “But Shannen didn't want that to happen. She didn't want a guest star to come on and break up with her, and so instead they turned me into a dork. You're an actor, you're just a gun for hire. You can't go, 'Oh, I don't want to say that.' You say what you're told to say, you sing when you're told to sing. Some of his lines were … oof. You just get the cheesy lines but you gotta say 'em.”

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Paul Johansson

The One Tree Hill alum played bad boy John Sears, who dated Kelly during season 4. “They were all so nice to me. Everybody was really kind to me,” Johansson said the “The Blaze with Lizzie and Kat” podcast in 2016. “There were some antics, there was some tension, but that’s what happens when kids go from 0 to 600 and are hosting Saturday Night Live three years into their acting career.”

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Eva Longoria

“I was flight attendant No. 3,” Longoria quipped to YahooTV in 2016 about her season 10 role. “I wasn’t even No. 1 or 2, I was flight attendant No. 3.”

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David Arquette

“I have a line within it saying, ‘Axl Rose is a sellout.’ Well, I’m playing Diesel Stone,” the actor, who played the lead singer of a band called Waste Management on a season 3 episode, recalled on a 2018 episode of Entertainment Weekly’s Couch Surfing. After jokingly apologizing to the rock star, Arquette recalled meeting his fake bandmates.

“I show up and the guy’s like, ‘No, man. We’re a real rock band. They’re playing our song in the show, that’s why we’re up here. And we have a drummer,’” he recalled.

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Rebecca Gayheart

The actress played Dylan’s wife Toni Marchette for several season 6 episodes. “I woke up every morning very excited to go to work,” Gayheart said on the “Beverly Hills Show” Podcast in September 2020, noting that the cast was very “invested” in her story line as it served as Perry’s initial sendoff. “There was a great comradery, it was really fun days. Some long, hard days of shooting, but no one complained because it was so great shooting.”