She’s not a doctor and she hasn’t relocated to a small Southern town, but Rachel Bilson can relate to Zoe Hart, the character she plays on CW’s “Hart of Dixie.”
“She’s a fish out of water,” Bilson told the Herald recently. “Throughout life, everyone sort of experiences that . . . Even doing what I do, you go on a movie set and you don’t know anybody, and you get into a swing of things and you make a family. So I definitely take from my work, because you’re put in those situations every day.”
In the series (tonight at 9 on WLVI, Ch. 56), Zoe has moved to Bluebell, Ala., after failing to win a prestigious New York fellowship and attempts to restart her personal and professional lives.
“She comes off really hard at first,” Bilson said. “But it’s really important for her to have those layers so the audience will root for her. You don’t want people to just hate her or think she’s a (witch), so it was important to just add little hints. I wanted to make her a little relatable, you know. I always think a little goofiness is always endearing, so I think the comedic notes are important and that’s what I love most about the character.”
CW seems equally keen on the show and has picked up it up for a full season.
Bilson, 30, is a native of Los Angeles, and her father Danny is a writer, producer and director. “I grew up in a family of people in show business,” she said. “It was definitely around me my whole life but I didn’t really think about it.”
Her career was launched with the hit series “The O.C.”
“I was 21 when ‘The O.C.’ began, and the whole world was new to me,” she said. “Talk about fish out of water. You’re just sort of sprung into the spotlight, which was interesting because you know I was … just being young and doing the same things everyone does at 21.”
After the teen soap ended in 2007, Bilson pursued a movie career (“Jump”) and had guest arcs on “How I Met Your Mother” and “Chuck.” When “O.C.” producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage came to her with the idea for “Hart of Dixie,” she was thrilled.
“I knew if I came back to TV, I would want to do it with Josh and Stephanie because we have such a good relationship. I felt really safe there,” she said. “Josh is literally like my brother. He’s married to my best friend, so he’s stuck with me for life, anyway.”
