Sophia Bush: On Goin' Goth

She's a favorite TV actress for her role as Brooke on the popular "One Tree Hill". Pretty, brunette Sophia Bush has recently been in the news due to her official break up with husband Chad Michael Murray with whom she still co-stars on "Hill". We recently spoke at length with the actress who called us from her home in Wilmington, North Carolina on a rare day off. She let us know that her house is haunted...and she's okay with it!

You can catch Sophia in an all new look as a video gaming Goth chick in the upcoming spooky thriller Stay Alive. The actress told us that she got so attached to castmates Frankie Muniz, Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong and others that she cried when she wrapped the picture and had to leave them behind. She admits that she was a combo of mother hen and social director with the cast and crew of Stay Alive.

Keeping busy with work and, according to her, not really dating again yet, Sophia puts out a really strong and together vibe as she tells us about continuing as Brooke and enjoying her foray into horror and the cool world of New Orleans' Goth chicks. Oh, and she tells us what kind of guy she'll be looking for when she is ready for new love in her life. Tune in...

TeenHollywood: We spoke with Samaire Armstrong and Jon Foster. Samaire says you two went around New Orleans a bit to shop and check out the Goth scene. Is your character October Bantum a Goth chick? Tell us about her.

Sophia: Samaire and I spent a lot of time shopping together and just running around town. She's such a great girl. She's an artist and has a really creative mind. I loved it when they sent me the Stay Alive script. Mc G called and said 'listen, read this role and tell me what you think'. She's so different from anybody I've gotten to play which was what drew me to it. Aside from the fact that the script is great, original and creepy as hell, the character is very, very cool. She's such a badass. She's a rough around the edge girl and fits into this sect that is of New Orleans.

TeenHollywood: So that's what you researched?

Sophia: Yeah. When I got down there and started talking with the wardrobe girl, she was saying 'we're going to model your character after these French Quarter Goth girls'. I was like 'who are French Quarter Goth girls?'. I started checking them out and I got be good friends with these two girls Candace and Robin who own a store down there called Trashy Diva. They do rebuilds of vintage patterns and everything they make feels vintage but has got an edge to it. That's sort of the way these girls are. Like if you took a kid who was really Goth in high school and had her grow up a little bit and then throw her in a blender with Bettie Paige. They are these really great girls.

TeenHollywood: Could you identify at all with a character like that?

Sophia: There's a lot about her that is similar to myself. She's a lot more straightforward and bitchier than I ever could be but I've always been one of the guys; that girl that hangs out with the guys and gives everybody advice. She's tough, no bullshit. What's great about October is it's her and her brother Phin and Hutch and Swink. That's her crew. She's very much the mother hen. October and her brother Phineus opened a barcade, the Bantam Barcade and it's an internet café and a videogaming hub, very indie rock and underground. It's cool. We have this underground sect of friends.

TeenHollywood: Are you a gamer?

Sophia: I've always been around videogames with all my guy friends but I never got into playing so much. I was always interested in the backstory and the graphics. But, I was never one to pick up a controller. I'd hang out while people played them and watch. But, we got really into gaming while down there. Samaire would come in she she's not a gamer. There would be points in the day or the evening where I would go play videogames with the guys and get into learning all that stuff. It was great, really fun. Then, when we got on set and had to shoot these scenes, me and the boys had this rapport from playing videogames together. Samaire purposely stayed away from that because her character doesn't do any gaming. But, we had really created this outside of work.

TeenHollywood: Did you end up being the mother hen on the set then?

Sophia: Completely, even with our crew and our producers. I end up being everybody's mom and the social director. It's amazing. We're all still so close. We all recently saw each other at a little get-together at Jimmi's house. It was some of us actors and our writer and director. We really became such a family down there. The day I left New Orleans, I literally had a day in between films last summer. I had to go switch suitcases and go up to Canada. I lost it. I was bawling like a baby in front of the hotel. I could feel it coming. I hugged Frankie and, 'oh, here it comes'! I hugged Jon and stepped back and looked at the two of them. They had gotten up early to help me finish packing and get my stuff in the car at nine A.M. on a Sunday morning, I just lost it. I was going 'I'm such a girl right now'.

TeenHollywood: Sounds like good friends to have. You were going to work on John Tucker Must Die. Who do you play in that one?

Sophia: That's what was great about my summer, I played the two most opposing girls in the world. I play a girl named Beth in "John Tucker" who is this sort of crazy Vegan hippy chick but what she doesn't get, being 16, is the hypocrisy in the way she lives her life. She comes from this really privileged family, doesn't want for anything and is always used to getting her way but claims to be this peaceful person. But, the minute that things don't go the way she wants them to, she loses her mind and is the least peaceful of the bunch. It's very funny. It's a great, fun movie.

TeenHollywood: Was a lot of what you saw in New Orleans destroyed in Katrina?

Sophia: The stores were on Magazine street and the French Quarter so they got out pretty well. We had an amazing time and fell in love with New Orleans so we all did everything we could when Katrina hit. It was hard for me because I just wanted to go down there. We all wanted to go down and see if we could help the friends that we'd made but, for a lot of us, we were working and had commitments that didn't allow us to get out of whatever cities we were in and it was rough but we all kept each other posted and whenever we heard from anybody, we would send out e-mails and make sure everyone was okay. We would all love to go back and work there again. Hopefully, we can.

TeenHollywood: It's a great town so you all must have partied?

Sophia: Yeah, we'd get off work Friday night and go home and get changed and head out to go see funny little cover bands and hang out in the city.

TeenHollywood: What is your favorite scary movie?

Sophia: The Ring is just incredible. I love the way that they re-made Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I thought that was great. When I was a kid, I saw Poltergeist and don't think I slept for a week. The psychological thrillers really appeal to me. What I liked about this film when I read the script is that it's very psychological. Yeah, there is gore in it but not as much. It's not a big slasher flick. It's a suspense movie, a race against time. We do have gore in it for the horror fans but we've got a great mix of mental and the visual. That appealed very much to me as an actor and the chance to play someone so opposite from who I usually play.

TeenHollywood: What are you afraid of in real life?

Sophia: Bumps and creaks in the night. Anytime I'm somewhere new, a new hotel or new place to live, it takes me about two weeks before I sleep really well, just to get adjusted to noises the building or structure might make, to get adjusted to the level or lack of noise. That's hard for me and, what's weird, for me now, Wilmington is a very haunted city. The history we have here is pretty creepy being an old port of call city and being in the South where a lot of areas around here were big cotton plantations, this city is really haunted. I have a lot of friends whose homes are haunted. I have a ghost who lives on the second floor of my house.

TeenHollywood: Is it friendly?

Sophia: Yeah, my ghost is pretty friendly but when there is someone in the house she doesn't like, she makes it known. It's very creepy. It took me a while to get used to it. There was a point where I thought I was going to move. I was like 'I can't do this. I can't be here' and we've sort of worked it out. It's cool. It's funny. If you speak to the security guards in my neighborhood, they say there are some houses that they get called out to three or four nights a week because of the ghostly noises. There are people who refuse to accept that there are ghosts.

TeenHollywood: I tend to believe in them. Did anything eerie or strange happen on set while making the film?

Sophia: It wasn't that but it was just creepy in general. Our sets were very eerie and the storyline is scary and that's what's fun for me. As an actor, you've read the script and you know what's coming but when something happens in a scene, even though you know it's coming, you are scared anyway and it's just the greatest.

TeenHollywood: Getting retro here, you were a Tournament of Roses queen in 2000. Was that stressful or just fun?

Sophia: It was a lot of fun and very special but what's hard about that for me is nobody really knows what it actually involves versus what public opinion is. Everybody's like, 'oh, you did beauty pageants' and I'm like 'no, no, no,no'. Being involved with the Tournament of Roses, you become an ambassador for the city. You are responsible for all the philanthropic efforts in Pasadena and the surrounding cities in L.A. county for a year. It was really special for me because I was someone who grew up, especially in high school, being involved with community services and when I went to college I was the philanthropy chair for two years. It's something that's been incredibly important to me.

TeenHollywood: You were In New York for a viewing party for the Oscars. Were you surprised by the outcome?

Sophia: I was so happy. All the films I loved won in one category or another. I just thought it was great. Crash was so incredible and so true and real. It was a really moving film. I was really happy for them.

TeenHollywood: What is the latest with Brooke on "One Tree Hill"?

Sophia: Brooke is doing good. We just had this really intense episode with a shooting in our school. What I really loved about the way that they did it is that it wasn't a Columbine. We didn't want to do something for shock factor or to terrify anybody. What we wanted to really show what can happen to people when we're nasty and don't even think about it. What was so sad about the episode for me was, even though you obviously didn't agree with what he was doing, you felt for Jimmy Edwards so much. It made a lot of people think about the way that they treat other people day to day. And that was really the most important thing for us. When you make fun of somebody or when you are cruel to somebody, it has an impact whether or not you realize it. That was a big one for us.

TeenHollywood: Can you give us a hint on follow-up episodes to that?

Sophia: What's coming is really everyone dealing with the aftermath of that, figuring out how it fits inside of each of us and how people are going to handle it. It's intense and emotional and really special. It's exciting.

TeenHollywood: What band would you love to come and play on the "One Tree Hill" soundtrack?

Sophia: Oooo, that would be a three-way tie between The Daylights, The Fray and The Format. That would be it for me.

TeenHollywood: Tell us why scary movie fans should rush out and see Stay Alive.

Sophia: I feel like so many scary movies that come out are just reproductions of movies people have already seen. This isn't a movie anybody's seen. It's new and different. Just based on our time down there, it's something I'm so proud of because I'm so proud of everyone in this film.

TeenHollywood: We're sorry about your recent personal unhappiness. In the future, what one quality does a guy need to have to win your heart?

Sophia: Just one? That's hard. Be a good, honest person with a great sense of humor. Oh, and guys who don't like dogs need not apply.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.