Earlier, on set, her stand-in was sitting on a L-shaped cream couch in an impressive loft apartment for a lighting test. A screen simulating the tops of Soho buildings was rolled in behind the windows. The director for the episode, Norman Buckley, was reading the Huffington Post on his laptop. He read out loud about Michael Douglas’ son, Cameron, facing life in prison for alleged drug dealing. “Well, that’s enough to ruin your weekend, huh?” said one of the set hands.
Mr. Buckley got his start directing episodes of The O.C. “She was just a girl then. Now, she’s a woman,” he said of Ms. Barton.
Then the star emerged, in a sparkly black skirt, a black T-shirt, tights and boots. She ran her fingers through her hair and bit her fingernails while waiting for the director’s cue. The camera focused on a bouquet of yellow, pink and purple flowers. “Action!” Mr. Buckley yelled.
“Oh, you brought me flowers,” Ms. Barton said to a swarthy actor in a suit.
“I know you’re losing patience …” he replied.
“And you need more time, I know. You’re like a broken record,” she replied. “Claudia and I”—and here she forgot her line—“Oh, I have to look at the shit. I fucked this up before.
Someone whose job it is to keep track of Ms. Barton’s lines helped her out. “I’ve been through a lot with Claudia, too, you know, and now I’ve done this horrible thing to her.” More eye-rolling.
Mr. Buckley yelled cut and then turned to one of his assistants, “Oh, man, she’s got such a great face,” he said. Ms. Barton twisted that face into a sneer for the camera. And then, into a forced, angelic smile.
BEFORE THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE, the actress said she had been in talks with the CW about other shows, like Melrose Place, which premiered Sept. 8 on the network. But Ms. Barton felt that a show about fashion was better suited to her.
“Since I have a lot of friends who are designers and I grew up in the city and I know a lot about fashion, it was something that interested me versus making a show that had already been done and was coming back to television,” she said. (Designer Zac Posen agreed to appear in the premiere; future cameos include Marie Claire fashion director Nina Garcia and designers Mathew Williamson and Erin Fetherston.)
Ms. Barton said she found the troubled and bitchy character of Sonja more relatable than The O.C.’s Marissa Cooper. “Marissa was more of a stretch for me,” she said. “The character was changing so much towards the end that I really didn’t know what to do with her. She was an alcoholic and then she was a drug addict, she was a lesbian, she wasn’t, she was in a love triangle. There was no consistency to who she was, so it was very difficult to play her.”
The show also brings the actress back to New York. Ms. Barton remembered when she first moved out to Los Angeles for The O.C.: “It was life-changing,” she said. “It made me extremely famous, so you can’t complain, but it was complicated. I was the youngest out of the cast, and I had no real guidance. I didn’t know anyone. I come from a British family, and they all have accents and a British sense of humor. It’s very hard to find people in L.A. who kind of get your vibe and dark sense of humor.”
Ziggy Stardust, the Pomeranian mix, rolled up and presented his belly. “Oh, Ziggy, you’re so cute,” the actress cooed.
“I’m glad I finally have a reason to be here,” she said. “Having to continually be in L.A. and take those meetings, I felt stuck. New York is where my friends are. I think that even if the show was to fail after four episodes, I would stay.”
On Saturday, the cast of the show converged at SL, a club in the meatpacking district, for a party. Its 31-year-old executive producer, Mr. Kutcher, arrived with wife Demi Moore on his arm.
Mr. Kutcher, who has explored the meaning of beauty with other shows like Beauty and the Geek and True Beauty, signed on to the project because he found Mr. Giaudrone’s story to be familiar.
“I think for the most part we’re raised to believe that we are uglier and dumber than we are, and then you’re put in this world where you think, ‘Is someone really going to pay me to just stand there?’” Mr. Kutcher told The Observer. He said he’d never actually watched The O.C. “But I remember when all of the sudden this girl was getting a ton of press. There was one character on our show of a girl who had been around the business and was feeling like she was on the edge of falling out. And I remember when she first came on the scene, everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, Mischa Barton!’”
On the red carpet leading to the party, the newbie actors were awkwardly hoping for a little attention. Meanwhile, modeling veteran Molly Sims was blocked from the carpet entirely by a security guard who later got scolded for not knowing who she was. Somewhere in the middle of all this was Ms. Barton, pretty in a floor-length pink gown, her hair swooped to the side. The photographers were losing their vocal cords, screaming, “Mi-scha! Mi-scha!”
She expertly tilted her head this way and then that way, peering over her shoulder with her hand planted firmly on her hip. Then she gave the press a confident smile and disappeared inside.
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