Swoon.
That's all we can say after meeting Rachel Bilson's new bad-boy-neighbor love interest Wilson Bethel on the set of the CW's dramedy Hart of Dixie. He's hot. He's hilarious. And he walked into our interview with a teeny tiny tank top while strumming a guitar. Not that that, um, matters or anything.
Oh, and did we mention he also likes to spill secrets? Including one that he really doesn't want Hart's big boss (and The O.C. creator) Josh Schwartz to know? We'll tell you, but if your name is Josh Schwartz, look away!
"I actually got fired from The O.C." Wilson told me during our sit-down on set for E! News and E! Online. "I actually hoped that Josh Schwartz didn't remember me as the being the guy who on my last day of work showed up to the set six hours late, and the result of which was promptly canned."
That's right. Canned. After one episode. You O.C. fans might remember Wilson as Brad, a one-episode wonder who worked the kissing booth with Summer (Rachel). "I was in the kissing booth. Rachel claims not to remember it, which I find to be a highly dubious claim. The only thing that I can presume is that at the time my shoulder-length flaxen locks had her so bewildered in a state of like love-tizzy that the whole thing just seems like it was a vision from heaven."
(Told ya about the funny.)
So how did things go so wrong so fast?
"It's kind of complicated," Wilson explains, "but it was my first ever job and I didn't know how it worked. I was expecting a call from somebody telling me I had to work that day, when in fact I was supposed to have read the call-sheet, but I didn't know that there was such a thing as a call-sheet. And I also was very poor at the time and was living in this weird subterranean apartment at the time and it was really kind of like a closet and I didn't have cell phone service. So when I finally went outside and stretched that morning from my closet abode, there were like 35 messages from the production team of The O.C. saying you know basically get your ass in here, and when I finally did it was too late. So, my one episode of The O.C. became my only episode of The O.C."
When Wilson auditioned for Hart, he didn't feel it, er, necessary to remind Schwartz of their past connection. "I wasn't trying to bring up any bad memories in anyone's mind, so I was just like ‘Hey! Nice to meet you guys for the first time ever, we've never met before, weird.'"
Rachel's character Zoe Hart is torn between Wilson's character Wade and Scott Porter's George on the new CW series, which airs its second episode tonight. Tough gig, right?
Hmmm…Wonder what Scott will say when he finds out Wilson already smooched the girl before he was even cast? (Cheating!) And what Josh Schwartz will say when he realizes Wilson's sordid O.C. past?
Wilson says with a laugh: "I'm hoping that at this point we're enough into the Hart of Dixie machine moving forward that if this is news to Josh Schwartz, I won't be immediately fired. I'm hoping that my being nice about this now will safeguard me against that. So if he is watching, ‘Please don't fire me, like look how nice we all are!'"
Yeah, from what we hear, Wilson (and the George-Zoe-Wade) is so great in upcoming episodes, he definitely won't be going anywhere. In fact, we're pretty sure he's now our number one fall TV crush. A fact we'll probably remember years from now despite our "state of like love-tizzy."
Hart of Dixie airs tonight at 9 p.m. on the CW.