5 things we learned from the 'Laguna Beach' cast reunion
Let's go back...Back to the beginning...Literally.
The cast of "Laguna Beach" reunited in a video that had them "Coming Clean" — sorry, we had to — almost 15 years since the MTV show ended.
Kristin Cavallari, Lauren Conrad, Stephen Colletti, Trey Phillips, Dieter Schmitz, Lo Bosworth, Loren Polster, Talan Torriero, Morgan Smith and Christina Sinclair all joined the video conference, which was posted on Friday.
"I feel like the last time we all might have been in the same room was when we were going to the VMAs one time," Colletti, now 34, explained.
He added that MTV had told them their show was launching and given them 45 minutes of “media training" at the time.
“Go have fun and then this show is going to air on MTV,” he recalled being told. “Good luck!”
Their conversations — held in partnership with #GoodToVote and HeadCount to promote voter registration — were hilariously different from what they would’ve been in their high school days.
They chatted about kids and work instead of parties and drama. Many of the cast members decided to use the classic red solo cups that they so often used in the reality show when it aired 2004-2006.
Here are five other highlights from the 30 minutes of footage posted to Colletti’s Instagram account.
1. Colletti “almost died” on Catalina Island
The cast remembered one of the episodes (season one, episode eight, specifically) where some of them had gone to Catalina Island off the coast of Orange County, California. Colletti said he had “almost died” climbing up a cliff to jump off while kayaking.
“For about five to 10 minutes I was stuck in this one spot and everyone was just yelling at me, like ‘Go! What are you doing?!’” he chuckled. “There was a moment there that was pretty hairy.”
2. They filmed out of order all the time
Amid fan speculation that some of the scenes from the aforementioned episode weren’t filmed on Catalina, Cavallari said that was likely.
“Probably, because were did a lot of pickup scenes where it was definitely out of order,” she explained. “Like prom just happened and (the producers) would be like, ‘Now pretend prom is about to happen,’ and you’d be like, ‘I’m so confused.’”
3. The cast had no idea what reality TV was like
Sinclair explained they didn’t understand the pickup scenes because reality TV was still in its early days when they starred in the show.
“Reality TV was not really a thing before ‘Laguna Beach' so — I don’t know about you guys but — I thought it was going to be like a ‘True Life’,” she explained. “Like, that was the extent of reality TV then. We were all just kind of like ‘OK, I don’t really get it but let’s do it.’”
Cavallari remembered one scene where they had her walk down a street and look at a producer, who was giving her dirty looks. She explained that naturally she “was like ‘Oh my god!’" and reacted to the producer’s expressions.
“And of course they made it seem like I was looking at Lauren,” she said, exasperated.
4. They usually only filmed Friday through Sunday every other week
The cast actually only filmed every other weekend, they explained, adding the producers had an idea of what they needed to shoot and they'd plan it out for them.
“Of course we’re all friends but we also had other friend groups…it was almost like a job. “Like I’ll hang out with you on Friday,’” Phillips chuckled.
5. Bosworth thinks she and Conrad were cast because they ditched class in front of a producer
Most of the school auditioned, Cavallari said, but definitely not everyone made it to the show. Before the final decision was made, Bosworth and Conrad apparently tried to ditch class and made quite an impression.
“We were ditching school and we were getting into one of our cars and it was parked right in front of the office,” she said, adding the car alarm started going off as they tried to make their escape. “(The producer) happened to be walking by at that exact time and I think that’s the minute we were cast on the show.”
“That’s the secret!” Conrad laughed.
