Those one-liners are essential to Brody's Everyman appeal; a day after his ambush on the links, more than a few crew members at the Manhattan Beach soundstages are strategically throwing around names like ''Tom Hanks!'' and ''Bosom Buddies!'' so that just the right people will hear. Funny, then, that Fox was resistant to the Seth character. ''They were working off their 90210 paradigm,'' says Schwartz. ''They wanted their Jason Priestley.'' To placate the network, Schwartz made Seth more outgoing and has ''started to write this character in ways that allow Adam to put some of what we call his 'sauce' into the dialogue.''
If his mocking quips endeared him to fans, it was Bilson's dead-on delivery of an ageless put-down -- ''Ew!'' -- that made her a crucial part of the drama. Does she realize that she's on the short list of TV characters with their own catchphrase? ''Yeah, ew! I do,'' responds a self-effacing Bilson. Exec producer Doug Liman attempts a psychoanalysis of the character's sadomasochistic charm: ''We all fall in love with the Summers. They're mean to us and we can't get enough of it. [Bilson] makes us love her all over again. And Jesus, didn't we learn our lesson the first time?'' A few minutes in Bilson's presence and you realize why so many of us never do: She's brazen (Calvin Klein undies peek over her Seven jeans). She's adorable (a Hello Kitty bandage wraps her thumb). She's an honest-to-God Valley Girl who isn't above admitting addictions to ''Taco Bell and shopping.'' Already, she's learning the perils of playing a diva: ''It's so wrong when people start to print things about you that are untrue. A magazine was going to publish a lie that I was rude to a photographer. I cried! I was really upset. They wanted me to be a bitch.''
Barton, it seems, is expected to exude the same girl-next-door innocence that drives her on-screen alter ego; in some ways, she doesn't have to work hard. At 17, she's without a driver's license, and she lives near the beach with her mother, who frequently serves as her personal chauffeur. But she also began in the business at age 8, on the New York stage. She's worked steadily since, in movies like The Sixth Sense and Notting Hill and on TV's Once and Again. No wonder she's careful to guard her ever-waning privacy. ''I'm just going to stay quiet. I don't even want you to be able to read my face. I'm reading articles and people are picking out moments and noting precisely when I laugh...and I'm like, 'Uh-oh.'''
''She's just such an elegant young lady,'' says exec producer McG, who met Barton when she guest-starred on his previous TV foray, Fastlane. ''Her poise supersedes her years.'' Her new role as a Neutrogena spokesgirl and her appearance as the latest Iglesias Girl (she writhes opposite Enrique in his video ''Addicted'') haven't hurt either.
McKenzie has a different take on fame's fortunes -- after all, he's quick to remind that it took ''a year and six days'' living as a wannabe actor in L.A. before he landed The O.C. A Texas native who spent his teen years playing football, he didn't develop a passion for acting until he'd left home for the University of Virginia, where he was a foreign-affairs/economics major.
