Chad Michael Murray might have achieved teen heartthrob standing early in his profession, however there was a second he was able to stroll away.
In a dialog with Interview printed Wednesday, the Merry Gentlemen star mirrored on being on the heart of mega fandom after starring on One Tree Hill for seven seasons, in addition to movies akin to A Cinderella Story and Freaky Friday. At the time, Murray not solely skilled stardom but in addition tried to navigate it whereas rising up, which just about felt like an excessive amount of.
“There was a second the place I used to be quitting. I used to be completed. I simply couldn’t do it anymore,” he mentioned. “It was proper after I left One Tree Hill, and it wasn’t due to the fandom. It was as a result of, whenever you’re 18 to 25, these formidable years the place you’re actually chopping your tooth on life experiences and your mind isn’t totally developed, you make errors. I imply, gosh, we nonetheless screw up after we’re grown-ups. But I believe it’s onerous for me to see previous these moments whenever you’re not grownup sufficient to know the situations that you simply’re in.”
He recalled it being “onerous” for him given “there are such a lot of eyeballs on you. And you go to the grocery retailer and somebody factors at you, ‘Oh, that’s the man that’s on the tabloid, or that’s the man that did this.’ Even in the event that they’re not speaking about that, generally your head goes to a adverse place, and I do know mine actually did. And so I simply made a giant pivot at that time in my life and mentioned, ‘You know what? This is just not what I would like.’”
Murray cited his general purpose as simply being “an excellent father” and “nice husband.” “I really like being an actor, however on the finish of the day, the actual grassroots factor for me was being a household man. I needed to discover the precise companion for that. And I needed to undergo the precise experiences and the mistaken experiences to get there,” he defined.
When trying again, Murray mentioned he “didn’t perceive the facility that the trade can have, the respect that it’s essential to give it and provides everybody and each second.” He added, “So I took numerous time to reassess all of it. It took years of speaking to individuals a lot smarter than me to get the place I needed to go.”
Nowadays, Murray continues to take satisfaction within the nostalgia of his previous work. He mentioned whereas filming Netflix’s The Merry Gentlemen he got here house to search out his spouse and youngsters watching A Cinderella Story, “watching little Chad, like, ‘Hey, there’s Dad.’” However, Murray quipped that it’s weird given his 9-year-old son “is nearer in age to Austin Ames” than he’s now. “And it’s bizarre to see him look a lot like him. I do know that sounds loopy. So these are the experiences that I’m going by,” he mentioned.
As for his different teen hit, Murray is hopeful to “be a fly on the wall, sneak right into a theater, and see individuals’s reactions” to Freakier Friday, during which he’s reprising his function as Jake alongside Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis within the sequel to the 2003 movie.
Murray described reuniting on set with everybody as “a highschool reunion.” He defined, “Here we’re 22, 23 years later, and the group is unbelievable. Nisha [Ganatra], our director, was only a ball of vitality, and our new castmembers had been simply superior. Then there’s Jamie, the consummate skilled, queen, and chief that she is. And after all, the unbelievable expertise that’s Lindsay Lohan.”
As for returning for the reported One Tree Hill sequel collection, Murray has admitted he doesn’t plan to be part of it presently. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times Murray mentioned of he and his OTH co-star James Lafferty, “We’re not doing it as a result of nobody’s ever picked up the telephone and mentioned, ‘Hey, we’re doing this,’ so we’re not doing it.”
Despite having an extended profession up to now and at present starring in Netflix’s The Merry Gentlemen and the CW’s Sullivan’s Crossing, Murray is eager for future tasks and looks like he’s simply “getting began.”
“So I’d say that your entire world of cinema is my oyster,” he mentioned. “I’m open to essentially stretching my wings, and having some enjoyable, and simply taking some probabilities. Sometimes I’m going to fall flat on my face and different occasions we’re going to make issues that basically contact you emotionally. I’m simply enthusiastic about that journey. It’s all only a studying alternative for me.”
