Rob Buckley has been having quite the eclectic experience as Clay on One Tree Hill. He's had his ups and downs as the agent and best friend to Nathan, planned on 'falling insanely in love with Quinn', and has even had his ghostly moments! Buckley recently discussed with me everything this new role has given him along with the friendships he's formed, and what's ahead for Clay!
How has the season being going so far for you?
Rob-It's gone really well in terms of you know looking at it from where I was about six months ago, before I joined the show, because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Definitely nervous about joining a show that was already six years into it's stride and success. And now it's great. Everyone gets along. I'm having a good time and the fans seem to still enjoy it so I'd say things are going pretty well.
What most appealed to you about Clay at first?
Rob-The version of Clay that I sort of had access to during the audition process wasn't fully fletched out. Mark Schwahn and the writers didn't overly define him. They sort of let it be a character that we could kind of figure out once I stepped into the role and we did it. But I mean his core values were there and I liked that he had this interesting dichotomy of being a play boy and enjoying his youth so to speak, but then we also saw shades of a much deeper character. It was a tough character to pit the hole I guess.
A deep side we saw of Clay was in the episode “I, and Love, and you”, when it was revealed how Sarah died. How was that whole experience like for you, acting with someone who had to be a 'ghost'?
Rob-That episode, that may have been in terms of really getting to do some really serious acting and something greatly different from what I had done previously, it was one of the most challenging and enjoyable episodes I had ever done on any show. It was something I didn't have personal experience with, cause a lot of times as an actor you can just take stuff from real life a lot of times and go off that, in this case I didn't have that so it was a challenge. I wanted to make it be as real and as honest and sincere as possible but at the same token I didn't have any real experience like that to fall upon so I did a lot of homework, you know watching good movies and good actors and seeing what they did. But I liked it because it gave me an opportunity to sort of flex a different muscle and try something new and I was really happy with the way it turned out.
It did turn out very well, very moving performances.
Rob-Thank you. Probably the nicest compliment that I got after that episode was my mom, she texted me that night and I wake up to a text that was like “Holy crap, you just made me cry for an hour!” It sounds like a very odd thing to say like you enjoy making your mother cry but it was nice. It was like okay good if it wasn't something that people bought into and cared about it's not something that I would talk of or being emotionally affected by.
It was a tricky episode in that we had to play two things at the same time in that I know that obviously she's not real so there were certain rules we had to set you know. I remember when Mark Schwahn originally told us about the idea, he was like 'don't tell anyone else, I don't even know if I'm going to tell the director that's shooting it' which ended up being James Lafferty, who did a bang up job on it, just did so great. We had to establish rules you know like can Clay touch her, can they have contact? It's funny. You have to play it two ways at once so that the audience buys that she's some woman from his life, there's that thing you know ghostly about it. However once the reveal happens you have to go back and look at it and see oh that actually does work, kind of like The Sixth Sense where you see all the scenes later and you go oh that's why that happened. It was just tricky because we'd be doing a take and then half way through I'd be like oh wait we gotta reset I'm holding her hand that's no good. So it was a little more tricky than usual but it was blast. And Amanda Schull is fantastic.
What can you say about Clay and Quinn and their future?
Rob-Quinn is the perfect match up for Clay in that you know she pretty much from day one consistently called him out on his B.S. And was not
charmed by the usual tactics and little things that Clay does. She became pretty much the only real sounding voice that Clay had. And that's when the relationship really started. And him with her when she started going through the real struggles with her broken marriage. And we've watched it grow into something more with them. And I like that relationship in the same way that I enjoy the Clay & Nathan dynamic. And that's another reason why I enjoy this character. I love the notion of mixing friends and money, mixing friends and business, because as many people say it's generally not a good idea as it can mess up friendship as we've seen obviously in the show so far with Nathan and Clay. And what I like about Clay and Quinn is that you run the same risk in that here is his one friend that he's open and honest with and can you know let his guard down in front of and they're chancing it. But I like that they made the choice to go forward and I like that now we get to see what if anything is going to come out of it.
What has the dynamic been like with Shantel VanSanten? You two work the most together.
Rob-It's been a blast. I'm really glad that the person I was paired up with was also a newcomer because immediately from the get go you sort of have a partner in crime, someone who's going through the same thing you are in terms of brand being new to the show, being brand new to the town and having to learn everything from scratch and we get along like two peas in a pot so it was a huge relief to have her here. You know it's funny...in a lot of ways mirroring kind of the show in that while I've made friends with the cast and grown close with them pretty much from the first week Shantel and I really clicked and bonded. She was the one person that was my go to here in Wilmington, so it was actually a very natural easy transition to play that on the screen you know that genuinely good friendship and respect and appreciation.
Your other main co-star is James Lafferty, what has that dynamic been like? He spoke very highly of you during our interview.
Rob- He's great. I know everyone always says that about the people they work with but you know with James and Shantel, I've gotten to spend the most time with them on screen and off, I've been fortunate in that you know you hear people sort of coming on to new shows and some people don't get along. There's nothing harder than having to play the love interest or the best friend to someone that you're not fond of and I think that I got very very lucky in that I get along very well with James and Shantel, so that makes the work so much easier and like you said, usually when people seem to be having fun and it seems to be organic on screen, they are usually two people who get along well in real life.
Who would you like to see Clay interact with that he hasn't already?
Rob-Julian would be a fun one because I think that Clay and Julian would get along and then Clay could have two guy bffs in Tree Hill. His whole male friend circle would double. That'd be fantastic.
And Julian is a movie producer and you're an agent, you're both in the media business world, I can see you getting along!
Rob- Yeah, and people talked about how the show has changed, how it used to be about this group of kids and now it's become much bigger, but that's real life though. I look at my group of close friends and we were just like these people on Tree Hill, regular high schoolers, and granted we didn't get four years in the future and bypass college, but you know now everyone's doing different things. Some people are doing things that are flashy and some are doing things that are more low-key. I think this group's a bit exceptional in that I think there are a lot of people with very high-profile jobs within this small group of friends but at the same time I think that's all part of the fun of it. It's fun to watch because it's the novelty of getting to peak inside a different world.
What would you like to see happen with Clay by the end of the season
Rob- You know right now we see he got his new agency, he got his friend Nathan back, he got his client Nathan back, he's with Quinn. He's kind of on top of everything and as much as I'm protective of the character and want the best for him, I mean first of all as we've seen on One Tree Hill good things don't go untested for very long. But also it's more fun to watch someone struggle and to have overcome obstacles. It's more interesting as an actor to be overcoming obstacles or to be struggling and to watch someone be imperfect and so I think with Clay ideally I would say just keep it interesting..by keeping it messy. The guy doesn't have the best streak in Tree Hill, let's be honest he has a very rough go of it. I think given what I've been able to get out of the writers I don't think Clay's out of the woods yet so I think we're all on the same page. But the stuff that I enjoy doing the most and the stuff that I imagine has been the most interesting to the fans is when you watch the highs and the lows. There's very few successful shows I should say where everyone's just doing great without any sort of conflict arising. Conflict is essential to it. I think it would be a fast track to becoming a very boring character if every time we checked in with Clay he was just on top of the world, doing fantastic, and everything was working out for him.
Everyone on One Tree Hill gets this question from me; if you could go back in time and spend a day in the life of anyone from history, who would it be and why?
Rob- You know what I'd have to actually go with my dad because hands down my dad has had more interesting and fascinating life experiences then both my brother and I combined. I mean there's no way I could ever match what he's done or fill his shoes, so I think I would like to spend a day back as my dad back when he was in his 20's or 30's and just see what his day was like. I've always known my dad to be a hip guy but judging by the stories he's telling.... he's certainly done and seen a lot and certainly it would be interesting to get a chance to see that. I think it also might help me learn a lot more about myself. And then I could come back and I can tell my dad hey I lived a day as you so check it out here are all these bad qualities I have that I actually got from you. They're not on me they were yours, your fault.(laughs)
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