Austin Nichols admits he was “too old” to be kissing Mary-Kate Olsen in Holiday in the Sun — and “felt wrong” about it at the time.
In an interview on the “Drama Queens” podcast released on Tuesday, April 15, Nichols said that One Tree Hill and Holiday in the Sun shared a “similar” audience. But when it was time for his character’s onscreen kiss with Olsen, things felt a little off.
“I was definitely nervous because Mary-Kate was 15, and I was, I think, 18 or 19, or maybe even 20. I don’t remember, but I was too old,” he explained. “And it felt weird, and it felt wrong.”
He continued, “And I looked very young, so watching the movie, I don’t think you notice. I’m real tall and skinny and nerdy. But I don’t think you can tell there’s a big age difference. But from my brain, I was like, ‘She’s 15. This is weird.’”
The episode isn’t Nichols’ first appearance on the podcast. He stopped by in February 2024 and discussed the fact that the show’s production team hired him – at least in part — because he was dating One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush, one of the hosts of “Drama Queens.”
“I had been through a not-great breakup and had decided I hated men and sweet Austin Nichols came around and brought me on my first date since then,” Bush said at the time.
“When you came to Wilmington I blew a gasket,” she told Nichols on the podcast episode. “I was like, ‘What the f—k is happening? I’ve gone out with three people in a decade and one of them is here. What is happening?’”
She added, “I totally lost my s*** and I remember our bosses being like, ‘Don’t worry, there’s this amazing thing with him and Peyton and you guys will never interact on camera,’ is what they said to me. Cut to our characters got married and had kids and I was like, ‘I was duped but I’m not mad at it.’ They played matchmaker for us in the weirdest way, which I was like, ‘Is that appropriate for your bosses to do?’ But also, it was such a sweet season.”
The pair continued to date until the show ended in 2012 and are on good terms now. “I remember hearing things like that and rumblings like that,” Nichols said in response to Bush’s story. “Probably not just on this show, but on others, but on this show it seemed pointed. There was a lot of mining of your life, for better or for worse.”
