Warning:
moderate spoilers
Last
fall, when One
Tree Hill creator Mark Schwahn introduced the teenage
children of the new Latino family on the block early into the
second season of the WB teen drama, neither of the new teenagers
were very popular with viewers. Teen
ladies-man Felix (Michael Capon) immediately made a move on
Brooke (Sophia Bush), and his beautiful but insecure sister
Anna (Daniella Alonso) hit it off with the show's heartthrob
Lucas (Chad Michael Murray), jeopardizing the possibility for
romance between Lucas and either of the show's two popular female
leads, Brooke and Peyton (Hilarie Burton).
"We introduced Anna as a romantic interest for Lucas,"
explains Schwahn in an interview with AfterEllen.com, "and
the audience was sort of offended, because half the girls were
rooting for Lucas and Brooke, others for Lucas and Peyton, and
the rest for Lucas and themselves." Schwahn believes now
that may have been a tactical error. "Viewers met Anna
the same way they met [evil teen] Nicki, and she was such a
villain that they sort-of equated that energy with Anna. That’s
my fault."
But
Anna's popularity with viewers improved as her potential romantic
relationship with Lucas turned to friendship, and viewers learned
the real reason Anna's family moved to Tree Hill: widespread
rumors about her relationship with another girl.
Anna's
storyline on One Tree Hill really didn't pick
up until late November ("Don't Take Me For Granted"),
when rumors that popular teen-artist-in-residence Peyton was
gay began circulating through their high school. Although she's
straight, Peyton refused to be cowed, even when someone scrawled
"Dyke" on her locker, and she defiantly wore a t-shirt
sporting the epithet to school the next day until the Principal
forced her to remove the shirt. While Anna valued her friendship
with Peyton, she began avoiding her because the rumors about
Peyton were all too reminiscent of the rumors about Anna at
her last school.
Only
in Anna's case, the rumors were true.
Later
(January 25th's "The Heart Brings You Back"), Anna
comes to her senses and apologizes to Peyton for not standing
by her. Then Anna goes one step further: she kisses a surprised
Peyton, who gently stops her by saying "that's not really
my thing." Anna is mortified, but eventually patches things
up with Peyton, admits the truth about the rumors at her old
school to a supportive Lucas, and comes out to another friend.
But
Anna's biggest challenge now lies ahead: coming out to her family,
and dealing with the possibility of a rekindled romance with
the girl she left behind when her family moved. "I think
viewers are really going to love Anna in the next couple episodes,"
Schwahn enthuses.
Although
Schwahn knew Anna was going to be bisexual before he cast her,
he hadn't specifically written her as Latina. "It was an
open casting call," he says. "I didn’t specific
race or ethnicity, and once we met Daniella, I though 'she’s
terrific, and this is a great opportunity to write this Latino
family into the show.'"
Alonso
was excited about joining the cast, and playing such a three-dimensional
Latina character. "At many of the auditions I've been on
in the past," Alonso tells AfterEllen.com, "they would
hire a brunette white girl with brown eyes to play the Spanish
girl. So I was really excited when the WB cast actual Latinos
in the role. And I was happy they didn’t make us come
from the type of stereotypical Latino family you usually see
on TV."
The
characters of Anna and her brother Felix are still the only
people of color on the show. "The show is very white,"
Schwahn admits, "and I wish that wasn’t the case,
but it fit the architecture of who Lucas was, and by extension,
who his brother would be, and his mother would be, etc."
After
he cast Alonso as Anna, Schwahn didn't immediately
let her in on Anna's secret, something which he says taught
him a lesson about the importance of giving actors enough information.
"When I didn’t give Daniella the information [about
Anna's sexuality]," he reflects, "she was struggling
to figure out who Anna was, and why someone who seemed like
such a relatively put-together girl would flee from simple rumors.
She was ill-equipped to play the character I asked her to play
because she didn’t have the information I had."
Alonso
admits she had a tough time initially trying to conceptualize
what Anna was running from. "I thought maybe she did something
high-school silly," says Alonso, "something that could
be solved in an episode. But then slowly, as I did the first
few episodes, I noticed they were saying things in the script—making
jokes, or comment here or there. Like the episode where I said
‘Don’t be so gay, Peyton.’ And I was like
‘What? What’s going on here?'"
Alonso
pestered the producers on the set, but they would just smile
and tell her "you'll find out."
