One Tree Hill's Paul Johansson Reflects on Struggle With Depression While Portraying Dan Scott

Paul Johansson didn't wanna be in the Dan Scott mindset too often.

The One Tree Hill star opened up about playing the show's villain, sharing the toll it took on him in real life. 

"It was awful," Paul said of his mental health during filming on the Dec. 19 episode of Trying to Figure It Out With Ally Petitti. "I was, I've never spoken about this before, I was deeply depressed and I was drinking. I was drinking a couple bottles of wine a night by myself. For about six or seven years, it was really tough."

And a lot of the struggles stemmed from how he was perceived due to the evil character he played on TV.

"It was just a time when I think I was absorbing the energy of the people that were looking at me and seeing me and seeing me as something that's bad," he explained. "To get out of it, the way to do it was the show had to end for me. I needed to get out and to get other characters and feel other things, but then I was getting bad guy roles again because of that show. It put me in a box."

And when podcast host Ally Petitti asked whether he was offered any support from his One Tree Hill bosses, Paul said, "It's a really, really simple question. Never, nothing, zero."

E! News has reached out to producers for One Tree Hill and The CW for comment but has not yet heard back. 

Other OTH alum have preciously spoken to the poor treatment they allegedly received on set while the show was filming between 2003 and 2012.

In fact, its three female leads Sophia Bush, Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz not only rewatch each series for their Drama Queens podcast, but they also reflect on their experiences on the show. The difficulties they faced on set were part of why they created the podcast in 2021.

"For us, this was really about reclaiming our show," Sophia said of the podcast in a January 2022 interview on CBS Mornings. "It was about taking all of the joy and the power back and taking out the trash."

The Chicago PD alum continued, "You have these great memories, but you also have some things you went through that were less than ideal. But I think you know, so many people, not just in our industry, but many industries—you've heard so many people talk about the toxic work culture, and it's a strange thing when you have kind of the good and the bad wrapped up in the thing that launched your career."

But despite dealing with hardships on set, much of the cast took one special thing away from their time on the show—each other. And many alum reunited in November to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. 

"Got to hang out with some great humans this weekend," Austin Nichols, who played Julian Baker on the drama, wrote on Instagram after the reunion. "Old friends. Old stories. Lots of laughs. And made a bunch of new friends. Thank you to everyone who made this happen!" 

And for more pictures from the epic reunion, keep reading.