Sophia...Chad Who?
Most people know Sophia Bush as Chad Michael Murray's One Tree Hill costar-and now ex. But that's about to change. this year she's starring in two new movies, and she's found strength in family, friends, and herself.
by Kristen Sardis

February 2006 / CosmoGIRL!*
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If you had pulled a young Sophia Bush aside as a teenager during her volleyball practice and told her that by the time she was 23 she would star in a hot TV series, marry her sexy costar, then plan to divorce him five months later, she would have told you that you were crazy! But as Sophia knows all too well, things don't always work out the way you planned. "Life throws some curveballs at you and you go where it takes you," she says. And you can see the resolve in her hazel eyes.

It's this determined attitude that's kind of surprising, since her dime-sized dimples fool you into thinking she's an innocent schoolgirl. But Sophia has always been driven. She was an only child who took extra English classes at her all-girls private school and dreamed of becoming a pediatrician. Acting never even crossed her mind until fate and the curriculum at Westridge School for Girls forced her to perform in school play to fulfill an arts requirement. She fell in love with performing and went on to major in theater at the University of Southern California. She later switched her major to journalism so she could understand the public relations side of being an actor-talk about ambition! In her third year of college, the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister read for the role of Brooke Davis on One Tree Hill. You know how the rest of the script reads from there: On the set, she met and fell in love with her costar Chad Michael Murray, married him in an oceanside ceremony in April 2005, and then, that September, they split up-with tabloids reporting he had cheated on her with Paris Hilton while filming House of Wax in 2004. How does a girl even begin to think about what to do next? Well, if you have to see the guy who broke your heart every single day at work, you gather all your strength and grace and just keep going.

While sharing a huge plate of hummus and veggies, Sophia told CosmoGIRL! how she's charging forward professionally with two new movies this year, Stay Alive and John Tucker Must Die, and how she's slowly piecing her personal life back together. "When I want to cry, I let myself cry," she says in a raspy voice that rivals Demi Moore's. "But it happens less and less as time goes on." You may think you know the whole story, but you only know half of it. Sophia is here to tell you the rest.

in her own words
"In high school, I was always very outgoing and energetic. I took two AP English courses because I loved school so much. I read three books a week! But part of my school's art requirement was to do a play. I was really irritated because I wanted to play volleyball and I had to go and do this play. But there was that moment after the performance when i realized I had gone and been somebody else. I thought, If I could do this for the rest of my life, I am set. It was like love at first sight.

"In my junior year of college I read and auditioned several times for the role of Brooke on One Tree Hill. Then Mark Schwahn, the creator of the show, and other producers came into the room where they had asked me to wait and were like, 'Sophia, this is going to be hard. This didn't go exactly how we expected.' They had these sad faces on. I was like, Oh my god, I didn't get it. After all the reading and calling. I didn't get it. They they said, 'How do you feel about moving to North Carolina?' I was like, 'You guys suck!' I only had 10 days before I had to move to Wilmington to start work on One Tree Hill!

"I love being in North Carolina but it's a struggle being away from home. Even though I'm on this hit show, I still have my best girlfriends who I grew up with and who I went to college with. They would never put up with me if I wasn't just Soph. If I started being stuck-up about what I do they would slap me and say, 'Get over yourself.' I still take the garbage out and clean up dog poop in my backyard. Granted, it's really fun if i can get us into a cool restaurant but we're totally goofy about it. For the most part, we pick up tacos at Baja Fresh and sit at my house and watch movies.

"During the second season of the show, one of my best friends from college, Holly, was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. It turned everyone's world upside down. This was a girl who was a health nut and worked out every day. When the doctors told her she was in remission, everyone was happy-but three months later the cancer came back even stronger and she almost died. I flew home and even though I couldn't see Holly in the hospital, I just had to be home. She's made a full recovery, but when she was sick we realized there were no outlets for someone her age, so we wanted to start a non profit for teenagers and young people with cancer. We want to get people to donate their old iPods so we can update them with the latest, greatest music and give them to sick teens to check out while they're in the hospital. It's going to be great!

"My friends and family are what's getting me through my separation with Chad. They heal me. Every day my friends and I e-mail on our Sidekicks. There are times between takes when I'll be cupping my hands over my face trying not to burst out laughing at their e-mails. They are my insides. I am so lucky to have them. They're not going to let me sit at home and cry for the rest of my life. I mean, give me a break!

"It's tricky at work, but the One Tree Hill cast is great and everybody on the show has been really supportive since Chad and i split. Nobody is taking sides and i don't want them to. It's not easy for me when the person who Brooke is pining over is someone who I am separating from in real life, and some days are more difficult than others. But I would never disrespect Brooke as a character, my integrity as an actor, and the fans of the show by not giving her my fullest ability just because of something going on in my personal life. I have to check my personal problems at the door. If anything, this is an exercise for my acting ability!

"I can't say that there are no hard feeling with Chad. I'm hurt, humiliated, and broken hearted. The rumors suck. But does it shock me how accurate some of them are? Yes. It devastates me now that I have been reduced to a Hollywood statistic-another joke marriage. I never expected to be married more than once. Chad is going to be a great guy for somebody someday. But he is not the person for me and I'm not the person for him, and that's okay.

"Of course I want to know that life is good for him, but i won't sacrifice myself for that. The thing that hurts the most is throwing all my wedding photos away, having wasted a trip down the aisle with my dad. But my parents are amazing. I am so close with both of them. When my mom called me the other night, she said, 'You're elegant and classy, you're handling this like someone who is twice your age, and I'm just so proud you're my kid.' It killed me. It put tears in my eyes.

'Over the last couple of years I've learned that I need to take care of myself. I need me time. This breakup hasn't been easy. But I still believe in love. I want to get married again and have kids and even adopt. As hard as it is to say, I know there is a reason why this is happening and I am not going to let this take away all the good things in my life. Why should I?"

Sophia says...
Let's get one thing straight: Sophia is not related to President Bush! But here are her answers to the other questions you asked about her role models, being famous, and the real loves of her life.

girl power
Who did you look up to when you were growing up? - Pooja, 19, Vancouver, BC
Sophia: When I was a little girl I was obsessed with Oprah. I would beg my mother to be at school when the bell would ring so that I could get home in time to watch The Oprah Winfrey Show. I just loved her. I loved how powerful she was as a woman. She's classy and put together in the way that she can really just open people up. I think she's amazing!

dog days
What is your typical day like? - Lauren, 15, Marblehead, MA
Sophia: It depends on my call time for work. If it's a Monday, I get picked up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. Hair and makeup is done by 7:30 or 8:00 a.m., and we'll probably start shooting once rehearsals are over, so I'll be at work until at least 8 at night. And if I have a 7 a.m. call, that means I'll be at work until 10 at night. If we're doing a lot of comedy, I run around and hang out with the crew and talk to the director. I love to pick the director's brain about why they shoot things the way they do, how things work. If I'm doing really emotional stuff, I pretty much keep to myself. I work a lot, but I bring my dogs to work every day and they stay in my trailer. I have a mastiff, a one-eyed pit bull that I rescued, and a little Pomeranian. The mastiff and the Pomeranian are madly in love-and one weighs 110 pounds and the other weighs 4! When I have my lunch break and between scenes, I walk them around the lot and play. During downtime I spend the day on my Sidekick talking to my friends, and I call my parents, read, listen to my iPod, whatever.

fame game
How has your life changed since you've become a celebrity? - Megan, 16, Sturgis, Sqaskatchewan
Sophia: I work on a TV show so I'm notable for the TV show, but I'm not a celebrity. I don't call myself a celebrity. I'm an actor. I can go to the mall alone. I can put on a hat and my hair in a ponytail and go out in jeans and a T-shirt with no makeup on and people almost don't notice me. So life for me is what it used to be, only now I get to do what I love every day. I get to crawl into somebody else's head, and I love that.

*transcribed by: Nelly