Q 1

PLAYBOY: Playing a beautiful, rich, spoiled, manipulative but lovable vixen on The O.C. made you famous. You grew up not far from Orange County in a show-business family who treated you "sort of like a princess," as you've said. Were you well cast on The O.C.?

Rachel Bilson: I wasn't spoiled. My great-grandfather headed the trailer department at RKO Pictures, and my great- grandmother was a screenwriter. I had a great family, a normal childhood -- nothing too dirty or gritty. I was close to my older brother, who nicknamed me Devil Child. My parents divorced when I was nine, but I was still close to both of them. My mom raised me with the belief that if you really want something, try hard enough, put your energy toward it and go for it wholeheartedly, you can achieve anything.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Your character on The O.C. constantly got into serious messes. What was the worst trouble you got into growing up?

Rachel Bilson: I had some friends my parents didn't necessarily want me to hang around with. Everyone goes through that phase. It was a very mild thing for me. I was involved in a car accident with these people when I was 14. They were just goofing around in the car, a guy grabbed the steering wheel, and we went into oncoming traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway. I was the luckiest one in the group. I had a concussion and blacked out, so I don't remember any of it. My parents, on the other hand, do. I don't have much of a memory now, though, and I think it's because of that accident. Friends will say, "Remember when we were at this or that place?" and I'll have no recollection.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Have you ever been in therapy?

Rachel Bilson: I went to fewer than a handful of therapy sessions as a child, and the one thing I got out of it was that I should play with something like a Koosh ball under my school desk to help me concentrate. The activity helps me focus. If I'm having a chat with somebody by text message or IM, I get the conversation more than if I'm talking to them on the phone. It's weird, but it works. I don't have ADD per se, but I definitely have a hard time paying attention for a long period of time.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Your widely publicized long-term relationship with your O.C. co-star Adam Brody has ended. Has that made you think twice about whether to get romantically involved with a co-star?

Rachel Bilson: You can't help whom you fall for. I believed I would never date an actor or anyone else in the business. But you find you relate to people in the business because you're around them all the time, dealing with the same schedules, traveling all over the place. I haven't seen Adam in a while. We have mutual friends, and I hear he's working on a movie and doing well. We were together every day for four years. It's hard. That person is your best friend, but when the relationship ends you can't be friends with him. It wouldn't be the healthiest situation.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Isn't a breakup with a fellow celebrity tougher because when he starts dating again you can't help seeing him on TV, in magazines and on the web?

Rachel Bilson: It's brutal. You have to try to ignore it. It's not like you're going to gain anything or learn anything from seeing it, right? I try to avoid watching those TV shows or reading that stuff because if they say something mean about you, what's the point? But sometimes you're going to see them no matter how hard you try not to.