According to Mischa Barton, she and co-star Ben McKenzie, who portrayed teenage lovers on the Fox drama series, were lovebirds in real life — with a significant age difference. The actress spilled the beans on their secret offscreen romance in an interview for the latest episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “I went into that a virgin, a kid, really feeling like I needed to grow up quickly,” Barton, now 38, recalled. “Acting with people older than me was a bit like, Oh wow. They know what they’re doing. And there’s gonna be relationships on this show and you’re gonna need to play that part, and I didn’t feel really ready for that ‘cause I was always a really late bloomer in school and I hadn’t really dated.” At the age of 17, the British American beauty was the youngest cast member when she took on the starring role of Marissa Cooper, and admitted she “felt like [she] needed to catch up.” McKenzie, who was 25 at the time, played Marissa’s romantic interest Ryan Atwood. But according to Barton, their romance wasn’t “just onscreen” of the teen drama. Describing their offscreen relationship as “complicated,” Barton admitted McKenzie, now 45, was her “first” and she “had no idea what [she] was doing.” “I think that kind of set things off on the wrong foot, too,” she continued. “You know people hook up on these shows and whatever, these things happen, but … we threw ourselves all into it very fast.”