'The O.C.' star Rachel Bilson apologizes to Tate Donovan for being a 'little a--hole' on the set of the show

• In an episode of her podcast about "The O.C.," Rachel Bilson apologized to guest Tate Donovan.
• In 2013 Donovan said "the kids on the show had developed a really bad attitude" by season three.
• The two actors cleared the air, commiserating over how they both started in Hollywood at a young age.

"The O.C." stars Rachel Bilson (who played Summer Roberts) and Melinda Clarke (Julie Cooper) invited their ex-costar Tate Donovan onto their weekly podcast about the hit Fox drama, and the episode began with a pointed apology.

After Donovan (who both starred in "The O.C." as Jimmy Cooper and then later directed an episode of the show) told a story about how he once blew off a "Magnum P.I." reunion event, Bilson said she wanted to apologize for how she behaved while filming the Fox drama with Donovan.

"That actually brings something pretty poignant up for me, because you went on to direct us on 'The O.C.' and I know some of us kids were little a--holes," Bilson said during the opening minutes of her podcast. "And I think that speaks to that whole unaware, young, youthful, ignorant ... just idiots. And I hope I wasn't as bad as it's come off."

"Yeah you can't help but believe all that hype," Donovan said. "Everyone gets caught up in, especially when you're young."

"I thought you were so wonderful and such a wonderful director and an amazing human," Bilson replied. "So if I ever added to any of the a--holeness, I want to apologize on the record here right now."

"You were a total sweetheart to work with," he replied.

Clarke chimed in and said Donovan used to call them (referring to the younger cast members) "knuckleheads."

As US Magazine pointed out in a report about Tuesday's episode of the "Welcome to the O.C., B------" podcast, Donovan once spoke candidly with Vulture about the "very difficult" behavior of the younger stars of "The O.C." By the time he directed his first-ever TV episode, "The Game Plan" in season three of "The O.C.," Bilson and her younger costars were all in their late teens or early 20s.

"By the time I started to direct, the kids on the show had developed a really bad attitude," Donovan told Vulture in a 2013 interview. "They just didn't want to be doing the show anymore. It was pretty tough; they were very tough to work with."

He continued: "The adults were all fantastic, total pros. But you know how it is with young actors - and I know because I was one of them once. When you achieve a certain amount of success, you want to be doing something else."

Just last week, Mischa Barton (who played Donovan's daughter in the show, Marissa Cooper) opened up to E! News about struggles she had on the set of "The O.C." with bullying. By the time season three rolled around, Barton says she "didn't feel [she] could keep going" as a star of show. Her character was killed off in the season three finale.

Bilson, now 39 years old, is cohosting the weekly "Welcome to the O.C., B------" podcast with Clarke. You can listen to their full episode with Donovan here.