James Lafferty Says He Had a Reality Check After 'One Tree Hill' Ended

James Lafferty is opening up about what life was like for him after the end of One Tree Hill.

Speaking to US Weekly, the 35-year-old actor revealed that after he returned from North Carolina where the show was filmed to Los Angeles, he was hit with reality.

“I can relate to where [my character] Jeremy is in our show from my own experience, just coming off of One Tree Hill and just being so young on that show, and I guess, naïve,” James says while talking of his new show, Everyone Is Doing Great, with Stephen Colletti.

He adds that he “thought that when that show ended, things would be pretty easy for me, that it would be easy to work again in television. Coming out of One Tree Hill, I think it was a real reality check. It was a real wake-up call as to how incredibly competitive it is out there.”

“I probably should have been doing a lot more work earlier in my career while I was doing One Tree Hill [in Wilmington, North Carolina] to build a foundation for myself back in Los Angeles.”

James says that reality hit him hard, saying it was a “slap in the face”.

“I just remember being sort of slapped in the face with that for a few years there and realizing that this is going to be much tougher than I ever gave it credit,” he shared.

Everyone Is Doing Great was recently picked up by Hulu. See how James and Stephen celebrated here…