From creepy Cameo requests to reboots: James Lafferty and Stephen Colletti are in on the joke in “Everyone Is Doing Great”

Sarah HearonFri, May 15, 2026 at 2:30 PM UTC

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Stephen Colletti and James Lafferty
Credit: Gary Gershoff/GettyKey Points -

Seasons 1 and 2 of James Lafferty and Stephen Colletti's show Everyone Is Doing Great are now streaming on Netflix.

The actors open up to EW about creating, writing, and starring in the show years after appearing together on One Tree Hill.

“It's similar to One Tree Hill in a weird way that we didn't actually realize."

One Tree Hill alums James Lafferty and Stephen Colletti went on quite the journey to release seasons 1 and 2 of their meta comedy, Everyone Is Doing Great.

“We're like Game of Thrones or Euphoria, you know, we like to really space it out,” Colletti jokes to Entertainment Weekly.

Even the biggest fans of the former CW stars might be confused about the timeline, so let’s break it down. Lafferty and Colletti — along with Alexandra Park and Cariba Heine — shot season 1 in 2018 after a crowdfunding campaign helped secure funding. Three years later, the eight-episode show finally dropped on Hulu after some audiences were able to see footage at various TV festivals. With the feedback in mind, the group shot a second season in 2022, and four years later, it debuted on Netflix.

The streamer has had great success with One Tree Hill, the teen drama in which Lafferty starred on all nine seasons as Nathan Scott, with Colletti joining during season 4 as Chase after his rise to fame on Laguna Beach. But how will OTH fans, who are expecting Nathan and Chase, feel about a raunchier duo — former teen drama stars from a vampire show, Jeremy and Seth, who do drugs and simulate sex with a pillow in an audition?

“That question that you just asked is a question that we had on our minds when we were first embarking on this journey. It was a question that kind of scared us because we are grateful to the fans of One Tree Hill for everything that they've done for — not just being fans of the show, but being so supportive of us and everything else we do, and especially this show,” Lafferty tells EW. “We wanted to be sensitive to that, but also we couldn't because we needed to tell this story. And it turns out we didn't need to be because they are ready for it, and they were ready for it.”

'Everyone Is Doing Great' season 1
Credit: Hulu

Lafferty said the pair started to feel more secure about the concept when fans were able to watch the pilot.

“It was really heartening and surprising because One Tree Hill is a wholesome show, but it's also not — but it’s more wholesome than the first episode of our show,” he continues. “You're dealing with characters that are very, very flawed. The feel's different, the looks different. It's more raw, and it's an uncut version of life. The audience of One Tree Hill really grew up with us, and they were ready for something like this. And to be honest, after showing it to them in person and just seeing how tickled they were and happy about the way it turned out we haven't really worried about that since.”

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While Colletti says fans think it’s “really cool” for their fans to see them in different roles, Lafferty points out that there are more similarities to OTH than what initially appears.

“It's similar to One Tree Hill in a weird way that we didn't actually realize. One Tree Hill had a lot of heart, and I think that's what sets it apart from other shows,” he explains. “I really think that's why we have the audience and the fandom that we do, because the show has so much heart and it's about being there for your friends — and ultimately that's what our show's about as well. We have a very different way of getting there, but we very much feel like our show is all heart.”

Colletti adds, “Themes really do align with One Tree Hill — friendship, it's love, it's loss, it's coming of age. That's a lot of what Everyone Is Doing Great is about. How we get there, just as James said, is a lot different. But both shows have really good music tying it all together, too.”

During season 1 of Everyone Is Doing Great, Lafferty’s Jeremy is nearing rock bottom as he is going through a divorce, out of money, and spending his time high and reliving the glory days of the fictional teen vamp series, Eternal.

“Jeremy is this version of myself that I've always been, like, afraid of,” Lafferty admits to EW. “There are at least little flashes of Jeremy here and there in my life where I'm like, 'I'm scared of that person. I don't wanna be that person.' So to let that person sort of take over and just to really sit and think about, 'What's it like to live in that and what's it like to try to overcome that' is the goal here.”

In season 2, Jeremy is still struggling, but he’s working on his sobriety — and making money to deal with his money issues via Cameo, the video app where fans can pay for personalized videos from their favorite celebrities. In real life, like many former teen drama stars before him, Lafferty has actually been on the app.

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“The idea for Jeremy to be on Cameo made sense because by that time, I had been on Cameo for a year and I had experienced some funny things on the platform itself — the same person just kept booking cameos asking for pictures of my feet without socks on over and over and over,” Lafferty says, revealing that story nearly made it into the show.

Both Lafferty and Colletti note that they are “never trying to mock” their fellow actors amid the lows of life after a hit TV show.

“We're just trying to point to the fact that this is all absurd and we're trying to remind the audience that despite the fact that the characters might be going through some serious things, at the end of the day, this is their own little gilded cage that they've sort of made for themselves — that plays into it a lot,” Lafferty continues. “There's no judgment when it comes to these things. It's a very bizarre way of life and we can laugh at it. We can take a step back and recognize that we are incredibly fortunate to even have options like this. … If I was my neighbor watching me do Cameos in my car wondering what the heck I'm doing, they'd be like, ‘That's hilarious.’”

Colletti’s Seth, meanwhile, is actively still pursuing acting roles on the show — and even tries a hand at stand-up comedy on season 2 for a part, something that still makes Colletti cringe to relive.

"What I really love about Seth is he gets his mind set on something, and he's gonna go about it the way he thinks is the right way to do it," Colletti says. "It reminds me of when you're a kid and talk a lot about this — these guys are having their late coming of age. It's taken them a lot longer to mature and absorb the responsibilities of adulthood. I really love playing him just chasing after what he believes is right or what he wants in that moment to get to his dreams. It's not always a very well thought-out process because he still got some maturing to do. But it's fun to see him go on that journey and see how he gets spit out on the other side."

An underlying storyline on the show is also a potential reboot of Eternal.

Renewed interest in a potential OTH reboot began in 2024 when news broke that Sophia Bush (Brooke Davis) and Hilarie Burton Morgan (Peyton Sawyer) were pursuing a sequel series with Netflix.

"It's almost like our story has been a little crystal ball for how things have developed in real life — the reboot thing is one of them,” Lafferty tells EW. “ We had Jeremy in season 1 really going hard on trying to dust up interest in a reboot, and in season 2, we are very much exploring that as well, and we wanna continue exploring it throughout future seasons of the show. And the interest in a reboot of One Tree Hill has gone wild. It's just gotten completely out of control.”

'One Tree Hill' Season 4
Credit: Fred Norris/THE CW/Courtesy Everett Collection

While Bush’s latest update on the return to Tree Hill in March 2026 wasn’t exactly optimistic, as she referenced Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros., Colletti was able to pull off a reunion of Laguna Beach on the Roku channel earlier this year.

“What's important is listening to the fans and hearing what they gravitate towards or the questions that they want answered and understanding how the show resonated with them,” Colletti says of the Laguna reunion, revealing how it also applies to Everyone Is Doing Great. “We listened to a lot of feedback from fans from season 1 with Everyone Is Doing Great, and we did apply it in season 2. There's some things that we did by complete accident, and there's stuff that was intentionally in there.”

More Eternal and shooting in Wilmington, where OTH was filmed, are two examples of things that they leaned into.

“We love being up there,” Colletti says of the North Carolina town. “The ties to One Tree Hill, people were picking up on that and some of the cast members. Naturally, we have a lot of friends from that show and people we would  love to have on the show.” (Season 2 features OTH alums Bryan Greenberg and Robbie Jones.)

Everyone Is Doing Great is available to stream on Netflix.

on Entertainment Weekly

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