Blake Lively almost never got to wear the magic pants. 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants producer Debra Martin Chase recently detailed the casting process behind the 2005 movie, revealing that Blake’s part of Bridget Vreeland nearly went to someone else.

“We were gonna cast Mischa Barton in the Blake Lively role,” she shared on the Feb. 7 episode of the Hollywood Gold podcast, noting that Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk was also considered to play Alexis Bledel‘s Lena Kaligaris character.

Mischa, however, was pretty busy filming the popular TV series The O.C., which ran from 2003 to 2007. And after production on Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was pushed back in favor of Hilary Duff‘s iconic 2004 rom-com A Cinderella Story, the crew had to recast many of the roles due to scheduling issues.

“We started all over,” Debra explained, sharing that Kaley Cuoco and Alexa [PenaVega] were considered, while [Olivia Wilde] was on “the shortlist.”

As she noted, “We saw everybody.”