Let’s be honest: We’re crazy jealous of Hilarie Burton. First of all, not only did she have mad skills in her own cheer years—all nine of ’em—but she gets to put on a uniform again as unlikely cheerleader Peyton Sawyer on The WB’s “One Tree Hill.” We won’t even mention the fact that she gets to smooch hotties like James Lafferty and Chad Michael Murray (OK, so we just did), let alone that she rocks the red carpet and the “TRL” studio as an MTV VJ. We already know what you’re thinking: It’s so not fair! But when you meet the girl, you instantly want to be her new best friend. We figured this out about two seconds after she bustled into our early-early morning photo shoot, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and totally psyched to chat about cheer.

Art Imitates Life
Just like Peyton, Hilarie’s whip-smart, a little sassy and a lot more than meets the eye. “I was Peyton Sawyer,” she says. In fact, 21-year-old Hilarie actually had no intention of going for a TV show, but when she read the script for “One Tree Hill,” it hit way too close to home to pass up. “My first year in high school I really wanted to be the all-American cheerleader,” she says. “But as I got older, I started to get more and more into other things, too. I got really into music and started to go see art films. I wore guys’ pants and shopped at thrift stores. Nobody could understand why I cheered.”

Her on-screen persona is just as complicated. “Peyton cheers, she’s got her art and she’s really into punk music,” explains Hilarie. “She’s into lots of different things, and she doesn’t fit into just one place. I was torn, just like Peyton is. That’s part of the reason I took the show, because I was like, holy cow, this was me in high school.”

“There’s always stereotypes in high school. People get put into groups,” she says. “You’re a jock, you’re a cheerleader, you’re a freak, you’re in the drama department. I had a lot of trouble fitting into those groups when I was in high school because I wanted to be a part of all of them. I think that’s how a lot of people are. Some people have the nerve to go ahead and branch out and be a part of everything and some people don’t. I think on our show we have people who are multidimensional and who like more than one thing. People do like more than one thing. It’s nice that [‘One Tree Hill’] shows that.”

Once A Cheerleader, Always A Cheerleader
When Hilarie scored her role on “One Tree Hill,” she immediately called her two best friends Ashley and Sarah, whom she’d cheered with back in the day. So how did they react when they found out she was going to pick her poms back up? “They were so stoked,” she says. “At some point I’ve got to get them on [‘One Tree Hill’] as cheerleaders because we used to have the best time cheering together.”

In fact, the three girls took charge of Virginia’s Park View HS Patriots their senior year after two years as the youngest on the varsity team. “We wanted to be a really positive squad,” she remembers. “We took care of our girls, and we set expectations for them. Everybody worked together, and it was amazing. We worked our crowd and they would go crazy. I really got into the theatrics of it.” The team started to attract some major attention, and was even written up by the Washington Post.

Hilarie’s team was all about cheering outside the box. “[At games,] we were more about interacting with the crowd than just doing the cheers that we’d rehearsed. That’s not what it’s about. You’re supposed to get the crowd to yell for the boys so they can feel it,” she says. “On my senior year competition squad, we concentrated more on being innovative and working the crowd, as opposed to who we could put up the highest.”

Hilarie was also responsible for the rockin’ pep rallies at PVHS. Hilarie combined her two favorite activities—drama and cheer—to pull off rallies complete with fog machines, music, props and skits. “It was cool because the drama kids who didn’t necessarily care about pep rallies were into it, and the football players and cheerleaders were really appreciative,” Hilarie remembers. “It was nice to bring my two worlds together. I was really proud of that.”

Hilarie and James Lafferty (Nathan) on “One Tree Hill.”

Hands-On Help
If Hilarie looks at home in Peyton’s Ravens uniform, it’s no surprise. This girl’s been cheering since she was in fourth grade. She even taught the show’s extras a thing or two about how it’s done. “When we shot the pilot, we were using a real high school cheerleading squad,” Hilarie remembers. “I had to go to their practice to learn their cheers. When I got there, they were like, ‘We don’t know what to do.’ I’m like, ‘Well how ’bout this one?’ I started teaching these high school girls the cheers I used to do, and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we can use that for competition!’”

The Do-It-All Gal
After graduating from PVHS, Hilarie headed to the Big Apple. “It was absolutely no surprise to me at all when she landed the MTV spot,” says Jan Develli, Hilarie’s cheer coach at PVHS. “That was her dream forever—to go to New York and make it.” Just two short weeks after arriving, she got her big break. As a freshman at Fordham University, Hilarie and a friend were spotted on campus and recruited by an MTV rep to be audience members on “TRL.” When she arrived on set, she was plucked out of the crowd to participate in a contest where she had 30 seconds to interview Carson Daly. She was a shoo-in, and her prize was the opportunity to do the red carpet interviews at the 2000 Video Music Awards. “I was supposed to have written questions for all these people, and I kind of winged it,” she says. “The next day I had to go to ‘TRL’ to recap and Carson was giving me a hard time because Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera blew me off. I looked at him and go, ‘Who cares? They didn’t win anything anyway.’” MTV fell for her in-your-face attitude, and she was pretty much hired on the spot to be “Carson’s little buddy,” she says. “I was the chick out in Times Square.” Four years later, she’s become MTV’s star, hosting ‘TRL,’ tons of specials and her own show, “Hits.”

Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie as Lucas and Peyton on “One Tree Hill.”

Although she’s used to balancing a crazy schedule—Hilarie was going to school full-time in the honors program her first two years with MTV—now she’s become even more the jet-setter. Shuttling back and forth from Wilmington, NC, where “One Tree Hill” is shot, to New York City for Fridays’ “TRL” and back again every week, Hilarie lives in two very different worlds. But those worlds collided in November when the “Hill” cast made an appearance on “TRL.” “The crowd was totally insane that day. It was almost overwhelming,” says Hilarie, who was hosting as nearly 2,000 fans crowded almost every inch of Times Square. “People were mobbing [the cast] and throwing themselves in front of their limo. It was crazy, but really flattering to have so many people like the show.”

Extra! Extra!
Tune in to The WB Tuesday nights at 9 pm (EST) to catch her in action on “One Tree Hill” and on MTV’s “TRL” Fridays at 5 pm. For more stats on Hilarie, check out americancheerleader.com. Log on for more cheer photos, her on-camera embarrassing moments, pep rally planning tips and what her former coach has to say about those kissing scenes. Tell us what you like most about Hilarie and “One Tree Hill” and enter to win one of five American Cheerleader® T-shirts autographed by Hilarie!