Sophia Bush Says She Almost Passed On 'Chicago PD'

Sophia Bush is stunning on the cover of Michigan Avenue magazine’s Spring 2015 issue, out on newsstands now!

Here’s what the 32-year-old actress had to share with the mag:

On the evolution of TV shows: “Television has grown as an industry�when I was a little kid, there were only a handful of channels, and now there’s a thousand to choose from. That has widened avenues that we have for storytelling because we’re not looking at shows the way we used to. I grew up watching reruns of Dragnet on Nick at Nite, and I thought those guys were the coolest cops ever. That was a great black and white era. There was crime, and then they solved it, and that was that. With the advent of typical storytelling, you crave getting to know people�not just watching them do something, but seeing who they are, and why they tick, and the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

On how she almost passed on Chicago PD because she was happy to be back in LA after years on location for One Tree Hill: “I get this call and my agent said, ‘Dick Wolf is doing this show, and they really want to see you for the lead female, and it shoots in Chicago,’ and I’m like, ‘No way. Chicago’s so cold, it’s so far away, I don’t know anybody there… I’m not going.’ � And they were like, ‘But Sophia, it’s literally two of the three criteria for a job you’ve ever wanted. You could just read it.’ And I said, ‘All right.’ I was protesting, but not much, because in the back of my head I was so excited� And I read it, and I just got her. I thought she was interesting, and different, and I just thought it was so cool� you know what that feeling is like: When you read a script and from the first moment it gets its hooks in you? I just went, ‘Uh-oh.’ [Laughs] I knew I was in trouble.”

On why she fights for the environmental awareness: “I honestly think it’s a no-brainer, and some of that comes from growing up in Southern California�spending all my time as a kid exploring beaches and the sea and the mountains, and just realizing that we’re such a small part of this giant planet in this enormous ecosystem, yet we wreak the most havoc on it. No matter what we might argue about amongst ourselves or what we might fight wars about around the world, if there’s no world left to host us, none of it’s going to matter. If we kill the planet, that’s it. When the president of the United States is saying that climate change poses a greater threat to American citizens than terrorism, people are finally opening their eyes and realizing that the world doesn’t exist for us to trample and use. It’s all supposed to be more symbiotic, and I really hope that citizens will start to demand that change both from the companies where they spend their money and the governments they elect to represent them.”

For more on Sophia, visit Michiganavemag.com!

Also pictured: Sophia donning a cute MILLY for DesigNation dress while arriving at a screening on Monday (March 30) in Chicago, Ill.