Dan Stevens felt compelled to quit Downton Abbey because he had “creative itches left unscratched.”
1. Dan Stevens left Downton Abbey because he was tired of playing Matthew Crawley in period dramas and afraid that staying on the mega-popular program would prevent him from working on other projects.
Source: PBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
Dan shared with The Guardian in 2022 about his audition in 2009, “I’d done my fair share of period drama by that point. I considered not going up for it or not doing it when I got it. I felt I’d already done them.” Eventually, he took up the position, having no idea that the show would grow into an all-consuming phenomenon.
Source: PBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
After having spent 3 years with the project, he felt that he needed to quit right then. Dan clarified, “There were definitely creative itches left unscratched, genres I hadn’t worked in. Three years were up. That’s what we’d initially signed up for and the appetite to explore further was too great.”
Source: PBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
Matthew died in a car accident, which was made all the more heartbreaking because his family had recently welcomed their first kid. When asked about the public reaction to his character passing away, Stevens stated, “Some admire it, others think I was mad: that the part was the greatest thing that could ever happen to me.”
Source: PBS / Via youtube.com
But he decided that eliminating typecasting was worth the risk. Stevens continued, “But the question is what would satisfy you? A bit more money and the same thing for another decade, or the great unknown. The Wild West. An open playing field of potential.” He chose the Wild West and has since played a Russian pop artist in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, a mutant with godlike abilities in Legion, and a robot in I’m Your Man, together with other non-period parts.
Source: Netflix / FX / Bleecker Street Media / Courtesy Everett Collection
2. Andrew Lincoln told Entertainment Weekly Radio that he quit his Rick Grimes role in The Walking Dead since it became increasingly struggling for him to balance between spending a large amount of time filming in Georgia while his wife and kids remained in England, particularly when the kids grew older.
Source: AMC / Via youtube.com
Andrew shared, “I have two young children and I live in a different country and they become less portable as they get older. It was that simple. It was time for me to come home.”
Source: AMC / Via youtube.com
When asked about his last episodes as Rick, Lincoln stated, “Completing the show was like releasing air, finally.”
Source: AMC / Via youtube.com
3. Hanging up her bow and arrow, Crystal Reed left her part as Allison Argent in Teen Wolf, owing to the age gap between her and her adolescent counterpart.
Source: MTV
Reed spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her decision, after the death of Allison in the final episodes of the 3rd season of the series, “I love the art. And I felt like, creatively, there were things I wanted to do differently, and I wanted to explore other avenues of film and TV. I wanted to jump into different characters. You know, I’m 29. So I think the age difference was something I wanted to change as well because she’s 17.”
Source: MTV
During the first days of shooting Season 3, Reed notified showrunner Jeff Davis of her choice, and said that although the conversation sounded “nerve-racking,” Davis is “such a great guy and person.” Reed continued, “It’s not always that people will always let you leave the show. So I’m really, really grateful for that.”
Source: MTV
4. Seth Green bid farewell to his part as the monosyllabic werewolf Oz at the time the promised character growth on Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn’t materialize, making it increasingly difficult for him to turn down other opportunities.
Source: 20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection
Green shared in an interview with the A.V. Club, “I felt like the character’s potential vs. what we actually were doing were in drastic opposition. And I was getting other opportunities so I asked to be let out, because I spent an entire season as a regular on the show, not doing or saying anything. They’d bound me to a series-regular contract yet the character didn’t really necessitate being in every episode and every scene, so I found myself forced into scenes contractually that I really had no place or role in.”
Source: 20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection
He added, “So I’d spend 5 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, to be in a scene with 9 other people, and hopefully get to say, ‘I think Buffy’s right!’ I was like, ‘This isn’t what we talked about.'” When he asked for six episodes off to shoot a film, he and the creative team concluded that the gap would “cause too much turmoil,” so Oz was “gracefully” deleted from the show.
Source: 20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection
5. Ross Butler quit Riverdale, where he portrayed Reggie Mantle, in order to devote his full attention to his role as Zach Dempsey in 13 Reason Why.
Source: CW
Butler said to Vulture that before the renewal of 13 Reasons Why, he needed to “make the decision of whether I wanted to focus on one character or split two characters and have a smaller role on both shows.
Source: CW
Butler clarified, “I connected with Zach on a much more real level where I didn’t have to create so much of a character for him. Reggie’s more outspoken, like that jock archetype. Zach is too but Zach has more colors, at least from what I saw.”
Source: CW
When Reggie was recast, he was left in a “strange floating area” because he committed to 13 Reasons Why before Season 2 was announced, but the renewal came through in the end. Butler later returned to Riverdale for “The Jughead Paradox,” the show’s 100th episode.
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
6. Furthermore, Skeet Ulrich also made the decision to quit Riverdale since he believed his character’s artistic value was dwindling.
Source: CW
Ulrich expressed his desire to leave the role of Jughead’s father FP in a 2020 Instagram Live as he “got bored creatively.” He continued, “How’s that? That’s the most honest answer.”
Source: CW
7. Regé-Jean Page’s choice to leave Bridgerton and his star-making role as the Duke of Hastings surprised many, but Page’s answer was simple: he auditioned for a season, so he remained for a season.
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
When Page was contacted about portraying the Duke, he told Variety that the fact that the show was marketed almost like a “limited series” persuaded him. He added, “It’s a one-season arc. It’s going to have a beginning, middle, end — give us a year. … I get to come in, I get to contribute my bit, and then the Bridgerton family rolls on.
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Page continued, “One of the things that is different about this genre is that the audience knows the arc completes. They come in knowing that so you can tie people in emotional knots, because they have that reassurance that we’re going to come out and we’re going to have the marriage and the baby.”
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
8. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness required Xochitl Gomez to leave The Baby-Sitters Club in order to play America Chavez.
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Gomez, who portrayed Dawn on the hit Netflix drama, opened up to Entertainment Tonight about playing America. She shared, “I can’t even explain how honored I am that I was able to receive such a role and that it was even out there. That, not only a Latina but just a girl, a young girl, a superhero, and it means so much. I’m just so happy I get to be the one who plays that character. I hope that a lot of people look up to America and me, hopefully.”
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Gomez was “really sad” to leave The Baby-Sitters Club, but explained that “because of COVID, I couldn’t be at one place and then another and then have to just switch all the time.” She went on to say that she and the actor who played Dawn 2.0, Kyndra Sanchez, “just clicked” when they met.
Source: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
9. Jon Stewart shared in a 2015 interview with The Guardian that he left his legendary position behind the desk at The Daily Show because it wasn’t as enjoyable as it used to be.
Source: Comedy Central / Courtesy Everett Collection
After 16 years of hosting, Stewart revealed, “It’s not like I thought the show wasn’t working anymore or that I didn’t know how to do it. It was more, ‘Yup, it’s working. But I’m not getting the same satisfaction.’ These things are cyclical. You have moments of dissatisfaction and then you come out of it and it’s OK. But the cycles become longer and maybe more entrenched, and that’s when you realize, ‘OK, I’m on the back side of it now.'”
Source: Comedy Central / Courtesy Everett Collection
Stewart had certain reservations about the show’s usefulness in the present American political context, in addition to his own creative objectives. He stated, “Honestly, it was a combination of the limitations of my brain and a format that is geared toward following an increasingly redundant process, which is our political process. I was just thinking, Are there other ways to skin this cat?” Another aspect of his decision, he explained, was being able to visit his children more frequently.
Source: Comedy Central / Courtesy Everett Collection
He said that his successor Trevor Noah was “incredibly thoughtful, considerate, and funny.”
Source: Comedy Central / Courtesy Everett Collection
10. Maia Mitchell stated on Instagram in March 2022 that she would be quitting Good Trouble, the successor series to The Fosters, due to homesickness for her homeland of Australia. She appeared in 156 episodes on both shows as Callie Foster (and found “a chosen family for life” along the way).
Source: ABC Family / Courtesy Everett Collection
Mitchell wrote, “While I have been so beyond fortunate to have this career and a job that I love, with not an iota of regret, for quite some time I have suppressed an undeniable gravitational pull to return home to Australia to be closer to my nearest and dearest.”
Source: ABC Family / Courtesy Everett Collection
She continued, “The past two years have been trying, for everyone. I fully recognize the privilege of being able to work and make our show during a global pandemic but it also meant being separated from my loved ones when we needed each other the most. Thus came the need to create the space to split my time between both countries. So with that, it is time to start a new chapter and bid farewell to Good Trouble.”
Source: ABC Family / Courtesy Everett Collection
11. Emily VanCamp, who portrayed Nic Nevin on The Resident, made the decision to leave the show for the same reason Mitchell did: she wanted to be closer to her family.
Source: Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection
VanCamp shared in an interview with Deadline, “I loved doing The Resident so much for the four years I was on it. Oftentimes, you hear about someone exiting a show because something bad had happened or there was some bad blood. But in this case, it’s the exact opposite. There’s nothing but love and respect between all of us and this decision was not an easy one for anybody but it was the right one for me, personally.”
Source: Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection
She added, “I think there comes a moment in every woman’s life — in every person’s life — when it becomes less about work and more about family. And that’s what happened while I was making the show. Doing that many episodes in a different city, and then you add COVID to that, most of us couldn’t see our families for almost a year. It really solidified for me that family is where my heart is at the moment.”
Source: Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection
12. Peter Capaldi explained his decision to leave Doctor Who during an interview on The Graham Norton Show, saying that the British pop cultural institution, while a “great job,” is a “bit of a television factory.”
Source: BBC / Courtesy Everett Collection
Capaldi clarified, “You do 12 episodes a year and I just worry that I wouldn’t be able to continue doing my best work. Because, you know, I like to be able to learn my lines and do some preparation and come in and give it the vigor and fun… So I just thought, You know, while you’re enjoying it, leave.”
Source: BBC / Courtesy Everett Collection
13. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Sandra Oh shared that she quit Grey’s Anatomy after Season 10 because she anticipated that her character Cristina Yang “want[ed] to be let go.”
Source: ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
Oh revealed, “Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all and I feel ready to let her go. It’s such an interesting thing to play a character for so long and to actually get the sense that she wants to be let go as well.” Oh said that a few decades from now, “when I’m lounging around in my muumuu with a martini,” she’ll be able to rewatch Grey’s Anatomy and “enjoy myself thoroughly and enjoy seeing all those moments and being able to see it with a new perspective.”
Source: ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
Following her final day on set, Oh told the Hollywood Reporter that she gave out 250 gifts to everyone on site, consisting of “my stand-in, the grips, post, production, the writers.” She continued, “That is why I think the day was joyous. With each person, I was able to have a personal moment and tell them what I thought about them.”
Source: ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
The gift, she said, “was this beautiful champagne in a box and on it is an anatomical heart and a ’10.’ It’s was like, ‘Here’s my heart in a box for a celebration. Please take it. This is my gift of thanks.'”
Source: ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
Oh received a gift of her own as well: her first and last call sheets, dated 2004 and 2014, respectively.
Source: ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
14. Mandy Patinkin left his main role on Criminal Minds as FBI behavioral analyst Jason Gideon due to his concerns about the show’s violent subject matter.
Source: CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
Patinkin shared in an interview with New York Magazine in 2012, “The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do Criminal Minds in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. After that, I didn’t think I would get to work in television again.”
Source: CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
Patinkin went on, “Audiences all over the world use this programming as their bedtime story. This isn’t what you need to be dreaming about.”
Source: CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
15. In the end, gather your tissues, for it’s time to discuss that time, when Steve Burns, aka Blue’s Clues’ first host, returned in 2021 for an in-character video message to clarify where he’d gone after leaving the show.
Source: Nickelodeon Network / Courtesy Everett Collection
Burns stated in the video, which received 2 million likes after being shared on Nick Jr.’s Twitter, “You remember how when we were younger, we used to run around and hang out with Blue and find clues and talk to Mr. Salt and freak out about the mail and do all the fun stuff and then one day I was like, ‘Oh hey, guess what? Big news, I’m leaving. This is my brother Joe. He’s your new best friend,’ and then I got on a bus and I left? And we didn’t see each other for, like, a really long time? Can we just talk about that?”
Source: Nickelodeon Network / Courtesy Everett Collection
He continued, “Because I realize that was kind of abrupt. I just kinda got up and went to college. And that was really challenging by the way but great, because I got to use my mind and take a step at a time and now I literally am doing many of the things that I wanted to do. And then look at you and look at all you have done and all you have accomplished in all that time. And it’s just, it’s just so amazing, right?”
Source: Nickelodeon Network / Courtesy Everett Collection
Concluding the video, Burns noted that despite the passage of time and the truth that he and his initial audience are now dealing with “student loans and jobs and families,” he “never forgot” about them and is “super glad we’re still friends.” So that’s obscenely lovely.
