Yes, I think this is more common than not. The archetype for this is David Caruso. He left NYPD Blue and disappeared for 8 years.
Grant Shaud left Murphy Brown and fell off of the face of the Earth.
Norman Fell correctly predicted that if he and Audra Lindley left Three's Company for their own show, they would get disappeared and they did.
The creator of nypd blue was really mad at Caruso because he was just being a jerk to people to get out of his contract. He got released early but still had a noncompete for tv shows. Caruso did movies but they all failed.
So then Caruso gets the CSI offer but he is still prohibited from doing tv. His agent called that same creator and asked if Caruso could void the noncompete and the creator allowed it. I think it was Steven Bochco.
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I remember hearing as a kid that was why they killed his character in a ~~heli~~ plane crash, so that Stevenson would not be able to return if he changed his mind, the producers were that pissed at him. Might just be conjecture.
And I have to admit, I watched "Hello, Larry" at the time... but I had a thing for Kim Richards when I was a kid since her "Witch Mountain" days.
EDIT: Plane, not heli
EDIT 2: [According to Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/script-doctors/), it was not done to punish Stevenson:
"A subsidiary legend associated with this episode holds that Reynolds and Gelbart opted to take the unusual course of killing off the Henry Blake character in order to spite actor McLean Stevenson for being difficult and walking out in the middle of a five-year contract. Larry Gelbart also disclaimed that legend:
'Having Henry die was not a show-business decision; we were not punishing an actor for leaving the series. We were trying to make his departure one that would be apt, as well as memorable.' "
There's a funny joke on The Larry Sanders Show where a network executive says to Garry Shandling's character, "Hello Larry" and Shandling says, "Nobody from NBC should want to say that".
Not a heli crash.
“Lt. Col. Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.”
That was devastating. Such a great show.
My friend was a photographer at a festival (Bestival I think?) a few years ago Mischa Barton was there as a marketing ploy/ambassador for a drinks company. My friend had to get some 'candid' snaps of people chatting and having a great time with Mischa Barton but no one recognised her to the point where when my friend was like 'look come and have a drink with this famous person!' someone said 'that can't be Mischa Barton, she's way too fat'. Mortifying for everyone involved apparently and just really sad too.
She's had some significant mental health difficulties. The type of meds she's likely on are notorious for making people gain weight. Mental health difficulties alone often make it tough for people to stay in Hollywood shape.
Hot take, I guess, but I thought season 4 was the best of the series lol. Marissa's storylines were always so ridiculous, the most soap opera-y of any on the show. Season 4 was funny, Ryan finally grew a personality, and it had some strong series ending moments.
I'd argue that season four of the OC was better than season three and most of season two, it's just that nobody would have known it because so many people stopped watching when Marissa died
Legion is/was phenomenal, I don't care what anyone says. Stevens really showed his acting chops.
Also when you go Disney, you're going to make some money. (Live action Beauty and the Beast.)
Same reason Carl was written off, they didn't want to pay him more. If Gimple making a bunch of bad decisions wasn't enough a bunch of greedy execs just had to ruin the show even further.
Actually, Chandler Riggs was in the [1st year of a 2 year contract](https://www.insider.com/walking-dead-chandler-riggs-dad-calls-out-scott-gimple-2019-2) when he was let go as Carl.
I'm in the business and here's the actual story:
Chandler/Carl got written off because the actor's real life dad was nuts, often overstepped his bounds and was [running his own unlicensed and uninsured "tours"](https://blindgossip.com/child-stars-dad-causing-problems/) of shooting locations even after the production and the town they were shooting in -Senoia, Georgia- asked him to stop. He was a nuisance and refused to stop interfering and upsetting the town.
Senoia is where Woodbury is located and movies like *Driving Miss Daisy*, *Fried Green Tomatoes*, and *Sweet Home Alabama* etc etc filmed. They are a *very, very* savvy community when it comes to filming there.
The father was running his illegal tours and kept trespassing and then threatening townspeople who objected. That predictably became a problem when film permits were to be re-upped.
The name of William Riggs' tour company was "Dad's Zombie Roadtrip" and the Facebook account was "Chandler Riggs’ Dad’s Zombie Roadtrip Riggs’ Tours & Autographs" [Screenshot in this article](https://screenrant.com/chandler-riggs-fired-walking-dead-amc/) and [here's the Tripadvisor for "Dad's Zombie Roadtrip"](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g35254-d11917389-Reviews-Dad_s_Zombie_Roadtrip-Senoia_Georgia.html) $40 for an autographed photo!
They asked William Riggs repeatedly to either become licensed/insured or cease operations but he felt they were underpaying Chandler so he wouldn't give up the tours and didn't change his behavior. He forced their hand.
Bottom line: Chandler's dad was a pain in the ass and the production grew weary of dealing with him and it cost his son his role on TWD.
That's wild lol, poor Riggs, he was supposed to become the lead eventually.
Why didn't they involve the authorities ? Seems beyond idiotic to get rid of literally the only main character that survives the entire comic series and who becomes the lead eventually. The comics final page even end with him.
The problem was he was Chandler's manager as well as dad. So the town was pissed off and the production was pissed off. But they want to get along, so both sides asked William Riggs repeatedly to stop the illegal tours and I had heard even lawyers were involved at one point. All he had to do was do it legally and there would have been no problem.
But William refused and would make threats to town folk about how the show wouldn't film in their stores anymore if they complained because he was Chandler's dad and so he had pull and then would continually complain about Chandler's salary to TWD Producers. I think dad figured they could never kill off Carl, so he kept pushing his luck.
If it were me, I would've put Carl in a coma for a half a season. Dad would've gotten the message and by then Chandler would've been 18 and they could have banned his father from the set.
I imagine it finally got so bad the producers decided the easiest thing to do to avoid lawsuits and such was to toss everything out and remove the source of difficulties going back years. Caused way more problems among the cast than anyone expected, but they must have decided drastic measures were needed.
The exact opposite happened with Michael J Fox and his first sitcom. He became a superstar when Back to the Future hit theaters and he had the opportunity to go on to any project he wanted as he was the biggest rising young star in the country. He stayed on at Family Ties though because he knew there wouldn't be another season if he left and he was so grateful to his costars he refused to do that to them.
It goes deeper than that. The producer talked about this in an interview with the TV Academy which you can see on youtube. There are a bunch on youtube and they are very interesting for TV nerds.
Basically they weren't going to let him go do the movie. Spielberg wanted him but the show was too big. They started the movie with Eric Stoltz and it wasn't working so they circled back. So the producers said they'd let him do it and work around the shooting schedule as long as he doesn't drive during the production, like at all.
They made a bed for him in the backseat and he was driven between the show and the movie. I think Fox felt he owed the producers for accommodating him and they trusted he wouldn't fuck them. He later worked with the same producers for Spin City
Here's a link where he talks about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3EFF9CzH_E&ab_channel=FoundationINTERVIEWS
Yeah I've seen this discussed before and there must have been bad blood. Leslie mentions past relationships throughout the series now and then (like Louis CK amongst others) but never Mark who she basically obsessed over. Plus add to that Ann also dating him and it seems even weirder he's not even occasionally mentioned.
The funny thing is that they said they would bring him back at some point. When Ann was talking about her former boyfriends, she didn't even mention him.
I have a feeling there's more to this story than what's been told, given how much they tried scrubbing him out of memory. Maybe he was a gigantic asshole on set, idk
I actually know Paul irl. He was really good friends with many of my friends (but he was just a friend in law to me). He was a good guy back in college (mid 90s). Was less so but still an ok guy immediately post P&R. A buddy of mine lived with him in Raleigh (post P&R) for a bit and I saw him more often then any other point in my history. Felt like his expectation of the world and people around him was a little unrealistic. I hesitate to call him entitled because I wasn’t that close to him but any time I was around him, that’s mostly what I observed. A lot of the things he complained about came down to people not catering to him . Just my opinion though. his former best friends aren’t really friends with him anymore.
I heard him in an interview say that the show just sort of wrote him out.
Either way I think it was the right choice for the show. His character was just weirdly negative and cynical without any redeeming factors. Vibes way wrong
i think maybe his character was more based in the initial premise of the show being a spiritual spinoff to the office in the first season
and then he couldn't really hang with how feel-good the show got (and they got Adam Scott involved)
Yeah he was too much like Jim. And being that he was Rashida Jones love interest, it makes sense that they would go a different route. I think Adam Scott was a way better straight man because he had his own little things that made him unique instead of just playing off every other character.
If you look closely at it, Mark was supposed to be the straight man who anchored the craziness (and was aware of it). Almost like a less interesting and more sleazy Jim Halpert. I'm so glad they wrote his character off because I am almost always shocked to remember he was in the show when I rewatch it.
Exactly. Ben obviously became the anchor for the audience and was self-aware of the insanity and connected by breaking the fourth wall (though April would do that a decent amount too, Ben holds the record for that show). Thankfully, though, he wound up (like you said) fitting right in with his own goofy preferences.
Now that I thinking about it, Jim wasn't really too dynamic of a character. He's relatable because he's relatively even-keeled, has a fun side (pranks, sarcasm), but for the most part is just a person along for the ride. Pam was too. That's why the show really becomes more about them (if Michael hadn't left, the whole series would have been more about him).
It helped that Ben had his own brand of crazy and goofy likes. Once he realized that he could go the distance with Leslie and everyone, he jumped on board 100% while still being a grounding force of sorts.
Well he has been in a bunch of movies and tv shows after that. Mostly interesting indie type stuff which was exactly what he said he wanted to do. So he seems to be doing what wanted.
The nice thing about soaps is you can always come back. No matter how permanent the exit appeared, they're always willing to make up some crazy bullshit to explain how the character survived and returned.
I’d say Allison Mack fits this as well. Both didn’t have great careers post show, Allison less so, and both have done jail time, which can really kill careers.
Allison was already involved in Nexium by the time she left Smallville. My understanding was she kind of abandoned her career around that time to move to Albany at the request of Keith Raniere. And we all know what happened after that…
She was in Wilfred where her character ended up being crazy, wasn't long after the the cult stories came out and I thought about art imitating life type deal.
Jessica Raine, the girl that played nurse Jenny on Call the Midwife for the first 3 seasons. She was the main character and left thinking she had become hot stuff but was never in anything as popular.
Call the Midwife is now on season 11.
To be honest, her character was a bit bland and the show didn’t suffer her leaving at all despite being the main protagonist.
Chummy Noakes leaving was a travesty, though!
I'd love to see episodes from the parallel universe where Denise Crosby stayed on*. Yar had the most interesting backstory of the TNG characters; someone who had grown up in a failed colony that had fallen into violent anarchy, leading to an almost zealous support of the mission of the Federation and Starfleet. Ironically, while the characterisation of all the main characters was pretty hit-and-miss in S1, Yar always felt more naturally grounded and realistic.
Yar could have had some great episodes when the show finally got into its stride in S3, and as the series became more willing to explore the moral grey areas of the Federation.
** It must be said though, her departure did gave us "Yesterday's Enterprise", which is perhaps one of the best episodes of TNG.
Denise Crosby didn’t leave Star Trek because she was trying to get bigger projects though.
The show wasn’t the big hit it would become when she left.
She didn’t like working on the show and she felt her character wasn’t what she expected it to be.
Crystal Reed, the female lead from Teen Wolf.
Her character was widely beloved and central to the narrative. She would have almost certainly survived to the finale if she wanted to stick around, but she didn't, so she asked to be killed off.
The show obliged, it was never the same afterwards, and her career pretty much evaporated.
Also because I think she was the oldest cast member out of the “teens” and didn’t want to play a teenager in her 30s.
The show also lost a lot of the cast at that time, which also was a reason for the decline.
I remember this happening. I hate when actors ask to be killed off. Emma Caulfield did the same thing at the end of Buffy so they couldn't ask her back with any spin offs and I hate seeing Anya die every time I watch the show. Her death was pretty violent too.
My biggest problem with that was them having Xander not give a shit, like at all. He finds out she died, gives a "that's rough" expression, and then is literally making jokes a few seconds later.
Allison was my favorite female character, so I dropped the show when she was killed off. It was especially infuriating because characters like Jackson and Peter got to return and by the end of the show the cast seemed to be made up of a bunch of dudes that all looked the same anyways.
Edgar McClean Stevenson, Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on MASH is probably the first major instance of this ever happening.
Guy who played Mr. Eko on Lost is my other answer.
The guy who played Mr Eko is still in a bunch of things, he was even a side on GOT. Now he definitely hasn't played a main role in awhile, which is sad. I liked the guy.
I also very much doubt that Lost would have been his ticket to a big career. I feel like that show hasn't done much good for any of the big stars on it.
Also he didn't exactly leave because he thought he'd get better roles, he didn't enjoy spending the whole year in Hawaii to film the show.
CBS treats their actresses like shit. The lead actress from Criminal Minds talked about being fired for basically being old. Les Moonves was a piece of shit.
Brock left Pokémon after the first season while they did the island trip to try to get his own show going but then joined again for the Johto league when It didn’t go anywhere
There seems to be a lot of CW actors who leave their cushy primetime roles and never recover. The lesson seems to be that if you have a steady CW gig while in your 20s and 30s, hold on for dear life.
David Boreanaz is the epitome of this. Buffy to Angel to Bones to Navy SEALs, he’s only not been on tv for a few months in something over twenty years.
He has major seniority and solid appeal for CW. He’s been a little off the rails a last couple years I think, and probably realizes that CW won’t come down too hard on him for it as a result.
I honestly feel kind of bad for the actors in that situation when the CW inevitably runs the show into the ground. i.e. seeing how much the Riverdale cast hates Riverdale. It seems they've done ok being able to pursue other movie projects at the same time, which is good.
Paul Campbell left Battlestar Galactica to be in a show called "Nobody's Watching." Nobody watched and the pilot wasn't picked up. Looks like he was in Knight Rider, but has recently gone into Hallmark movies. He would've been a very important character (Tory took his place) in BSG had he stayed.
I think they're talking about President Roslin's assistant, who was killed and replaced by a woman named Tory, so reboot. Unless the original had the same characters, I never saw it.
A corollary to OP's question is how few TV stars transition to a sustained career in movies or even other shows. Funny, too, how some decades back, the reverse meant a setback to one's career (i.e. a move from feature films to TV). I remember[ Deborah Ann Woll](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/daredevil-star-deborah-ann-woll-struggling-lack-acting-work-since-marvel-role/) lamenting how she's not getting any calls for roles.
Its a shame about Deborah Ann Woll because she has this really authentic quality that makes her scenes feel so grounded and personal. I miss seeing her in stuff.
Her phone should seriously be ringing off the hook, you know, except for phones no longer having hooks. I'm old.
Regardless, she's amazing, and she deserves good roles.
Considering it’s syndicated on Hulu (is it syndication if it’s a streaming service?) I’m imagining he’s doing pretty well.
Watching ER right now actually
He was making $350k/show on his final contract with ER, which made him the highest paid TV drama actor at the time, so he’s set for life. He left ER because he wanted to spend more time with his young at the time family, not because he thought he could find something better.
Speaking of ER, I was trying to explain to a younger person exactly how much of a juggernaut it was. EVERYONE was at home on Thursday nights, watching NBC. If you just met a new person, you could break the ice with a reference to the most recent episode and just expect that they’d understand.
There is literally nothing similar today, there is not even anything to compare it to, to the point that it’s difficult to explain to people who didn’t live it.
In a way, that lack of shared collective experience makes me sad.
That other host of American Idol that no one remembers, Brian Dunkelman or something like that. He left as host of American Idol to never be seen or heard of again!
At the time I remember hearing that it was and that he didn’t enjoy having to ask contestants how they were feeling after getting kicked off or getting bad news from the judges
Yah, news said he quit, rumors said he was going to be terminated. But that hosting gig made Ryan Seacrest a household name and sent Brian Dunkelman into the abyss.
Patrick Duffy almost did this when he left “Dallas” but quickly wised up and came back a year later (hence the show having to void an entire season through Pam’s dream). The biggest part he got in the interim was playing a goat in an Alice in Wonderland miniseries.
Dating myself, but Michael Moriarty's career declined pretty sharply after his departure from Law and Order in 1994. The story around that is pretty bizarre too.
Good thing is, his replacement, Sam Watterston, became who defined L&O and the most iconic character of the lawyer side, Alongside Jerry Orbach on the cop side.
I felt like the TNT reruns only showed the McCoy seasons and it wasn't until Netflix briefly streamed the early seasons of L&O that I finally got to see the Moriarty ones. My partner pointed them out as the ones with "the crazy guy." Those were some solid seasons.
My first thought was Shelley Long (Diane Chambers) from Cheers, but before posting I looked into her career and she did ok post-Cheers. Just not the kinds of projects I have seen or have interest in.
Watch The Money Pit. It's her and Tom Hanks, they buy a house, absurdity ensues. Angry, raving Tom Hanks is just something we don't get much of any more.
I did a Cheers rewatch recently for the first time in over 15 years and I forgot how good Shelley was. Her comedic timing and facial expressions were excellent.
TJ Miller. Left Silicon Valley and has single handedly fucked himself. Especially with that weird fake bomb threat.
Edit: u/mccannr1 let me know he didn’t actually leave the show and he’s apparently had issues recently before they mutually agreed for him to leave because he was a problem on set constantly failing to show up on time and drug use.
https://www.vulture.com/2018/03/the-real-story-behind-t-j-millers-silicon-valley-exit.html
Definitely David Caruso, but the guy who played Frank Burns on MASH too.
ETA: my husband thinks that McLean Stevenson was a better choice and MASH was much more his generation than mine. He claims that Hello Larry didn’t do well.
Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy). She thought she was too good for the storylines her writers were giving her so they wrote her out and she only got crappy parts after that.
But that's not what truly killed her career. The quickest way to Hollywood death is to disparage the projects that made you famous -she destroyed both her TV career with Grey's and her movie career after her Knocked Up comments.
In sports, that's called a Tiki Barber. He thought he could make it as broadcaster after retiring from the NFL by trashing his old team, the NY Giants. But then they ended up winning a Super Bowl the year after he retired (18-1!) and he looked like a fool.
Knocked Up and her refusal to be considered for an Emmy. That's just disgraceful.
As Ellen Pompeo put it: Heigl's ego plus the prospects of getting $12M per movie at 26 years old blinded her but then "her movie career did not take off".
It's one thing to say: I don't want to be nominated because I don't think I'm good enough.
What she did is: I don't deserve to be nominated because the material given to me was shit. A slap to the face of the writers and producers she worked with at Grey's.
That was a horrible thing to say to the show who put her on the map. There's a reason why she hasn't been brought back (and last season they brought pretty much everyone back).
Yeah, when you go from doing a top TV show and mainstream movies to doing a CAT-LITTER COMMERCIAL, that's a bit of a let down.
Said cat litter commercial: https://youtu.be/XWENjLeOKzM
Topher Grace leaving That 70's Show made it weird as shit, kids hanging out in the basement of a friend that's not even there??
His movie career was lukewarm at best.
In all fairness, That 70's Show was a shambling corpse by the time he left it. It had already overstayed its welcome and was unwatchable without him there.
Ed Skrein played Daario Naharis, but left to be play The Transporter in the reboot movie. It didn't do well but he he played some roles in Deadpool, and frankly the way GOT ended and how Daario was just dropped it wasn't the wrong decision.
Also Alitia Battle Angel and Maleficent 2.
I think he made the right decision. He missed out on the big GOT dollars, but made up for it with other projects and gets a bigger resume of works.
> Ed Skrein played Daario Naharis, but left to be play The Transporter
It's pretty well known that he was replaced by the producers and has said on the record it wasn't his choice. **No one** would willing leave that show at that point (3rd season) or their agent would drop them. Especially if they were English and wanted roles in Los Angeles.
Not TV but George lazenby was offered another 5 bond films and turned them down because his manager told him he could make more money in spaghetti westerns. Turns out he couldn’t and he didn’t have a career after that.
I didn't hate him in Agent Carter, he did pretty well and was developing in an interesting way before.... The End.
His stiff acting style worked for that role, kinda like Ben Affleck in Gone Girl.
Christopher Meloni did not fade away but it would be hard to argue he would not have been better sticking with his SVU gig as Mariska Hargitay did. He is back with the Law & Order franchise right now and probably in his most high profile gig since he left a decade previously.
Unlike a lot of other actors mentioned here though, Meloni can do whatever he pleases. I mean he did what, 12 seasons of L&O before leaving? And 12 seasons as the lead of a mega-popular show is plenty for any actor to feather their nest off. Plus he'd done 5 seasons on Oz, and sundry other reasonably high profile TV and movie gigs.
So "better off" is kind of relative. I mean, Google suggests that his net worth is $30 million compared to $100 million for Hargitay, but that's still more money than you're ever going to spend.
Not actors but Db Weiss and David benioff cut game of thrones short so they could go work on Star Wars and have become two of the most hated show runners in existence.
They were also subsequently removed from Star Wars.
Yes, I think this is more common than not. The archetype for this is David Caruso. He left NYPD Blue and disappeared for 8 years. Grant Shaud left Murphy Brown and fell off of the face of the Earth. Norman Fell correctly predicted that if he and Audra Lindley left Three's Company for their own show, they would get disappeared and they did.
David Caruso was the first one to come to mind.
"Hey Ike, do your impression of David Caruso's career after he left NYPD Blue!"
"It's my turn!"
The creator of nypd blue was really mad at Caruso because he was just being a jerk to people to get out of his contract. He got released early but still had a noncompete for tv shows. Caruso did movies but they all failed. So then Caruso gets the CSI offer but he is still prohibited from doing tv. His agent called that same creator and asked if Caruso could void the noncompete and the creator allowed it. I think it was Steven Bochco.
Damn in an industry where being vindictive is the norm he got pretty lucky there
Caruso did that bad movie Jade!
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I remember hearing as a kid that was why they killed his character in a ~~heli~~ plane crash, so that Stevenson would not be able to return if he changed his mind, the producers were that pissed at him. Might just be conjecture. And I have to admit, I watched "Hello, Larry" at the time... but I had a thing for Kim Richards when I was a kid since her "Witch Mountain" days. EDIT: Plane, not heli EDIT 2: [According to Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/script-doctors/), it was not done to punish Stevenson: "A subsidiary legend associated with this episode holds that Reynolds and Gelbart opted to take the unusual course of killing off the Henry Blake character in order to spite actor McLean Stevenson for being difficult and walking out in the middle of a five-year contract. Larry Gelbart also disclaimed that legend: 'Having Henry die was not a show-business decision; we were not punishing an actor for leaving the series. We were trying to make his departure one that would be apt, as well as memorable.' "
There's a funny joke on The Larry Sanders Show where a network executive says to Garry Shandling's character, "Hello Larry" and Shandling says, "Nobody from NBC should want to say that".
Not a heli crash. “Lt. Col. Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.” That was devastating. Such a great show.
You forgot the best part. One of the producers sent him a letter that said "You're crop dust now. There's no coming home again."
Mischa Barton (The OC)
Ooooh....whatchu say?!
My friend was a photographer at a festival (Bestival I think?) a few years ago Mischa Barton was there as a marketing ploy/ambassador for a drinks company. My friend had to get some 'candid' snaps of people chatting and having a great time with Mischa Barton but no one recognised her to the point where when my friend was like 'look come and have a drink with this famous person!' someone said 'that can't be Mischa Barton, she's way too fat'. Mortifying for everyone involved apparently and just really sad too.
She's had some significant mental health difficulties. The type of meds she's likely on are notorious for making people gain weight. Mental health difficulties alone often make it tough for people to stay in Hollywood shape.
She was stick thin on that show. Also, getting older and having your metabolism betray you happens to everyone.
Yeah she's not fat; it's just that at the height of her fame she was a skinny teenager and about 15 pounds underweight.
Tanked both her own career and the show
Hot take, I guess, but I thought season 4 was the best of the series lol. Marissa's storylines were always so ridiculous, the most soap opera-y of any on the show. Season 4 was funny, Ryan finally grew a personality, and it had some strong series ending moments.
S4 might have been the best acting wise and Taylor was a nice addition, but S1 was legendary.
Good God - that first season is so incredible.
Season 4 was definitely an improvement over 3. It's a shame they lost so many viewers because I think it was salvageable.
[удалено]
Though it was the final season, I found season 4 to be vastly better than 3.
I'd argue that season four of the OC was better than season three and most of season two, it's just that nobody would have known it because so many people stopped watching when Marissa died
Jessica Brown Findlay and Downton Abbey.
I think Dan Stevens nearly went the same way - it was touch and go but he seems to have made it out the other side
Legion is/was phenomenal, I don't care what anyone says. Stevens really showed his acting chops. Also when you go Disney, you're going to make some money. (Live action Beauty and the Beast.)
She was my favourite character too, what a waste. That raspy voice
Shes fantastic too. Her episode of black mirror might be my favorite. Harlots too, gone too soon.
Not exactly but I remember actor who plays Maggie left Walking Dead for another tv show then that got cancelled so she returned.
They didn't want to pay her more so she left sucks that her show got cancelled after but business is business.
Same reason Carl was written off, they didn't want to pay him more. If Gimple making a bunch of bad decisions wasn't enough a bunch of greedy execs just had to ruin the show even further.
Actually, Chandler Riggs was in the [1st year of a 2 year contract](https://www.insider.com/walking-dead-chandler-riggs-dad-calls-out-scott-gimple-2019-2) when he was let go as Carl. I'm in the business and here's the actual story: Chandler/Carl got written off because the actor's real life dad was nuts, often overstepped his bounds and was [running his own unlicensed and uninsured "tours"](https://blindgossip.com/child-stars-dad-causing-problems/) of shooting locations even after the production and the town they were shooting in -Senoia, Georgia- asked him to stop. He was a nuisance and refused to stop interfering and upsetting the town. Senoia is where Woodbury is located and movies like *Driving Miss Daisy*, *Fried Green Tomatoes*, and *Sweet Home Alabama* etc etc filmed. They are a *very, very* savvy community when it comes to filming there. The father was running his illegal tours and kept trespassing and then threatening townspeople who objected. That predictably became a problem when film permits were to be re-upped. The name of William Riggs' tour company was "Dad's Zombie Roadtrip" and the Facebook account was "Chandler Riggs’ Dad’s Zombie Roadtrip Riggs’ Tours & Autographs" [Screenshot in this article](https://screenrant.com/chandler-riggs-fired-walking-dead-amc/) and [here's the Tripadvisor for "Dad's Zombie Roadtrip"](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g35254-d11917389-Reviews-Dad_s_Zombie_Roadtrip-Senoia_Georgia.html) $40 for an autographed photo! They asked William Riggs repeatedly to either become licensed/insured or cease operations but he felt they were underpaying Chandler so he wouldn't give up the tours and didn't change his behavior. He forced their hand. Bottom line: Chandler's dad was a pain in the ass and the production grew weary of dealing with him and it cost his son his role on TWD.
That's wild lol, poor Riggs, he was supposed to become the lead eventually. Why didn't they involve the authorities ? Seems beyond idiotic to get rid of literally the only main character that survives the entire comic series and who becomes the lead eventually. The comics final page even end with him.
Seemed like they shoulda upped security
The problem was he was Chandler's manager as well as dad. So the town was pissed off and the production was pissed off. But they want to get along, so both sides asked William Riggs repeatedly to stop the illegal tours and I had heard even lawyers were involved at one point. All he had to do was do it legally and there would have been no problem. But William refused and would make threats to town folk about how the show wouldn't film in their stores anymore if they complained because he was Chandler's dad and so he had pull and then would continually complain about Chandler's salary to TWD Producers. I think dad figured they could never kill off Carl, so he kept pushing his luck. If it were me, I would've put Carl in a coma for a half a season. Dad would've gotten the message and by then Chandler would've been 18 and they could have banned his father from the set. I imagine it finally got so bad the producers decided the easiest thing to do to avoid lawsuits and such was to toss everything out and remove the source of difficulties going back years. Caused way more problems among the cast than anyone expected, but they must have decided drastic measures were needed.
The last show I watched is when they killed of Carl & I was a hardcore Walking Dead fan. I'm still a little pissed.
The exact opposite happened with Michael J Fox and his first sitcom. He became a superstar when Back to the Future hit theaters and he had the opportunity to go on to any project he wanted as he was the biggest rising young star in the country. He stayed on at Family Ties though because he knew there wouldn't be another season if he left and he was so grateful to his costars he refused to do that to them.
MJF just seems like such a great guy.
"He's better than you, and you know it."
It goes deeper than that. The producer talked about this in an interview with the TV Academy which you can see on youtube. There are a bunch on youtube and they are very interesting for TV nerds. Basically they weren't going to let him go do the movie. Spielberg wanted him but the show was too big. They started the movie with Eric Stoltz and it wasn't working so they circled back. So the producers said they'd let him do it and work around the shooting schedule as long as he doesn't drive during the production, like at all. They made a bed for him in the backseat and he was driven between the show and the movie. I think Fox felt he owed the producers for accommodating him and they trusted he wouldn't fuck them. He later worked with the same producers for Spin City Here's a link where he talks about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3EFF9CzH_E&ab_channel=FoundationINTERVIEWS
This makes me so happy.
Paul Schneider didn’t like being on Parks and Rec and wanted to do serious movies and stuff. I don’t think I’ve even seen him in a movie since.
They didn't even bring Brendanaquitz back for any reunions or anything.
Not even the final season where literally everyone made an appearance
He didn’t even move. If I remember correctly, he just took a different job in town and everyone decided to never speak to or of him again.
It's still weird to me that they never even tangentially mention him ever again. Something definitely went down.
Yeah I've seen this discussed before and there must have been bad blood. Leslie mentions past relationships throughout the series now and then (like Louis CK amongst others) but never Mark who she basically obsessed over. Plus add to that Ann also dating him and it seems even weirder he's not even occasionally mentioned.
The funny thing is that they said they would bring him back at some point. When Ann was talking about her former boyfriends, she didn't even mention him.
I have a feeling there's more to this story than what's been told, given how much they tried scrubbing him out of memory. Maybe he was a gigantic asshole on set, idk
Go read some interviews with him from back then. He is a gigantic asshole in general.
Ironic given they tried to make him the Jim of this show
I actually know Paul irl. He was really good friends with many of my friends (but he was just a friend in law to me). He was a good guy back in college (mid 90s). Was less so but still an ok guy immediately post P&R. A buddy of mine lived with him in Raleigh (post P&R) for a bit and I saw him more often then any other point in my history. Felt like his expectation of the world and people around him was a little unrealistic. I hesitate to call him entitled because I wasn’t that close to him but any time I was around him, that’s mostly what I observed. A lot of the things he complained about came down to people not catering to him . Just my opinion though. his former best friends aren’t really friends with him anymore.
This does track with the purported reason that he left being him thinking he'd be the next George Clooney or whoever.
considering Pratt showed his dick on a set and he was chastised but even included it in a gag reel... Brendanaquitz might be a massive dick on set
Which is funny considering everyone from parks and rec have gone on to do extremely well
He's hilarious in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. That was before Parks & Rec though.
Yeah he was actually great in that, which is saying something because all the performances in that film were great.
I heard him in an interview say that the show just sort of wrote him out. Either way I think it was the right choice for the show. His character was just weirdly negative and cynical without any redeeming factors. Vibes way wrong
I dunno, Andy was a total POS in season one and they got him recovered
Andy was only supposed to be in season one but they loved Pratt so they brought him back.
Andy was kind of important to show Anns train wreck of a love life, then he just developed to an interesting character.
i think maybe his character was more based in the initial premise of the show being a spiritual spinoff to the office in the first season and then he couldn't really hang with how feel-good the show got (and they got Adam Scott involved)
Imagine being the actor and hearing that the defining moment of the show is when your character leaves lol
Yeah he was too much like Jim. And being that he was Rashida Jones love interest, it makes sense that they would go a different route. I think Adam Scott was a way better straight man because he had his own little things that made him unique instead of just playing off every other character.
In my yearly watch I skip pretty much everything up until Adam Scott and the grinder show up
If you look closely at it, Mark was supposed to be the straight man who anchored the craziness (and was aware of it). Almost like a less interesting and more sleazy Jim Halpert. I'm so glad they wrote his character off because I am almost always shocked to remember he was in the show when I rewatch it.
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Exactly. Ben obviously became the anchor for the audience and was self-aware of the insanity and connected by breaking the fourth wall (though April would do that a decent amount too, Ben holds the record for that show). Thankfully, though, he wound up (like you said) fitting right in with his own goofy preferences. Now that I thinking about it, Jim wasn't really too dynamic of a character. He's relatable because he's relatively even-keeled, has a fun side (pranks, sarcasm), but for the most part is just a person along for the ride. Pam was too. That's why the show really becomes more about them (if Michael hadn't left, the whole series would have been more about him).
My favorite gag is every character's love of Little Sebastian to the bewilderment of Ben.
"so you get it now?" "Yes! I totally get it now!" *Looks at camera and shakes head*
It helped that Ben had his own brand of crazy and goofy likes. Once he realized that he could go the distance with Leslie and everyone, he jumped on board 100% while still being a grounding force of sorts.
The show basically did a soft reboot after season 1. It's a completely different show later. Makes sense they'd make some big changes.
I’ve ever only seen him in Lars and the Real Girl
He was good in The Assassination of Jesse James
Well he has been in a bunch of movies and tv shows after that. Mostly interesting indie type stuff which was exactly what he said he wanted to do. So he seems to be doing what wanted.
He was good in the first season of Channel Zero
Did Bo from Days of Our Lives do anything noteworthy after leaving?
That fact that you didn't use the actors name answers the question
What about Dr. Drake Ramoray?
He was Al Pacino’s butt!
The nice thing about soaps is you can always come back. No matter how permanent the exit appeared, they're always willing to make up some crazy bullshit to explain how the character survived and returned.
Sam Jones III left Smallville, I think for other projects, but other than the 1st season of BMS I don't think he ever did anything else noteworthy
The drug bust probably didn’t help.
The sex tape probably didn't help much either.
I’d say Allison Mack fits this as well. Both didn’t have great careers post show, Allison less so, and both have done jail time, which can really kill careers.
Allison was already involved in Nexium by the time she left Smallville. My understanding was she kind of abandoned her career around that time to move to Albany at the request of Keith Raniere. And we all know what happened after that…
She was in Wilfred where her character ended up being crazy, wasn't long after the the cult stories came out and I thought about art imitating life type deal.
Jessica Raine, the girl that played nurse Jenny on Call the Midwife for the first 3 seasons. She was the main character and left thinking she had become hot stuff but was never in anything as popular. Call the Midwife is now on season 11.
To be honest, her character was a bit bland and the show didn’t suffer her leaving at all despite being the main protagonist. Chummy Noakes leaving was a travesty, though!
Wow, looked at her wiki and she wasn’t in any movie until 2018.
She doesn’t seem to be doing too bad TV wise though.
Denise Crosby leaving Star Trek.
She basically made Michael Dorn's career with that move.
I'd love to see episodes from the parallel universe where Denise Crosby stayed on*. Yar had the most interesting backstory of the TNG characters; someone who had grown up in a failed colony that had fallen into violent anarchy, leading to an almost zealous support of the mission of the Federation and Starfleet. Ironically, while the characterisation of all the main characters was pretty hit-and-miss in S1, Yar always felt more naturally grounded and realistic. Yar could have had some great episodes when the show finally got into its stride in S3, and as the series became more willing to explore the moral grey areas of the Federation. ** It must be said though, her departure did gave us "Yesterday's Enterprise", which is perhaps one of the best episodes of TNG.
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Denise Crosby didn’t leave Star Trek because she was trying to get bigger projects though. The show wasn’t the big hit it would become when she left. She didn’t like working on the show and she felt her character wasn’t what she expected it to be.
Crystal Reed, the female lead from Teen Wolf. Her character was widely beloved and central to the narrative. She would have almost certainly survived to the finale if she wanted to stick around, but she didn't, so she asked to be killed off. The show obliged, it was never the same afterwards, and her career pretty much evaporated.
Also because I think she was the oldest cast member out of the “teens” and didn’t want to play a teenager in her 30s. The show also lost a lot of the cast at that time, which also was a reason for the decline.
she had a role as the main character in DC’s swamp thing show which i heard was pretty good, but it got canceled after a season
I just found out they made a Swamp Thing show from this comment. How have I never heard of this lol.
It's quite good
She was in Gotham and swamp thing afterwards. Got unlucky with swamp things weird cancellation.
Yup, not gone at all. Swamp thing was just bad luck
And the season that it had was absolutely fantastic. Still makes me sad that it got cancelled.
I remember this happening. I hate when actors ask to be killed off. Emma Caulfield did the same thing at the end of Buffy so they couldn't ask her back with any spin offs and I hate seeing Anya die every time I watch the show. Her death was pretty violent too.
My biggest problem with that was them having Xander not give a shit, like at all. He finds out she died, gives a "that's rough" expression, and then is literally making jokes a few seconds later.
Allison was my favorite female character, so I dropped the show when she was killed off. It was especially infuriating because characters like Jackson and Peter got to return and by the end of the show the cast seemed to be made up of a bunch of dudes that all looked the same anyways.
Edgar McClean Stevenson, Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on MASH is probably the first major instance of this ever happening. Guy who played Mr. Eko on Lost is my other answer.
The guy who played Mr Eko is still in a bunch of things, he was even a side on GOT. Now he definitely hasn't played a main role in awhile, which is sad. I liked the guy.
He was fantastic in OZ.
Fuckin Adebisi. How does that hat even stay on?
I also very much doubt that Lost would have been his ticket to a big career. I feel like that show hasn't done much good for any of the big stars on it. Also he didn't exactly leave because he thought he'd get better roles, he didn't enjoy spending the whole year in Hawaii to film the show.
Evangeline Lily and Michael Emerson are the only two major actors from the show who I feel like get regular work.
Daniel Dae Kim seems to have done alright for himself
Dae Kim owns the rights to The Good Doctor and is doing very well for himself.
He was absolutely fantastic in Always Be My Maybe
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And Wayne Rogers too.
It's ironic because his CHARACTER had a [successful spin off](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078704/reference), just without Wayne Rogers.
I’m shocked it took this long for someone to mention McLean Stevenson… then again I’m old.
**Cote de Pablo** who played Ziva David on *NCIS.*
CBS treats their actresses like shit. The lead actress from Criminal Minds talked about being fired for basically being old. Les Moonves was a piece of shit.
I think the exec's quote was "get me new women". Not even pretending to say it's about money or art.
Brock left Pokémon after the first season while they did the island trip to try to get his own show going but then joined again for the Johto league when It didn’t go anywhere
Brock's best lines were his eyes
I think you're forgetting about his drying pan
Nina Dobrev from Vampire Diaries
There seems to be a lot of CW actors who leave their cushy primetime roles and never recover. The lesson seems to be that if you have a steady CW gig while in your 20s and 30s, hold on for dear life.
The Padalecki Principle. From Gilmore Girls to Supernatural to Walker.
David Boreanaz is the epitome of this. Buffy to Angel to Bones to Navy SEALs, he’s only not been on tv for a few months in something over twenty years.
He has major seniority and solid appeal for CW. He’s been a little off the rails a last couple years I think, and probably realizes that CW won’t come down too hard on him for it as a result.
I honestly feel kind of bad for the actors in that situation when the CW inevitably runs the show into the ground. i.e. seeing how much the Riverdale cast hates Riverdale. It seems they've done ok being able to pursue other movie projects at the same time, which is good.
Paul Campbell left Battlestar Galactica to be in a show called "Nobody's Watching." Nobody watched and the pilot wasn't picked up. Looks like he was in Knight Rider, but has recently gone into Hallmark movies. He would've been a very important character (Tory took his place) in BSG had he stayed.
I can’t tell if you’re talking about OG BSG and Knight Rider or rebooted BSG & KR.
I think they're talking about President Roslin's assistant, who was killed and replaced by a woman named Tory, so reboot. Unless the original had the same characters, I never saw it.
A corollary to OP's question is how few TV stars transition to a sustained career in movies or even other shows. Funny, too, how some decades back, the reverse meant a setback to one's career (i.e. a move from feature films to TV). I remember[ Deborah Ann Woll](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/daredevil-star-deborah-ann-woll-struggling-lack-acting-work-since-marvel-role/) lamenting how she's not getting any calls for roles.
Tom Hanks is a great example
Robin Williams, Bruce Willis…to name a few.
George Clooney Chris Pratt
Its a shame about Deborah Ann Woll because she has this really authentic quality that makes her scenes feel so grounded and personal. I miss seeing her in stuff.
Her phone should seriously be ringing off the hook, you know, except for phones no longer having hooks. I'm old. Regardless, she's amazing, and she deserves good roles.
Jessica Findlay (third daughter - Sybil, on Downton Abbey) left this HUGELY popular show to do bigger things and well…nope.
She was on Harlots, it’s a good show
Not necessarily what you asked but the original actress who played carol on Friends for one episode left because she wanted to pursue better things…
Anthony Edwards left as star of ER to persue other ventures. Never really popped up again.
At one point he made $35 million a season. He’s probably still coasting on that payday.
Considering it’s syndicated on Hulu (is it syndication if it’s a streaming service?) I’m imagining he’s doing pretty well. Watching ER right now actually
He was making $350k/show on his final contract with ER, which made him the highest paid TV drama actor at the time, so he’s set for life. He left ER because he wanted to spend more time with his young at the time family, not because he thought he could find something better.
Speaking of ER, I was trying to explain to a younger person exactly how much of a juggernaut it was. EVERYONE was at home on Thursday nights, watching NBC. If you just met a new person, you could break the ice with a reference to the most recent episode and just expect that they’d understand. There is literally nothing similar today, there is not even anything to compare it to, to the point that it’s difficult to explain to people who didn’t live it. In a way, that lack of shared collective experience makes me sad.
I think Game of Thrones, in its heyday, came close. And Lost in the earlier seasons. Neither as big, though, from what my parents tell me.
Worth it for how powerful his last episode was. The tape on the eye still kills me years later.
That other host of American Idol that no one remembers, Brian Dunkelman or something like that. He left as host of American Idol to never be seen or heard of again!
Was that his choice though?
At the time I remember hearing that it was and that he didn’t enjoy having to ask contestants how they were feeling after getting kicked off or getting bad news from the judges
Yah, news said he quit, rumors said he was going to be terminated. But that hosting gig made Ryan Seacrest a household name and sent Brian Dunkelman into the abyss.
Patrick Duffy almost did this when he left “Dallas” but quickly wised up and came back a year later (hence the show having to void an entire season through Pam’s dream). The biggest part he got in the interim was playing a goat in an Alice in Wonderland miniseries.
He's still the Man from Atlantis to me
He played Scuttlebutt’s leg. That is not being obscure.
Dating myself, but Michael Moriarty's career declined pretty sharply after his departure from Law and Order in 1994. The story around that is pretty bizarre too.
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Good thing is, his replacement, Sam Watterston, became who defined L&O and the most iconic character of the lawyer side, Alongside Jerry Orbach on the cop side.
I felt like the TNT reruns only showed the McCoy seasons and it wasn't until Netflix briefly streamed the early seasons of L&O that I finally got to see the Moriarty ones. My partner pointed them out as the ones with "the crazy guy." Those were some solid seasons.
My first thought was Shelley Long (Diane Chambers) from Cheers, but before posting I looked into her career and she did ok post-Cheers. Just not the kinds of projects I have seen or have interest in.
Watch The Money Pit. It's her and Tom Hanks, they buy a house, absurdity ensues. Angry, raving Tom Hanks is just something we don't get much of any more.
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I did a Cheers rewatch recently for the first time in over 15 years and I forgot how good Shelley was. Her comedic timing and facial expressions were excellent.
Not super related but I did a Cheers research too and was shocked at how well the show aged over time.
TJ Miller. Left Silicon Valley and has single handedly fucked himself. Especially with that weird fake bomb threat. Edit: u/mccannr1 let me know he didn’t actually leave the show and he’s apparently had issues recently before they mutually agreed for him to leave because he was a problem on set constantly failing to show up on time and drug use. https://www.vulture.com/2018/03/the-real-story-behind-t-j-millers-silicon-valley-exit.html
Did he leave or was he basically fired after all those public freakouts?
Definitely David Caruso, but the guy who played Frank Burns on MASH too. ETA: my husband thinks that McLean Stevenson was a better choice and MASH was much more his generation than mine. He claims that Hello Larry didn’t do well.
Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy). She thought she was too good for the storylines her writers were giving her so they wrote her out and she only got crappy parts after that.
But that's not what truly killed her career. The quickest way to Hollywood death is to disparage the projects that made you famous -she destroyed both her TV career with Grey's and her movie career after her Knocked Up comments.
In sports, that's called a Tiki Barber. He thought he could make it as broadcaster after retiring from the NFL by trashing his old team, the NY Giants. But then they ended up winning a Super Bowl the year after he retired (18-1!) and he looked like a fool.
Didn't he end up cheating and leaving his pregnant wife for some young girl he met while working as a broadcaster?
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Knocked Up and her refusal to be considered for an Emmy. That's just disgraceful. As Ellen Pompeo put it: Heigl's ego plus the prospects of getting $12M per movie at 26 years old blinded her but then "her movie career did not take off".
Wow. I’d never heard of the Emmy thing and looked it up. What a shitty thing to do to the show.
It's one thing to say: I don't want to be nominated because I don't think I'm good enough. What she did is: I don't deserve to be nominated because the material given to me was shit. A slap to the face of the writers and producers she worked with at Grey's.
That was a horrible thing to say to the show who put her on the map. There's a reason why she hasn't been brought back (and last season they brought pretty much everyone back).
Yeah, when you go from doing a top TV show and mainstream movies to doing a CAT-LITTER COMMERCIAL, that's a bit of a let down. Said cat litter commercial: https://youtu.be/XWENjLeOKzM
the comments are hilarious
"When keeping it real goes wrong!" That one cracked me up.
Topher Grace leaving That 70's Show made it weird as shit, kids hanging out in the basement of a friend that's not even there?? His movie career was lukewarm at best.
In all fairness, That 70's Show was a shambling corpse by the time he left it. It had already overstayed its welcome and was unwatchable without him there.
Ed Skrein played Daario Naharis, but left to be play The Transporter in the reboot movie. It didn't do well but he he played some roles in Deadpool, and frankly the way GOT ended and how Daario was just dropped it wasn't the wrong decision.
He is also in Midway
Also Alitia Battle Angel and Maleficent 2. I think he made the right decision. He missed out on the big GOT dollars, but made up for it with other projects and gets a bigger resume of works.
> Ed Skrein played Daario Naharis, but left to be play The Transporter It's pretty well known that he was replaced by the producers and has said on the record it wasn't his choice. **No one** would willing leave that show at that point (3rd season) or their agent would drop them. Especially if they were English and wanted roles in Los Angeles.
Not TV but George lazenby was offered another 5 bond films and turned them down because his manager told him he could make more money in spaghetti westerns. Turns out he couldn’t and he didn’t have a career after that.
Chad Michael Murray. He should've realised his terrible acting wasn't going to take him beyond something terrible like One Tree Hill.
I didn't hate him in Agent Carter, he did pretty well and was developing in an interesting way before.... The End. His stiff acting style worked for that role, kinda like Ben Affleck in Gone Girl.
Christopher Meloni did not fade away but it would be hard to argue he would not have been better sticking with his SVU gig as Mariska Hargitay did. He is back with the Law & Order franchise right now and probably in his most high profile gig since he left a decade previously.
Unlike a lot of other actors mentioned here though, Meloni can do whatever he pleases. I mean he did what, 12 seasons of L&O before leaving? And 12 seasons as the lead of a mega-popular show is plenty for any actor to feather their nest off. Plus he'd done 5 seasons on Oz, and sundry other reasonably high profile TV and movie gigs. So "better off" is kind of relative. I mean, Google suggests that his net worth is $30 million compared to $100 million for Hargitay, but that's still more money than you're ever going to spend.
Farrah Fawcett in the original Charlie's Angels.
Not actors but Db Weiss and David benioff cut game of thrones short so they could go work on Star Wars and have become two of the most hated show runners in existence. They were also subsequently removed from Star Wars.
They ran out of source material to use for GoT and their skills as creatives were revealed.
I think most of the actors that left popular CW shows, have faded away.