Random Actors Who Asked To Have Their Characters Killed Off TV Shows (14 items)

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  (#1) Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

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  Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje played Mr. Eko on the hit series Lost. His character was introduced in Season 2, with fans quickly praising Akinnuoye-Agbaje's performance. Showrunners were happy with the cast addition as well and likely had big plans for Mr. Eko, at least based on his Season 2 arc. Unfortunately, Akinnuoye-Agbaje was miserable pretty much from the beginning. 

  According to Entertainment Weekly, the actor was tired of playing dealers and thugs, so he loved the idea of portraying a Nigerian priest. As a result, he was disappointed when the producers decided to make the character’s backstory include… substance dealing. He said that the change came as “a bit of a shock. I was devastated.” Akinnuoye-Agbaje considered that one season of Lost was enough for him and that his character’s story was complete, so he asked to leave. Mr. Eko was slain by the smoke monster in an early Season 3 episode.

  The actor’s unhappiness was later confirmed by Damon Lindelof, one of Lost’s showrunners. “Our Mr. Eko plans very quickly derailed. Adawele’s unhappiness was almost instantaneous. On his second episode, he was expressing extreme dissatisfaction,” Lindelof said. 
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  (#2) Isaac Hayes

  • Died at 66 (1942-2008)

  On the often naughty animated series South Park, Isaac Hayes voiced Chef, a cafeteria worker at the local elementary school. The show’s controversial humor seemed to generally work for Hayes… until it didn’t. 

  The soul singer, a Scientologist, decided to end his association with the series after South Park mocked his religion in the Season 9 episode "Trapped in the Closet."

  "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends, and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," Hayes said in a statement. 

  As a result, his character was slain in a gruesome manner in the Season 10 premiere. Chef falls from a bridge and is then mutilated by a grizzly bear and a mountain lion. 
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  (#3) T. R. Knight

  • 45

  On popular medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, T.R. Knight played George O’Malley, one of the more central characters in the show’s early seasons. As the series progressed, however, Knight’s screen time was reduced, which reportedly made the actor unhappy. Add in a “breakdown of communication” with showrunner Shonda Rhimes, and Knight decided to ask to leave instead of trying to figure out what was going on. 

  “My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George],” the actor told EW. Rhimes granted his wish and during the Season 6 premiere, O'Malley got straight-up hit by a bus.  
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  (#4) Kal Penn

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  While sometimes actors want to branch out by starring in other shows or movies, other times they decide to embrace completely unrelated projects. That was the case for actor Kal Penn, who portrayed Lawrence Kutner on the medical drama House M.D. He first appeared in Season 4 and stayed on as one of House's fellows until Season 6, when his character shockingly took his life. 

  Turns out, Penn asked to leave because he wanted to work in the White House, joining the Obama administration. “I got to know the President and some of the staff during the campaign and had expressed interest in working there, so I’m going to be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison. They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations,” Penn told EW after his final episode aired. 

  In 2013, President Obama appointed Penn to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. He resigned the post in August 2017, in protest of some of President Trump’s comments on Charlottesville.
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  (#5) Raymond Cruz

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  On hit drama Breaking Bad, Raymond Cruz played Tuco Salamanca, a psychotic kingpin. He was introduced in Season 1 and stayed on until Season 2 when he was shot in the head by Hank in the episode "Grilled."

  According to the actor, he asked to be shot because he found the part extremely difficult - though he was ultimately pleased with his final scene.

  Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to coming back and doing the part. [Laughs]. It’s really difficult to pull off. They were like, 'We want you to come back and do eight more episodes.' And I said, 'No. I’ll do one more and that’s it. You guys have to kill me.' They’re like, 'We never heard of an actor that wanted to die.' And I’m like, 'You don’t understand. This part’s really hard.'" 
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  (#6) Dean Norris

  • 55

  Not all actors who ask to have their character written out get their wish. Case in point - Dean Norris, who played the iconic Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad. The actor wanted to leave for his CBS series Under the Dome, so he asked the showrunners to finish off his character in the first half of Season 5. Alas, his wish was denied, and Hank stayed on almost until the bitter end. 

  “I said, ‘Would it be interesting if Hank died in the first eight?’They said, ‘No, we kind of need you for the last eight. We’ve been building that up for last five years’... Obviously, I’m glad that they did,” Norris admitted. His character made it all the way until Season 5’s fourteenth episode, "Ozymandias."
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  (#7) Dan Stevens

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  Many fans were outraged when Matthew Crawley had a sudden car accident at the end of Downton Abbey’s third series, moments after the birth of his child. Turns out, the actor portraying him, Dan Stevens, wanted a chance to pursue other projects. 

  “We were always optioned for three years. And when that came up it was a very difficult decision. But it felt like a good time to take stock, to take a moment. From a personal point of view, I wanted a chance to do other things,” Stevens said. Since leaving Downton Abbey, the actor has appeared in a variety of movies and TV shows. Most notably, he starred as Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and plays the lead in the critically acclaimed series Legion. 
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  (#8) John Francis Daley

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  On long-running procedural Bones, John Francis Daley played Lance Sweets, an FBI agent and psychologist working closely with the show’s two leads. He was introduced in early Season 3 and was taken out during the show’s Season 10 premiere.

  Daley left the show in order to be able to focus on directing rather than acting. He was offered the chance to direct the remake of National Lampoon’s Vacation and couldn’t get enough time off from the show to be able to do both. “The directing job was not something that I could walk away from. It was such a huge opportunity. It feels like a good next step in my career and my life; I always dreamed of being a director,” Daley told TVLine. After Vacation, Daley also directed 2018’s Game Night. 
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  (#9) Josh Charles

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  For the first five seasons, Josh Charles was one of the main players on legal drama The Good Wife. The actor played Will Gardner, the lead's boss and love interest, which made things that much more shocking for fans when Gardner was gunned down during the memorable Season 5 episode "Dramatics, Your Honor."

  Even more impressive is the fact that the showrunners managed to keep the unexpected development under wraps for a long time. Charles decided to leave at the end of Season 4 in order to pursue other projects. 

  I would rather not bore people with contract details, but the reality is that I had a very short-term deal, it was renewed a couple of times over, and at the end of the fourth year my contract was up, and I chose not to renew. It was just a creative decision for me wanting to go and explore new stuff—in my life, in my career. I was always going to try to give the show a few episodes this year to help them arc it out, but I’m glad that we ended up doing more. 
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  (#10) Connie Britton

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  Connie Britton was one of the two leads of musical drama Nashville. She played Rayna Jaymes, a popular country singer whose career is starting to show signs of winding down. Britton received critical acclaim for the role but eventually decided that it was time to move on to different things. “It was something that had been percolating over time, and there were lots of different reasons behind it. But my priority was really making sure that the timing was right,” Britton said.   

  Her character, Rayna, flat-lines in the ICU due to injuries sustained during a car collision. It happens in Season 5’s ninth episode, "If Tomorrow Never Comes." Britton eventually returned for a cameo on Nashville’s series finale.   
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  (#11) Crystal Reed

  • 34

  After playing Allison Argent for the first three seasons of Teen Wolf, Crystal Reed was ready to call it quits. “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. I love the show so much. So I went to Jeff and talked about it and he said, ‘We’ll write you a great ending,’” Reed told EW. 

  Allison was one of the main characters on the teen drama ever since the pilot. She was a descendant from a long line of werewolf hunters and was also the lead's love interest. The character perished in the penultimate episode of Season 3, "Insatiable." However, Reed returned to the series as a guest character in Season 5.   
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  (#12) Daniel Gillies

  • 42

  Filming a TV show can be time-consuming - and when you’re doing two at the same time, things get exhausting quickly. At least that was the case for actor Daniel Gillies, who decided to leave supernatural drama Saving Hope at the end of Season 3.

  Gillies played Dr. Joel Goran, one of the central characters of the series. Some context: the actor lives in the US, Saving Hope filmed in Canada. Gillies was also on The Originals at the time and he admitted that he couldn’t take the crazy schedule anymore, so he asked the showrunners of Saving Hope to let him leave: 

  It was a decision that was very difficult to make. I spoke to my representation and I said, ‘Look. I think we should have this discussion because I have a wife that’s American and I have a daughter that’s an American. Soon I’m going to have another son, he’s going to be an American boy. For all intents and purposes we live in the United States. And this is my home.’ Los Angeles is my home and it was a hard… put it this way. Most actors who are No. 2 on the callsheet of any show with anywhere between 18 and 22 episodes a year are exhausted from the one show. I was doing 40-42 episodes of TV a year, bouncing between two shows. Between The Originals and Saving Hope I was just exhausted. 
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  (#13) Ruth Wilson

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  Fans of The Affair were shocked when they found out that one of the show’s leads, Ruth Wilson, decided to leave the series abruptly. The body of her character, Alison, was found toward the end of the drama’s fourth season. What initially was thought to be self-inflicted was revealed to be a homicide, but one thing was for sure - Wilson was out for good.

  “I did want to leave, but I'm not allowed to talk about why,” Wilson said on CBS This Morning. The actor was quoted a few months earlier saying that she makes less than costar Dominic West. However, during the same CBS This Morning appearance, Wilson admitted that she never complained to the network abut pay parity. Perhaps we’ll never know. 
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  (#14) Josh Bowman

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  On the drama Revenge, Josh Bowman played Daniel Grayson, one of the main character’s love interests. Due to the soapy nature of the show, Daniel went through quite a lot over the course of the first three seasons, which led to Bowman actively wishing for his character to be offed. 

  “I’m trying to pitch a Daniel death by the end of the season. I love working on the show, but I’m just being honest. My character has flip-flopped the most, and it’s been so hard for me to play,” Bowman told TVGuide back in 2013. His wish was granted in the tenth episode of Season 4 when Daniel perishes while shielding the main character from a bullet.

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