rundown
Greta Lee has left The Morning Show after her character Stella Buck’s storyline ended in the latest episode. Lee revealed that scheduling conflicts and new film commitments such as “Tron: Ares” and “House of Dynamite” made it difficult for him to continue the series. “It would be nice if we could split up and continue to do everything, but that would be physically impossible,” she said.
Greta Lee’s run as Stella Bak on Apple TV’s The Morning Show has officially come to an end.
Having joined the show since season 2, she takes her final bow in the latest episode of season 4, resigning from UBN and boarding a plane to Naples.
“This is the end of the road for her. I feel everything,” Lee told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’ve been with these characters for such a long time. It’s surreal. I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want to spoil it, but I knew for a long time that this was the end of the road for her and this was a goodbye.”
Lee said his decision to leave the show was due to scheduling conflicts. “It got to the point where it wasn’t possible,” she said. “These shows are such a commitment. We kept trying, but schedule-wise it became more and more difficult to be able to pass on the resources and time to be there and continue to be on the show. So this is where we have to land. I thought, “Well, I have this much time while I’m filming Tron and Late Fame and the Kathryn Bigelow movie, House of Dynamite,” so the screenwriter came back with this storyline, and it’s very bittersweet. But I also feel like this is the end. Sometimes it’s difficult. It’s time for the character to move on. ”
He added, “It would be nice if we could split up and continue to do everything, but that’s physically impossible.”
Her final episode sees Stella step down as CEO, embroiled in a scandal and realizing she has become like her white male predecessors who trampled on people of color to get ahead. She strives to make things right by creating a path for Mia (Karen Pittman) to move up in the company. Stella is about to leave for Italy with her boyfriend Miles (Aaron Pierre), but he decides to stay behind with his wife and she leaves on her own. Although it’s painful to watch, Lee thinks it’s a natural ending for his character.
“It was always very important to me not to give a false happy ending,” she said. “It’s always been part of Stella’s legacy that she had to navigate all sorts of things in that position, a changing world, and a changing relationship with her own ambitions and what she wanted. On the one hand, it could go on and on. But I’m also not sure how realistic it was in terms of really showing all the different challenges that come with being Stella in this world.”
What does Lee envision for Stella’s future? “I think she’s going to go to a tiki bar, probably for a few weeks,” she said. “It’s ingrained in her to be a fighter and a worker. I love her. She’s smart, she’s an innovator, she’s the ultimate big-picture thinker.”
In her fantasy, “I think there’s a Stella everywhere, planning a comeback, thinking about the future, committed. I can’t think of anything else. She’s scheming, she’s planning, and I think she’s going to come back in some way.”
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