19 Actors Who Asked Writers To Kill Their Character Posted by Hannah Marder Last Updated: March 8, 2024 19 Actors Who Asked Writers To Kill Their Character Recently, we wrote about actors who begged to be killed off their movie series and TV shows, and now we’re back for more! Here are 19 more stars who wanted/want OUT. 1. Christian Serratos asked for her character Rosita to be killed in the series finale of The Walking Dead because she felt it “made sense for Rosita” and gave her (Serratos) closure. She also said, “I just really wanted people to have that emotional experience in our finale, especially. I think a show that was about possibly losing your loved ones, you want to lose somebody at the end. I know it sounds so dark, but I feel like the show, we owed it to the fans to break their hearts one last time, if that makes sense.” 2. According to John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk, Keanu Reeves begged to be definitively killed off at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4 .“After the second, third, and fourth movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally,” Iwanyk said. “By the end, he’s always like, ‘I can’t do this again,’ and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, ‘I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie.’” Producers disagreed and left the ending slightly ambiguous, with Iwanyk saying. “We were like, ‘You know, we’ll leave a 10% little opening.” 3. In one example where the actor’s request was not obliged, Alan Ruck asked that his character Connor Roy be killed off Succession after feeling like he wasn’t doing much. “In the first seasons I had a few things to do, and then in the second season I had some inane Connor-isms, some interjections, but I didn’t actually have a one-on-one scene with anybody. Everyone was like, ‘This is the best show on TV,’ and people didn’t even know I was on it. So I asked to be killed off, and they said, ‘No, no, no, we need you.’ Mark Mylod [an executive producer and director] wrote something funny about how Jeremy Piven’s character on Entourage was not supposed to be much at all and then it grew over time. And Connor did grow over time; it just kind of took until the end of the third season.” 4. While we don’t have confirmation from Joe Manganiello himself, an insider told Hollywood Life that he wanted his character Alcide to be killed off True Blood. “Joe brought up to the producers that he wanted to be killed off because he wants more out of his career then just being known as being the guy on True Blood. The producers gave him his wish because when he brought it up, it was before the final season was announced.” 5. While Kate Mara didn’t necessarily ask to be killed off House of Cards, she clearly wanted her character Zoe to die — her character’s death was one of the main reasons she took the role. “I knew from the moment I accepted the role that I was only contracted for 14 episodes and would have a grisly death at the start of the second season. I probably wouldn’t have signed on otherwise. … I was ready to go and liked that I got such a definitive ending.” 6. Samuel L Jackson’s character was always meant to die in Deep Blue Sea, but he died earlier than planned at Jackson’s own request. His character’s monologue was originally “seven pages of the worst dialogue you’ve ever heard in your life.” according to visual effects supervisor Jeff Okun, who, with Jackson, came up with the idea of having his speech cut off by Jackson’s character’s death so he wouldn’t have to say the lines. Jackson even told Okun, “Just kill me. The sooner you kill me, the happier I’ll be.” He ended up butting heads with director Renny Harlin, but eventually got his way when the movie was recut to be more of a comedy. 7. Raymond Cruz revealed in an interview with AMC that he asked the Breaking Bad writers to kill his character Tuco after first appearing in the end of Season 1 of the show. “Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to coming back and doing the part. It’s really difficult to pull off,” Cruz revealed. “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.’” 8. Liev Schreiber asked Kevin Williamson (who wrote the original Scream) to be killed off the Scream franchise after appearing briefly in the first film and in a larger role in the second film — and later regretted it. “All I remember was thinking, ‘You know, this guy’s kind of a ham,'” Schreiber revealed. “At that point in my career, I didn’t really fully understand the value of being in a franchise. To be frank, I was like, ‘Let me get out of this while I can. Get out while things are going well.’ And I just thought it would be fun to be one of the iconic kills from the top. I was working and doing a lot of stuff, a lot of other stuff in New York, and theater, and I was like, ‘How many times can I play this character?’ And now, I realize, that you can play that character as many times as they want you to.” 9. Charlton Heston was not keen on the idea of a sequel to Planet of the Apes, and only agreed to appear in Beneath the Planet of the Apes if his character was killed off in the first scene. He was later convinced to simply disappear in the first scene, and die at the end of the film. It was even Heston’s idea that Taylor should activate a doomsday bomb, dying along with the rest of Earth, so that the series couldn’t continue. Of course, it did, and Heston later said, “I thought I’d been very clever, but of course, they were cleverer than I was, because they managed to keep going on anyway.” 10. Duane Jones advocated for his character to die at the end of Night of the Living Dead when producers started considering a happier ending. “I convinced George that the Black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all that had gone on, in a corny and symbolically confusing way.” He continued, “The heroes never die in American movies. The jolt of that and the double jolt of the hero figure being Black seemed like a double-barreled whammy.” 11. Director J.C. Chandor revealed that Ben Affleck asked to be killed in the middle of Triple Frontier. The death was originally meant to go to a secondary character, but Affleck thought he could get the studio to agree to change it to him. Chandor was on board: “I realized it was so neat that instead of it being the guy that should have died, it was the guy that shouldn’t have, in a way. Even though he’s the leader, and he should have known better.” Affleck added, “I thought that would be interesting and I wanted to see somebody actually pay a price for what happened. I always liked To Live and Die in L.A., how Bill Peterson’s character died. It kind of takes you off guard. I wanted to do the same thing. … It highlights the risk to people’s lives. It focuses on the mortality question and theme, which I think is really interesting.” 12. Bruce Lee also reportedly advocated for his character to die at the end of Fist of Fury, which was not the original ending. Lee felt that his character Chen should die in order to show justice was not one-sided (considering Chen’s murders in the film), but wanted him to die with honor. 13. It’s unclear if John Diehl asked to be killed off Miami Vice, but he did ask to leave the show after feeling he “didn’t have much to do,” and called his character Larry Zito dying “the right way to get me out of it.” He continued, “It’s better than just writing me out, having me quit (the police force) or something. It’ll also attract attention; they can promote it. But I had to get killed to get out of my own show!” 14. We’ll have to wait and see if this request is honored, but apparently, Michael Douglas wants Hank Pym to die if there’s a fourth Ant-Man film. In fact, he told The Hollywood Reporter he’d only come back to the franchise “as long as I could die.” 15. And Maya Hawke wants Robin to die in Stranger Things Season 5. “It’s the last season, so people are probably going to die. I would love to die and get my hero’s moment,” she told Rolling Stone. “I’d love to die with honor, as any actor would.” However, she also said she appreciates the way the Duffer brothers “love their actors” and “don’t want to kill them. I think that’s a beautiful quality that they have, and I wouldn’t wish it away.” 16. Gareth Thomas reportedly “insisted” his character Blake die on Season 2 of Blake’s 7. He did end up returning for the finale, during which he again died, but it’s rumored he added extra blood packs beneath his costume to make his death more definitive so he wouldn’t be asked to return if the series continued in any way. 17. Ben Miller asked to be killed off the British-French series Death in Paradise, his costar Ralf Little revealed on Twitter, saying his death was “at Ben’s request I believe. The legend goes he wanted to make sure he couldn’t come back.” Miller had previously claimed he left due to wanting to spend more time with his young children, saying “My personal circumstances just made it too complicated.” 18. Nicola Duffet revealed she ran to the script editor’s office and “begged” to be killed off Eastenders. “I ran in crying, ‘Kill me NOW! I can’t stand it.’ Because the part was so boring. I played this simpering wimp, Debbie. All I did was walk into the Vic and say, ‘Where’s Nigel?'” she got her wish, and her character was killed offscreen in a road accident. 19. In the British series, Waking the Dead, Claire Goose asked for her character Mel Silver to be killed off in Season 4. “I did ask that. They [the producers] were like ‘Really, do we have to kill you off?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, go on, just do it’.” She also revealed her character was initially supposed to be killed in the pilot so her character’s life had actually been extended quite a bit. Source link
Recently, we wrote about actors who begged to be killed off their movie series and TV shows, and now we’re back for more! Here are 19 more stars who wanted/want OUT. 1. Christian Serratos asked for her character Rosita to be killed in the series finale of The Walking Dead because she felt it “made sense for Rosita” and gave her (Serratos) closure. She also said, “I just really wanted people to have that emotional experience in our finale, especially. I think a show that was about possibly losing your loved ones, you want to lose somebody at the end. I know it sounds so dark, but I feel like the show, we owed it to the fans to break their hearts one last time, if that makes sense.” 2. According to John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk, Keanu Reeves begged to be definitively killed off at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4 .“After the second, third, and fourth movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally,” Iwanyk said. “By the end, he’s always like, ‘I can’t do this again,’ and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, ‘I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie.’” Producers disagreed and left the ending slightly ambiguous, with Iwanyk saying. “We were like, ‘You know, we’ll leave a 10% little opening.” 3. In one example where the actor’s request was not obliged, Alan Ruck asked that his character Connor Roy be killed off Succession after feeling like he wasn’t doing much. “In the first seasons I had a few things to do, and then in the second season I had some inane Connor-isms, some interjections, but I didn’t actually have a one-on-one scene with anybody. Everyone was like, ‘This is the best show on TV,’ and people didn’t even know I was on it. So I asked to be killed off, and they said, ‘No, no, no, we need you.’ Mark Mylod [an executive producer and director] wrote something funny about how Jeremy Piven’s character on Entourage was not supposed to be much at all and then it grew over time. And Connor did grow over time; it just kind of took until the end of the third season.” 4. While we don’t have confirmation from Joe Manganiello himself, an insider told Hollywood Life that he wanted his character Alcide to be killed off True Blood. “Joe brought up to the producers that he wanted to be killed off because he wants more out of his career then just being known as being the guy on True Blood. The producers gave him his wish because when he brought it up, it was before the final season was announced.” 5. While Kate Mara didn’t necessarily ask to be killed off House of Cards, she clearly wanted her character Zoe to die — her character’s death was one of the main reasons she took the role. “I knew from the moment I accepted the role that I was only contracted for 14 episodes and would have a grisly death at the start of the second season. I probably wouldn’t have signed on otherwise. … I was ready to go and liked that I got such a definitive ending.” 6. Samuel L Jackson’s character was always meant to die in Deep Blue Sea, but he died earlier than planned at Jackson’s own request. His character’s monologue was originally “seven pages of the worst dialogue you’ve ever heard in your life.” according to visual effects supervisor Jeff Okun, who, with Jackson, came up with the idea of having his speech cut off by Jackson’s character’s death so he wouldn’t have to say the lines. Jackson even told Okun, “Just kill me. The sooner you kill me, the happier I’ll be.” He ended up butting heads with director Renny Harlin, but eventually got his way when the movie was recut to be more of a comedy. 7. Raymond Cruz revealed in an interview with AMC that he asked the Breaking Bad writers to kill his character Tuco after first appearing in the end of Season 1 of the show. “Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to coming back and doing the part. It’s really difficult to pull off,” Cruz revealed. “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.’” 8. Liev Schreiber asked Kevin Williamson (who wrote the original Scream) to be killed off the Scream franchise after appearing briefly in the first film and in a larger role in the second film — and later regretted it. “All I remember was thinking, ‘You know, this guy’s kind of a ham,'” Schreiber revealed. “At that point in my career, I didn’t really fully understand the value of being in a franchise. To be frank, I was like, ‘Let me get out of this while I can. Get out while things are going well.’ And I just thought it would be fun to be one of the iconic kills from the top. I was working and doing a lot of stuff, a lot of other stuff in New York, and theater, and I was like, ‘How many times can I play this character?’ And now, I realize, that you can play that character as many times as they want you to.” 9. Charlton Heston was not keen on the idea of a sequel to Planet of the Apes, and only agreed to appear in Beneath the Planet of the Apes if his character was killed off in the first scene. He was later convinced to simply disappear in the first scene, and die at the end of the film. It was even Heston’s idea that Taylor should activate a doomsday bomb, dying along with the rest of Earth, so that the series couldn’t continue. Of course, it did, and Heston later said, “I thought I’d been very clever, but of course, they were cleverer than I was, because they managed to keep going on anyway.” 10. Duane Jones advocated for his character to die at the end of Night of the Living Dead when producers started considering a happier ending. “I convinced George that the Black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all that had gone on, in a corny and symbolically confusing way.” He continued, “The heroes never die in American movies. The jolt of that and the double jolt of the hero figure being Black seemed like a double-barreled whammy.” 11. Director J.C. Chandor revealed that Ben Affleck asked to be killed in the middle of Triple Frontier. The death was originally meant to go to a secondary character, but Affleck thought he could get the studio to agree to change it to him. Chandor was on board: “I realized it was so neat that instead of it being the guy that should have died, it was the guy that shouldn’t have, in a way. Even though he’s the leader, and he should have known better.” Affleck added, “I thought that would be interesting and I wanted to see somebody actually pay a price for what happened. I always liked To Live and Die in L.A., how Bill Peterson’s character died. It kind of takes you off guard. I wanted to do the same thing. … It highlights the risk to people’s lives. It focuses on the mortality question and theme, which I think is really interesting.” 12. Bruce Lee also reportedly advocated for his character to die at the end of Fist of Fury, which was not the original ending. Lee felt that his character Chen should die in order to show justice was not one-sided (considering Chen’s murders in the film), but wanted him to die with honor. 13. It’s unclear if John Diehl asked to be killed off Miami Vice, but he did ask to leave the show after feeling he “didn’t have much to do,” and called his character Larry Zito dying “the right way to get me out of it.” He continued, “It’s better than just writing me out, having me quit (the police force) or something. It’ll also attract attention; they can promote it. But I had to get killed to get out of my own show!” 14. We’ll have to wait and see if this request is honored, but apparently, Michael Douglas wants Hank Pym to die if there’s a fourth Ant-Man film. In fact, he told The Hollywood Reporter he’d only come back to the franchise “as long as I could die.” 15. And Maya Hawke wants Robin to die in Stranger Things Season 5. “It’s the last season, so people are probably going to die. I would love to die and get my hero’s moment,” she told Rolling Stone. “I’d love to die with honor, as any actor would.” However, she also said she appreciates the way the Duffer brothers “love their actors” and “don’t want to kill them. I think that’s a beautiful quality that they have, and I wouldn’t wish it away.” 16. Gareth Thomas reportedly “insisted” his character Blake die on Season 2 of Blake’s 7. He did end up returning for the finale, during which he again died, but it’s rumored he added extra blood packs beneath his costume to make his death more definitive so he wouldn’t be asked to return if the series continued in any way. 17. Ben Miller asked to be killed off the British-French series Death in Paradise, his costar Ralf Little revealed on Twitter, saying his death was “at Ben’s request I believe. The legend goes he wanted to make sure he couldn’t come back.” Miller had previously claimed he left due to wanting to spend more time with his young children, saying “My personal circumstances just made it too complicated.” 18. Nicola Duffet revealed she ran to the script editor’s office and “begged” to be killed off Eastenders. “I ran in crying, ‘Kill me NOW! I can’t stand it.’ Because the part was so boring. I played this simpering wimp, Debbie. All I did was walk into the Vic and say, ‘Where’s Nigel?'” she got her wish, and her character was killed offscreen in a road accident. 19. In the British series, Waking the Dead, Claire Goose asked for her character Mel Silver to be killed off in Season 4. “I did ask that. They [the producers] were like ‘Really, do we have to kill you off?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, go on, just do it’.” She also revealed her character was initially supposed to be killed in the pilot so her character’s life had actually been extended quite a bit.
