Why did Charisma Carpenter leave Angel?

[Xin Rong]

I was talking to this lad the other day and he said charisma left because she didnt get on with other cast members or they fell out or something is this true?

[Cordelia]

I don't think that's true at all. I believe she was written out either due to the way the story went along, or because she wanted to take time to raise her son.

[RockManic]

Yeah, there was no falling out with the other cast members at all. There were some rumoured minor disagreements between Charisma and Joss concerning the matter of her keeping quiet about her pregnancy until the last minute and how that forced them to do some last minute rewrites of the plot for season 4 and from what i've come to understand that was a factor in her not coming back for the fifth season.

Basically though i wouldn't read too much into it. I got the definate impression that it was blown totally out of proportion by fan specualtion and the media. Yes, maybe Charisma and Joss did have some disagreements but whatever they were and what they were really about all seems to have been put behind them now. Charisma was more than willing to do the 100th episode and i doubt that she would have done so had she still had any bad feelings towards Joss.

[Cordelia]

The show wasn't the same after she left though :( It needed the comical element of Cordy...Harmony was no substitute.

In "You're Welcome" her presence made me realize how much she really did bring to the show.

[Xander]

Although watching S3 again made me realise S4 did ruin the character. I like my Cordy heroic and comic, not kissing Angel's son!

What I want to know, why the 3 (or was it 4?) episode leave in the middle of S3?

[Cordelia]

You mean when she went on vacation with Groo?

[Cookie Dough]

Yes, why did she go with Groo

[Cordelia]

Didn't Angel pay for the vacation? I wouldn't have rejected that, well I would have asked to take someone other than Groo - not sure what she ever saw in him...

[Slayer,The]

Wasn't Season 4 going to be different before she got pregnant? Wasn't this when the Illyria storyline was supposed to happen? Something I heard.

[Xander]

Well I heard Joss approached Amy about the Illyria storyline during S5, I'd presume he would have told her before. But wasn't the Illyria storyline meant to show how evil corrupts when your working "in the belly of the beast"? Or was that someone's analysis?

Anyway I meant why did Charisma leave for a few eps, not Cordy.

[Jenny]

Anyway I meant why did Charisma leave for a few eps, not Cordy.

Well I'm too tired to do the math, but she may have been very early in her pregnancy then, and I would chalk up that absence to some very extreme sickness. :)

[RockManic]

Anyway I meant why did Charisma leave for a few eps, not Cordy.

This could be my memory failing me but i recall that she requested some time off to film something else. A quick look at her work history at IMDB might clarify exactly what that was. I'll have a look if i get chance.

EDIT: Okay, just had a quick look and the three episodes that Charisma didn't appear during that season would have been filmed in late 2001 to early 2002. At that time she filmed an episode of a tv series called Strange Frequency and a movie called The Groomsmen. I'm not entirely certain that this was the reason she was written out for those episodes but it does fit with what i recall reading.

[Shattered]

Well, I'm glad that there wasn't a fall out or anything like that! :smile:

[nerd4hire]

Here's a link to a pic of the 100th episode party.

http://www.cherubi.net/an/extra1.jpg

Charisma and Joss seemed to be enjoying themselves.

[Xin Rong]

yeah doesn't look like they've fallen out, thanks guys for clearing that up

[HeaTk]

^ i heard alot of things like she didnt get along with some of the cast so they kicked her off.
i always thought that was a bit harsh.

[jackiepolar]

i really like cordy if spike did not come into season 5 of angel i would have not seen it

[KarrinMurphy]

Does it matter why she left ? For me it was just a huge mistake to have her character in bed with a teenager. Yuch ! Cordelia as child molester ? Not even with a demon taking her over.

[VisionGuy]

Does it matter why she left ? For me it was just a huge mistake to have her character in bed with a teenager. Yuch ! Cordelia as child molester ? Not even with a demon taking her over.

Connor was eighteen so that doesn't count as child molesting.

[RockManic]

Does it matter why she left ? For me it was just a huge mistake to have her character in bed with a teenager. Yuch ! Cordelia as child molester ? Not even with a demon taking her over.

And yet Angel slept with Buffy when she was only 17.

Of course, neither the Buffy/Angel or Cordy/Connor situations count as child molesting here in the UK as the age of consent is 16.

What a wacky world we live in. ;)

[Randy Giles]

Although watching S3 again made me realise S4 did ruin the character. I like my Cordy heroic and comic, not kissing Angel's son!

What I want to know, why the 3 (or was it 4?) episode leave in the middle of S3?

It didn't ruin her character. Season four Cordy isn't Cordy, it's Jasmine, so nothing that happened in season 4 effects the character in my mind.

[VisionGuy]

I don't think it's fair saying thats season 4 ruined Cordelia's character because it was Jasmine controlling her. That's like saying Angelus ruined Angel's character.

[Bored of the Dead]

I think there has been a misinterpretation of what is being said.
We know that Cordy isn't Cordy in season 4.
BUT Charisma Carpenter is on screen and you can't help but say Cordelia killed Lilah even if you know its not true, you say it like that because that's what seemed to happen.
Also we have the complete lack of Cordelia in the season.
One thing that made Angel great was Cordelias acerbic tongue and quick wit.
That humour was completely lost.
I have no issue with Connor bouncing on Cordy even if it had been her though.
"Cordelia" had just been through hell...or indeed heaven...and Connor had spent his time in another hell.
Add to that, Angel and Cordy weren't even together AND that Cordy had only spent a few weeks with Connor as a baby before she jetted off to be with Groo on some desert Island.

[Seven Of Nine]

Why did Charisma Carpenter leave Angel? I was talking to this lad the other day and he said charisma left because she didnt get on with other cast members or they fell out or something is this true?

I heard the Cordelia's vacation with Groo was because Charisma "had some personal issues to deal with" and needed time off from the show.

I had also heard the reason she was written off the show at the end of season 4 is because Charisma wanted to quit; that she was tired of playing the same character after 7 years.

[Your Creamy Coolness]

Here is an interesting article from TV GUIDE! Might answer some questions. I got it from www.charisma-carpenter.com


Will Cordy Wake Up?
Now that Angelus and Co. have assumed control of Wolfram & Hart on Angel, we suggest they use their new seat of power to solve the show's biggest mystery: What the heck happened to Charisma Carpenter and her alter ego Cordelia? Carpenter — a former Buffy cast member who, like David Boreanaz, has been with the show since its inception — went off to have a baby last season and hasn't been heard from since. (Cordy remains in a coma on the show.) Making matters more murky, a new Angel cast list makes no mention of the actress. The WB and 20th Century Fox have been cagey about the omission, and numerous attempts to make contact with Carpenter's agent have proven unsuccessful. So, what's a journalist to do? Go straight to the big boss himself, Joss Whedon.

TV Guide Online: Why was Charisma's name removed from next season's cast list?

Joss Whedon: Mainly because we felt like we had taken that story — just like Buffy for seven years — about as far as it could go. The Angel/Cordelia [love story] had gone pretty much as far as we wanted to take it. Their romance was definitely not a popular move on our part, and I think with most fans. It just seemed like it was time because we were revamping the show, and then paring it down... it just seemed like a good time for certain people to move on. Not completely, obviously. I'm hoping that we'll get Charisma to do some episodes as Cordelia sometime during the year. She's a new mother, so, like Sarah [Michelle Gellar], I'm waiting to hear what her schedule is like. But it just seemed creatively like... I once said that I finally got to tell the story of Buffy that I tried to tell in the movie, and I did it with Cordelia. Which was the story of someone who was completely ditzy and self-involved becoming kind of heroic. But the way the series was different from the movie was that I didn't know where you go from there. So, I felt like we spent seven years playing that very arc, and it had played. Like Buffy itself, it's time to look at something new.

TVGO: Isn't that a disservice to fans who invested all those years in the character and her redemption? It seems an odd thing to do to the show's leading lady.

That's a fluctuating concept, the leading lady thing. And it is a little odd. Some choices are ultimately kind of controversial about who stays and who goes and who we focus on. But obviously, we had to have her out of a bunch of episodes toward the end of the year because she was having a baby... so what we had [leading] up to it wasn't a dynamic I wanted to play out that much. The fact is, this is not the end — unless Charisma herself says, "You know what? I don't feel like doing any recurring episodes." But when you have an increasingly large ensemble week-by-week, and you come in in your [fifth] year kind of having to revamp the show and trim the budget and also think creatively, "How am I going to service all of these people?," sometimes the people who have been around the longest, you've done the most with them.

TVGO: Some are speculating that she was a casualty of James Marsters's cross over as Spike next season. Like, there wasn't enough money in the budget to pay for them both, so she got the boot.

That's a hell of a thing to lay on James. It was a creative decision that we made before Spike came over to the show, and like I said, I don't intend to leave Cordelia in a coma for the rest of the Buffyverse. But the creative decision to have the character step down happened long before negotiations with James [started]. It should not be laid at his feet.

TVGO: Were things left on good terms with Charisma?

Yeah, but that's also stuff between us and not stuff that I would talk about in an interview.

[VisionGuy]

That's a very interesting article. I wish Cordelia would have been in season 5. Her and Spike together would have been awesome.

[palabravampiress]

I think she and Spike together would have been annoying. Cordy was the character to ragged on Angel and challenged him. Now, Spike does that. The two of them together doing that... ugh. Too much.

[cordelia chase2007]

they fired her cause she was preganet that what i heard

[white avenger]

Regardless of what Joss might have either said or inferred, the Angel/Cordelia relationship had a most definite following, and I don't think it was in nearly as much of a minority as he was aware. The truth is, Joss Whedon has never hesitated to kill off a character if he feels that doing so will advance the plot line, and he doesn't bother taking a poll of his fans before doing so. He wanted the character gone, so she went. If he had changed his mind later, well, as Angel once said, "Death doesn't have to be the end with us..." At least he never stooped to the point of making an entire season just a bad dream, the way they did when they brought Bobby Ewing back on "Dallas."

[Keanoite]

Regardless of what Joss might have either said or inferred, the Angel/Cordelia relationship had a most definite following, and I don't think it was in nearly as much of a minority as he was aware. The truth is, Joss Whedon has never hesitated to kill off a character if he feels that doing so will advance the plot line, and he doesn't bother taking a poll of his fans before doing so. He wanted the character gone, so she went. If he had changed his mind later, well, as Angel once said, "Death doesn't have to be the end with us..." At least he never stooped to the point of making an entire season just a bad dream, the way they did when they brought Bobby Ewing back on "Dallas."

Possibly the worst ending in the history of television.

About Cordy, Joss said that her story had just come to an end pretty much around the time sunnydale did. He felt they had done all they could with her.
I would disagree but he's the boss man so it don't matter what i think.