Random Actors Who Were Not Happy About Their TV Characters Dying (12 items)

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  (#10) Jon Polito

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  Veteran character actor and Coen Brothers staple Jon Polito initially had no interest in playing Detective Steve Crosetti on the 1990s NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street. He did eventually sign on but quickly became unhappy with the direction of the series. Following Season 2, the show's producers thought they needed to breathe new life into the police drama by adding a female detective. Polito was told that his character would be written off the show but would be brought back toward the end of Season 3. 

  Polito publicly voiced his disappointment with the show's executive producers, Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana. He didn't really believe they would bring him back into the narrative fold:

  I didn't believe that because I'd been screwed by so many producers over the years. [Fontana] is a serious man when he says that. I didn't know that. I didn't trust him. So after he [told me, I] very stupidly went to the newspapers. And I said, rather openly, I said some very vicious comments, both about the way it was being handled by NBC and the way Fontana and Levinson were handling listening to NBC... I was wrong to jump at Fontana and all that... I just didn't trust it because I'd been screwed too many times before.

  His negative remarks prompted the writers to eliminate his character by his own hand. Detective Crosetti's body is found in the bay, and the medical examiner's reports later indicate that he had elevated levels of alcohol and tranquilizers in his system. This angered Polito even further - he resented the notion of an officer taking his own life. Eventually, the producers did bring Detective Crosetti back as a ghost in Homicide: The Movie.

  [Fontana] chose to have me [end myself] in a ridiculous way, I thought. So I never agreed with my [demise], and I never watched the show until they called me years later, and we had sort of patched it up, and he said, "You'll come back as a ghost," which I did.
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  (#2) Maggie Roswell

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  Maggie Roswell voiced several different characters on Fox's animated show, The Simpsons, including Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, and school teacher Miss Hoover. In 2000, the voice actress asked 20th Century Fox for a raise of about $2,000 per episode, making her pay about $6,000 per show. The corporation countered with a raise of only $150 per episode, which wouldn't even cover Roswell's traveling expenses to the studio.

  Roswell claims she responded to the counter by leaving the show, saying, 

  I was part of the backbone of The Simpsons, and I didn’t think [the requested raise] was exorbitant. I wasn’t asking for what the other cast members make. I was just trying to recoup all the costs I had in travel. If they’d flown me in, I’d still be working.

  Instead of giving Roswell a raise, Fox wrote Ned Flanders's beloved wife, Maude, off the show. In 2000, during Season 11 episode 14, Maude perished via T-shirt cannon while attending an event at the Springfield Speedway.
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  (#9) Drea de Matteo

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  One of The Sopranos' most memorable and hard-to-watch character ends came in the Season 5 episode, "Long Term Parking." Adriana (Drea de Matteo) was engaged to Christopher Moltisanti, but once she got in trouble with the law, the FBI manipulated her into snitching on the Sopranos crew. 

  It was only a matter of time before Christopher found out, and although Adriana's end seemed inevitable, her elimination is considered one of the most heartbreaking in the show's history. The naive Adriana thinks that she and Christopher are going to be taken care of, but it's only a ruse arranged by Tony.

  Silvio drives Adriana to a secluded wooded area, and she finally realizes that Silvio is not there to help her, but to take her life. He drags her out of the car as she tries to crawl away from him, but he shoots her off-camera.

  The actress admitted that her departure from the series was difficult. The character had made de Matteo's career, and she worried that her acting opportunities would end with Adriana's demise. Her next move would be to star opposite Matt LeBlanc on the Friends spin-off, Joey. Unfortunately, the series would only last for two seasons due to poor ratings. 

  "They [took me out] on HBO, and then I went to NBC to [end myself]," said de Matteo. "I can’t lie. I was still in love with Adriana."
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  (#8) Aidan Gillen

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  Aiden Gillen received the dreaded phone call from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss prior to the start of Season 7. He knew the call meant that his scheming, conniving character, Petyr Baelish - more popularly known as "Littlefinger" - would finally be paying his dues. Littlefinger's end came during the Season 7 finale episode, "The Dragon and the Wolf."

  "You’re left a little bereft," he said of his character's demise, "for your character and for your experience. It also immediately makes you quantify the hugeness of what that experience has been over the last seven years, which has been massive."

  Unlike Conleth Hill, who played Varys, Gillen was pleased with how the writers took out Littlefinger. After trying to manipulate Sansa (Sophie Turner) and control the power of Westeros in his favor for several seasons, Littlefinger finally made the fatal mistake of attempting to come between the recently united Stark sisters. Arya (Maisie Williams) used her Valyrian steel dagger to slit Littlefinger's throat.

  Both Gillen and his character knew that his time in the epic battle for power was coming to an end:

  As soon as he walks in that room and Arya produces the dagger, he knows the game is up. He at least suspected the game was up back in episode 4 when Bran told him, "Chaos is a ladder." For Bran to come up with that is beyond coincidental. That’s when the ground started to shift beneath my feet. At that point, I knew the things I’ve done in private are not necessarily private.
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  (#12) Matthew Lintz

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  In the penultimate episode of Season 9, "The Calm Before," the Whisperers finally enact their revenge for having young Lydia taken away from them. They abduct and slay 10 of the "good guys" - Henry, Ozzy, D. J., Tara, Enid, Tammy, Frankie, Alek, Rodney, and Addy - and place their heads on pikes for everyone to see.

  In particular, the teenage Henry was thought among fans to be a replacement for Carl, who was suddenly eliminated the previous season. Henry was just as ambitious and brave as his predecessor, and he could also supply a storyline centering around young, hopeful love.

  At the time of his end, Henry was learning to be a blacksmith and was clearly developing leadership qualities. Matt Lintz, Henry's actor, said he was saddened his character did not survive:

  I think every character that is [eliminated] is always a missed opportunity - you can always take them down different paths, so to speak. I think Henry definitely had a lot of story to tell, but people have to [pass], and I think Henry was a good shock factor to a lot of fans. You know, I think Henry did have more to give, but sadly he was [taken out].
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  (#4) Richard Madden

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  For the first few seasons of Game of Thrones, Robb Stark (Richard Madden), the oldest son of the deceased Ned Stark, appeared to be the most likely candidate to eventually sit on the Iron Throne. The popular theory crashed to a halt, however, in Season 3 episode 9, "The Rains of Castamere."

  Most fans know the episode better as the Red Wedding, a catastrophic event in which Robb, his mother, and his pregnant wife are all slain by Lord Walder Frey's henchmen at Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey's wedding reception.

  Robb's shocking end was quite a blow not only to GoT fans around the world, but also to the Scottish actor who played the would-be king. "I cried the whole way," he said of his plane trip after filming the scene. "I was the crazy boy on the plane crying at about midnight, landing in London."

  Despite the heartbreak of leaving the hit HBO series, Madden could still appreciate the artistic merit and emotion of the shocking episode:

  The whole episode was so operatic almost, of how the writers had placed little details throughout the whole sequence of events that happen in episode 9. And when we shot the scene, it took a few days because it’s huge, and there’s actually a moment in the scene that [Michelle Fairley and I] look at each other and it’s Robb Stark essentially saying goodbye to his mother and giving up.

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