Exit

[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the sixth episode of season four of The Morning Show, “If Then.”]

Stella Bak has exited The Morning Show, stage left.

The fan-favorite character played by Greta Lee, who joined the Emmy-winning Apple TV series in season two, has exited the series. In the sixth episode of season four, titled “If Then,” Stella’s gamble with AI implodes when the CEO of the media company at the heart of the series suffers a public breakdown that, if you ask showrunner Charlotte Stoudt, was a long time coming.

“I was interested in Stella as a person who grew up in tech, who always thought of tech as something like a superpower that could enhance her. What happens when tech becomes a way to look in the mirror and ask, who am I really? Am I on the right path?” Stoudt recently told THR about writing Lee’s final episode.

After Stella’s affair with the husband (Aaron Pierre) of her new boss Celine Dumont (played by Marion Cotillard) is exposed during a malfunctioning presentation about the company’s new gamble into AI, the CEO walks out on the media empire she had been so devoted to rebuilding, and hopes to meet Celine’s husband at the airport for a getaway. But ultimately Stella is jilted at the airport, and she walks onto the plane alone with her future left unwritten.

“It was very emotional [filming her final scene]. Just thinking about it, I tear up. It was very hard to leave her, even though it was time for Stella to go rediscover some part of herself, and she couldn’t do that at UBN,” explains Stoudt of Stella’s goodbye. “She had to get on that plane by herself. When you really are at a crossroads, people can support you, but you can’t have a buddy. You have to figure it out by yourself.”

After speaking with Stoudt, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Lee herself to find out what precipitated the in-demand actor’s exit from the series (she’s also currently starring in Tron: Ares) and how she imagines her character’s road to rediscovery as she confirms her series farewell: “It was time for her to go,” she explains below.

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When I spoke to Charlotte Stoudt, she said this is the end for Stella on the show. I want to hear it from you…this is your exit from the show?

This is the first time I’m saying it out loud but yeah, this is the end. This is goodbye.

I hate this!

I know, it’s terrible!

I figured Stella would return at some point later in the season. [Note: Four episodes remain.]

I know, I know. It’s shocking. But, this is it. This is the end of the road for her, and I feel all kinds of things. We’re with these characters for so long, it’s surreal. I haven’t been able to say anything because I didn’t want to spoil it, but I’ve known for some time now that this is the end of the road for her and this is her goodbye.

What was your conversation like with Charlotte going into this fourth season? When you found out this was her arc — how did you react?

There were a lot of factors. Of course, I would have loved to have stayed on indefinitely. This is like family to me. I moved to L.A. because of this show a few years ago from New York. I had my babies while doing the show and so much has happened. But it got to the point where it just wasn’t possible. These shows are such a commitment. We kept trying and it just got harder and harder, scheduling-wise, to be there, and to be able to hand over my resources and time to keep being on the show. So this was where we had to land. I was like, “Well, I have this amount of time while filming Tron and Late Fame and Kathryn Bigelow’s movie A House of Dynamite,” so the writers came back with this storyline and it’s so bittersweet, but I also feel this was the end. Sometimes it’s that hard thing where it’s time. It’s time for a character to move on.

It was always really important to me to not show a false happy ending for the sake of it. It’s always been part of Stella’s legacy that she has had to navigate all kinds of things in her position. The changing world and her own changing relationship with her ambition and what she wants. On the one hand, it could go on and on. But I also don’t know how realistic that would have been in terms of really showing all the different challenges that come with being Stella in this world.

Well, it makes me feel better that this was a mutual decision.

It was time to go, really. I wish I could split up into different people and just keep doing everything, but that would be physically impossible.

When you think about Stella getting on that plane, what do you imagine her road to rediscovery looks like? Do you see her returning to media eventually, or running a tiki bar somewhere?

I think she’ll go to the tiki bar and maybe last a few weeks. It’s so ingrained in her to be a fighter and a worker. I love her. She’s brilliant and such an innovator; she’s the ultimate big-picture thinker. The entire genesis of her wanting to take on this job and leaving the world of tech to come onto UBA, which is now UBN, is that she really believed in redefining what the news could be. As we know, that’s a question that’s certainly going on now, and that’s not going away anytime soon, and I love that about her. She’s thinking, “How can I utilize the news in the best way it could possibly be utilized, and what is the future?”

She really was thinking about all of that, but I think the tragedy sometimes is that the world, both in media and at large, sometimes can’t support your vision. And it’s heartbreaking. So in my fantasy, I imagine there are Stellas out there everywhere who are plotting their comeback and who are thinking about the future and who are committed, and can’t not think about it any other way. I think she’s plotting and scheming and will be back in some way.

What was your interaction with AI while making AI Stella for the presentation?

They had some amazing tech. It was special effects; a lot of it was put in later. But I have never had to do a scene with myself, and I found it very odd. I think that speaks to how bizarre that whole moment was. We wanted to show in real time our own collective awkwardness with AI and ChatGPT. Every day, our relationship becomes more intimate, but this is all a growing thing that’s happening right now. We wanted to show the sloppiness of that — to say the least, considering what happens. I think it’s great they didn’t want to lean away from the pitfalls of what can happen, on its worst day, if this kind of tech is left unchecked, and let run rampant. I think we have to be very deliberate and not be passive in watching how all of this evolves, and making sure we are putting in some guardrails up as to how it’s regulated and who exactly it’s serving in the end.

I understand the last scene you filmed was walking down that hallway after the presentation. We didn’t see your face. What emotions were you feeling, and how did you react when they called “cut”?

Yes, right after the presentation. I feel emotional now. There were definitely some tears. The crew — we’ve been family for years and years, and have been through so much. We came together in COVID and were one of the first productions up and running again, trying to navigate this whole new frontier. We’ve been through the strike together, the L.A. fires. I always felt with Stella like we were doing something new. That was something I could never take for granted every day I was at work. Given everything that happened and knowing we were moving toward this goodbye, it was painful. I’m not one to carry things home with me, because I have two young kids who have zero tolerance or patience for that; but it was hard.

That scene — we filmed the big AI presentation at the Academy Museum — I got so sick. I got some sort of bug. I rarely get sick, and we had to stop and shut down production with all these extras. Millicent Shelton, our incredible director, had to hold my hair back! I was shaking and it was horrible. I remember [producer] Michael Ellenberg at the time was like, “Wow, is this method?” I was like, “No!” I’d never been that sick before and it’s on the day, of course, that I have to go up and give this presentation to 100-plus background actors. I really felt for myself, but I felt for Stella in that moment.

Maybe you were having a reaction to leaving the show.

It is overwhelming to think about goodbyes. It’s bittersweet. But it’s honest, I think, in terms of where her story is and where she finds herself in season four with all the relationships she’s had. And it’s not casual. It’s so heartbreaking. The scene we did with Mia, with Karen Pittman, where I had to tell her she didn’t get the job after years of promising her — in our complicated, beautiful relationship as co-workers and friends — having to deliver the news of that betrayal was so awful. We were crying. It was torture. That really sucked. But on those hard days, we try to remember we’re just being honest about what the dynamic is and what it would be like for them.

I hope you come back for at least a Jon Hamm-style two-episode arc in season five.

(Laughs.)

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The Morning Show streams new season four episodes on Apple TV, with new episodes dropping Wednesdays.