Russian Doll star Charlie Barnett has reflected on his Chicago Fire character being written off of the show.
His character, Peter Mills, a firefighter-turned-paramedic, was written off the NBC show at the end of season 3.
At the time, executive producer Matt Olmstead was adamant that the sudden dismissal was “story-driven.”
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Charlie Barnett on his 'Chicago Fire' dismissal
Barnett says he now feels like the decision turned out to be a “blessing in disguise” but has admitted that being written off the series took a toll on him, telling Digital Spy: “I really was sad to be let go. It broke me for quite a long time.”
Executive producer Matt Olmstead told TV Line back when Barnett’s exit was announced: “In the writers’ room… we’re pretty vigilant here about making sure that storytelling is fresh. Especially with a relationship-based show, you never want to get stagnant, and you have to be tough-minded sometimes… It was time to shake things up. It came solely from a storytelling standpoint.”
He continued, “[Charlie] is an amazing individual and a fantastic actor and gave us so many different things, but the departure of [Mills] is going to affect other people. So it’s invigorating storytelling-wise.”
The actor bounced back in a big way
Since getting the boot from Chicago Fire, Barnett has appeared on Arrow, You, Ordinary Joe, and Netflix’s Russian Doll season 2, which just dropped on the streamer.
Things ended up pretty nice for the actor, whose career continues to grow
Barnett has reflected and come out stronger on the other side of his professional hurdle, telling Digital Spy, “It was a blessing in disguise, you never really see that in life, in general. You never see the bad moments becoming the good. It wouldn’t be what it was, I think, if you did recognize it for what it is in the moment.”
