{"id":243328,"date":"2025-10-22T10:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T10:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243328\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T10:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T10:55:08","slug":"the-morning-show-star-greta-lee-confirms-stellas-show-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243328\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Morning Show’ Star Greta Lee Confirms Stella’s Show Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the sixth episode of season four of The Morning Show<\/a>, \u201cIf Then.\u201d]<\/p>\n

\n\tStella Bak has exited The Morning Show, stage left.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fan-favorite character played by Greta Lee<\/a>, who joined the Emmy-winning Apple TV<\/a> series in season two<\/a>, has exited the series. In the sixth episode of season four, titled \u201cIf Then,\u201d Stella\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI 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?\u201d Stoudt recently told THR about writing Lee\u2019s final episode. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Stella\u2019s 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\u2019s new gamble into AI, the CEO walks out on the media empire she had been so devoted to rebuilding, and hopes to meet Celine\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt 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\u2019t do that at UBN,\u201d explains Stoudt of Stella\u2019s goodbye. \u201cShe had to get on that plane by herself. When you really are at a crossroads, people can support you, but you can\u2019t have a buddy. You have to have to figure it out by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter speaking with Stoudt, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Lee herself to find out what precipitated the in-demand actor\u2019s exit from the series (she\u2019s also currently starring in Tron: Ares<\/a>) and how she imagines her character\u2019s road to rediscovery as she confirms her series farewell: \u201cIt was time for her to go,\u201d she explains below.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I spoke to Charlotte Stoudt, she said this is the end for Stella on the show. I want to hear it from you\u2026 this is your exit from the show?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the first time I\u2019m saying it out loud but yeah, this is the end. This is goodbye.<\/p>\n

\n\tI hate this!<\/p>\n

\n\tI know, it\u2019s terrible!<\/p>\n

\n\tI figured Stella would return at some point later in the season. [Note: Four episodes remain.]<\/p>\n

\n\tI know, I know. It\u2019s shocking. But, this is it. This is the end of the road for her, and I feel all kinds of things. We\u2019re with these characters for so long, it\u2019s surreal. I haven\u2019t been able to say anything because I didn\u2019t want to spoil it, but I\u2019ve known for some time now that this is the end of the road for her and this is her goodbye.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was your conversation like with Charlotte going into this fourth season? When you found out this was her arc \u2014 how did you react?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere 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\u2019t 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, \u201cWell, I have this amount of time while filming Tron and Late Fame and Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s movie A House of Dynamite,\u201d so the writers came back with this storyline and it\u2019s so bittersweet, but I also feel this was the end. Sometimes it\u2019s that hard thing where it\u2019s time. It\u2019s time for a character to move on.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was always really important to me to not show a false happy ending for the sake of it. It\u2019s always been part of Stella\u2019s 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\u2019t know how realistic that would have been in terms of really showing all the different challenges that come with being Stella in this world.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, it makes me feel better that this was a mutual decision.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt 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.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGreta Lee here as Stella Bak when the UBN CEO accidentally exposes her biggest secret (an affair with her boss\u2019 husband) during an AI presentation.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen 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?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think she\u2019ll go to the tiki bar and maybe last a few weeks. It\u2019s so ingrained in her to be a fighter and a worker. I love her. She\u2019s brilliant and such an innovator; she\u2019s 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\u2019s a question that\u2019s certainly going on now, and that\u2019s not going away anytime soon, and I love that about her. She\u2019s thinking, \u201cHow can I utilize the news in the best way it could possibly be utilized, and what is the future?\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tShe 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\u2019t support your vision. And it\u2019s 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\u2019t not think about it any other way. I think she\u2019s plotting and scheming and will be back in some way.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was your interaction with AI while making AI Stella for the presentation?<\/p>\n

\n\tThey 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\u2019s happening right now. We wanted to show the sloppiness of that \u2014 to say the least, considering what happens. I think it\u2019s great they didn\u2019t 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\u2019s regulated and who exactly it\u2019s serving in the end.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLee as Stella back in season two of The Morning Show.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Apple<\/p>\n

\n\tI understand the last scene you filmed was walking down that hallway after the presentation. We didn\u2019t see your face. What emotions were you feeling, and how did you react when they called \u201ccut\u201d?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, right after the presentation. I feel emotional now. There were definitely some tears. The crew \u2014 we\u2019ve 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\u2019ve 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 towards this goodbye, it was painful. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat scene \u2014\u00a0we filmed the big AI presentation at the Academy Museum \u2014 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, \u201cWow, is this method?\u201d I was like, \u201cNo!\u201d I\u2019d never been that sick before and it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe you were having a reaction to leaving the show.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is overwhelming to think about goodbyes. It\u2019s bittersweet. But it\u2019s honest, I think, in terms of where her story is and where she finds herself in season four with all the relationships she\u2019s had. And it\u2019s not casual. It\u2019s so heartbreaking. The scene we did with Mia, with Karen Pittman, where I had to tell her she didn\u2019t get the job after years of promising her \u2014 in our complicated, beautiful relationship as coworkers and friends \u2014 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\u2019re just being honest about what the dynamic is and what it would be like for them.<\/p>\n

\n\tI hope you come back for at least a Jon Hamm-style two-episode arc in season five<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.)<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Morning Show streams new season four episodes on Apple TV, with new episodes dropping on Wednesdays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the sixth episode of season four of The Morning Show, \u201cIf Then.\u201d]…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[5896,88,31791,53995,1632,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-243328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-greta-lee","11":"tag-the-morning-show","12":"tag-tron-ares","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}