Oh yes... Jonathan Jackson's exit interview is a delicious read excerpts:
Read the whole thing at TV GUIDE.comTV Guide Magazine: What brought you to the decision not to renew your contract? How was your exhaustion manifesting itself?Jackson: It's an interesting paradox. The storylines don't stay with me in the sense that I feel personally tormented by what my character is going through, but it does take its toll on me physically and emotionally. It's a real energy zapper and there are days when I feel like I have nothing left to give. And in this medium where you're dealing with a pretty insane amount of dialogue, day in, day out, the collision of a heavy workload and increasing exhaustion can make you a little crazy. I love to work hard but I've been at maximum capacity in terms of mental and emotional output for months on end and it has become too difficult. I am extremely thankful that they wanted to give me all those storylines with so much depth, but there's just no balance. Usually, you might get one or maybe two really good and intense story arcs per year. There's usually a cycle to this stuff on soaps. But this has been nonstop. There was just no reprieve. I have a wife and three kids and other things in life I have to think about. I just knew I couldn't sustain the schedule at GH and that kind of emotion for much longer. It was just too intense. MORE
TV Guide Magazine: I hear you also asked for a Lucky and Elizabeth [Rebecca Herbst] reunion and got a no on that. Did you see that as a way to regain some balance and bring Lucky some happiness?Jackson: Absolutely. And I think the fans want that, too. I was away from GH for 10 years and came back [in 2009] specifically to work with certain people. Tony Geary [Luke] was a huge reason for me to come back and so was Becky. I absolutely love working with her and love it when our characters are together romantically. Even though things have gotten crazy between Liz and Lucky over the years, there's still a deep potential for something powerful and redemptive there. So it seemed like a real no-brainer to me. From my perspective, I just assumed they'd get back together. Maybe it's a timing problem. There have been big changes in the writing team at GH and that may have shifted the timeline for Lucky and Elizabeth to reunite. Or maybe it just wasn't ever going to happen at all. I don't know.
Lucky leaves for Ireland again the week of December 19th, 'never' to return. His son, Titus will continue in he role of "Aiden".
Okay, I am VERY happy that aren't recasting him, but aside from that this is a rather infuriating article. I can see how it might not be cost effective to have him there and not on screen, as I imagine his return did not come cheap, but what the hell is going on?!?! He's going BACK to Ireland?!?! I am going to go bang my head against the wall, perhaps I will come up with a more cohesive response when I am done.
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