James Caan & Nikki Cox announce they are leaving Las Vegas
Talk about timing. Just a day after NBC announced the early renewal of Las Vegas, which seemed to include both James Caan & Nikki Cox in its future, the pair have announced that the current season of the drama will be their last. And while one has decided to leave, it wasn’t the case for the other.
Just a day after NBC announced that the Sin City drama would be returning for a fifth season this fall, both James Caan and Nikki Cox confirmed that their luck—and screen time—had officially run out.
While Caan has dropped increasingly frequent hints in recent years that his departure from the series wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, Cox’s ousting seemed to come as more of an unwelcome surprise, particularly as the network made no mention of a downsized cast, and in fact made specific mention of both Caan and Cox in the renewal announcement this week.
“I’ve had a wonderful four years, worked with great people and made friends for life working on Las Vegas, but I’m eager to return to where my heart is, which is film, and due to the show’s schedule, I missed some great opportunities to do that,” Caan told the Hollywood Reporter.
However, while the departure of Caan is his own decision, the choice for Cox to leave the drama was made by the network, not herself, with budget cuts apparently cited as the reason she was being written out of the show.
As for Cox, who tied the knot with Jay Mohr in December, her farewell is slightly more bittersweet, as her dismissal from the show was reportedly due to budget cuts.
She told the trade mag that she was “very sad and shocked” at her character’s departure, but still wanted the best for her soon-to-be former coworkers.
Wow. I wonder if they would have cut Cox if they had known Caan was planning to leave? And I wonder if they plan to throw more money at Caan to try and convince him to stick around for one more season? However you slice and dice it, it is a huge loss for the show.
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