T.J. Miller has moved on from “Silicon Valley,” but he likes how the Season 4 finale turned out.
The “Emoji Movie” star told TheWrap that he’s grateful for how the HBO comedy’s producers, including co-showrunner Alec Berg, opted to write his character Erlich Bachman out of the show in the season finale that aired last month.
“I don’t know who exactly was behind the writing of it, but I think Alec Berg, who is one of the producers, probably had a strong hand in providing this opportunity for me to leave, and for that I thank him because he found a funny way for a very popular character to exit a show at its height,” Miller said. “For that, I thank him — for that exit, for that curtain call, I thank him.”
“I told HBO that I think it’s time to organically end this character, and they were so nice,” Miller continued, pointing out that he remains on good terms with the network and the show’s team. “They were like, ‘Wait, what? No, do you want to do three episodes, and we can work around your schedule? What about just the season finale?’”
Miller, who has talked about having friction with Berg, announced in May that he is not returning to the show that picked up an Emmy nomination last week for Outstanding Comedy Series.
The “Deadpool” actor previously told TheWrap that reading the script for the Season 4 finale, in which Erlich gets stranded in a drug den in Tibet, was “an a-ha moment” that made him realize the timing was right to walk away.
“Silicon” star Thomas Middleditch told TheWrap that Erlich could have received a “more ceremonious” exit if the producers had known definitively that Season 4 would be the character’s last.
In a previous interview with TheWrap, Berg said that Miller’s exit “was for the best.” He added, “I don’t believe that anybody’s going to do their best work if they’d rather be somewhere else.”
“The Emoji Movie” hits theaters Friday, July 28.