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Mom‘s Allison Janney is breaking her silence on Anna Faris‘ series departure, nearly two full months after her TV daughter decided to step away from the CBS sitcom.
News that Faris was walking away from her role as Christy, in order to pursue other opportunities, broke on Sept. 4. At the time, Faris released a statement which in part read, “The past seven years on Mom have been some of the most fulfilling and rewarding of my career. I’m so thankful to Chuck [Lorre], the writers, and my amazing castmates for creating a truly wonderful work experience.”
In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Janney calls Faris’ exit a “huge loss” for the show, before revealing what she’ll miss most about her longtime costar.
“It’s a huge loss for the show to not have Anna because she was part of creating a character, Christy, that everyone fell in love with,” she said. “I think I’ll miss the most, for me, the relationship between Bonnie and Christy, even though that will still continue [off screen].”
Added costar Jaime Pressly, who plays Jill, “I do want to say that it feels like [Anna’s] still here because we do talk about [Christy] all the time. [Bonnie] is always calling her, or vice versa.”
Mom co-creator Gemma Baker recently told TVLine that Faris’ departure would not impede on Christy’s happy ending, which is set to be revealed in the Season 8 premiere (airing Thursday at 9/8c). “One of the beautiful things about recovery is that quite often people’s lives get bigger and better than they could have imagined,” she said. “And that will be Christy’s experience. We are pretty sure that our audience, many of whom have been rooting for Christy since the pilot, will be happy for her and satisfied by her new path.”
Janney previously shared a video from the set of Mom, offering a first look at life after Christy. “It’s a whole new territory, but we’re excited for Season 8 to begin,” she said at the time.
How do you think Christy’s sudden absence will be explained on Mom? Hit the comments to log your predictions.
I’m just glad it will be a positive storyline departure. The show has taken such a different direction with the other co stars garnering much of the airtime. It seems to get ratings but I stopped watching two seasons ago. Wish Anna the best.
I think she was offered a job in a big law firm in NYC. This will give her an open door to return if the job fails. Whatever it is, she will be missed. Good luck Anna in all your new endeavours!!!
Probably a Career Opportunity,,, however NO ANNA FARIS NO WATCHING AT MY HOUSE,SORRY
🖐️Byeeeeee
Not a job…yet. My bet is her high-strung boss hooks her up with a scholarship to a REAL law school, which is of course, farther away than Patrick’s house. ;)
Or she could just have reconciled with Violet…lol.
Don’t forget about Roscoe (her son), who disappeared before Violet. I always found it funny that a show called “Mom” would have the main character’s kids completely disappear and not be mentioned again. Anyway, I think this is likely the last season of the show. I know people think the supporting cast is great and can carry the load, but they were a supporting cast for a reason- they were good in their limited roles. Chuck Lorre is busy with his other shows, so I think he will wrap this one up. Too bad, because it was good for some laughs.
Nobody wants to see a show by kids constantly.
Mom reveres to Allison Janey being the mom. If it was about a asshole kids I would never have watched it.
Chuck Lorre has his best show in “Mom” and I think that the ratings are going to shoot through the roof as soon as people get time to watch more. Now that the election is over and people aren’t pulled into the chaos of this horrible presidency and pandemic, we’ll have more free time to be reintroduced to normalcy and not worrying about what kind of hell we were living in for the last four years. Great job Chuck
I do wonder what might happen to or with Violet this season. Will she come back? Was the episode with her last season the last one we’ll see?
I was shocked when I heard that Anna Faris was leaving the show, and then also thought she probably had a job offer at a law firm in a different city or state. I will miss her. She and Alison Janney had a great chemistry. There won’t be anyone to call Bonnie “mom”.
it is so good..you should give it q try again. I laugh a lot every week. So clever,
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And funny. Chuck Lorre is q comic genius!
Fans needed to see Christie graduate from law school on screen, this offscreen happily ever-after nonsense doesn’t fly as far as I’m concerned. There is no excuse for not giving the character a proper on screen send off.
Well, the excuse is that Anna Faris quit. There’s no way to do an on-screen sendoff if the actress won’t do it. This is the best we can do
She was still under contract. They could have forced her to do the season nevermind one last episode.
We don’t know the details of the contract. It may have a opt out. It may only say that she can’t be in another television series this season. She or her agent may have a good relationship with people at CBS or Chuck Lorre’s company such that they were happy to facilitate or give her a release. We just don’t know and these details are unlikely to ever be made public because doing so could affect others in the industry. She has an eight-year-old and a fiancé. The producers might have come to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it to force her to fulfill the contract for the season or even an episode. Finally, there may be details about her private situation that we don’t know and is none of our business that made the producers and the network feel that releasing her was the right thing to do. It didn’t tank the show’s last season, and no jobs were lost as a result.
Or she could be ill, she lost a lot of weight during the show. Hope she’s doing well, sending prayers
Contract or not can you really force someone to do something they no longer want to do?
She will find a job that is far Away.
This is not a show that I normally watch but after the last while it’s hard to imagine Allison Janney as anyone other than C. J. Cregg. She was excellent in Bad Education and I loved seeing her on The Kominsky Method but that was prior to my West Wing binge. As for Anna Faris, I agree with Pat and hopefully she will return to show her law school graduation.
I think they are going to do a small flash forward to “post pandemic” world.
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If we see Christy again, it will be in an announced series finale. Maybe we’ll get a few guest appearances before then.
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IMO it will depend on the success of the show. If the show is successful (by whatever metric CBS will use), then it is likely to run a few more years. As such, Anna Faris will likely show up 1-3 times a year. It would be stupid of her to not show up for 2-3 weeks of work for a few hundred thousand dollars. Her agent and management team will pester her into this, if nothing else.
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If the show clearly struggles without Christy, and it is obvious that it will be canceled after this season, she’ll do a brief drop in for the finale.
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If the show is uncertain for renewal, and it were to get canceled after (or at the very end of shooting for) the season, we might not see Christy again.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
Community was unable to get Donald Glover back for their series finale. Just because it’s the last doesn’t mean the actor will show up.
JTT was also not in the Home Improvement finale back in the day.
Sometimes when people are done with a job, they are done.
I thought she asked to be let out of her contract and left on good terms with Chuck Lorre and co. After all, it’s a different time and it wouldn’t take much for a zoom call. I doubt Anna Faris would want to burn ANY bridges.
However, if it was cancelled after this season ends that would be a different story.
Glover was HUGE. Anna F is unlikely to be anywhere near as busy. Further, Community fell into that “canceled after shooting finished” category. I feel like if Donald had known it was ending, he’d have been back.
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Also, I really think that is one of those shows that will get some sort of wrap up on the streaming service, and he’ll do that. He won’t be a huge presence in the project, but he’ll be in it.
I wish they could come up with some kind of contract compromise for situations like these, where Anna could occasionally appear either by phone (voiceover) or Zoom call per her schedule, in a way that requires minimal commitment and lets her pursue the full range of opportunities outside the show.
Well considering how she went hard for her contract renewal that wasnt going to happen as she probably would want her full pay.
It sounds like we the fans will hear the mother’s end of the conversation of numerous phone calls. We just won’t see or hear Christy.
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Anna has been open about being conflicted about her role for a while. She loves her co-stars, but she was iffy about how “un-sexy” the role was. Purely from a career standpoint. Actresses often work based on how attractive they are presented, and this role didn’t do that. As cute as Anna is, this was a very frumpy presentation for her. Never flattering outfits, no serious ships on the show, and in recent years she’s been a real sad sack. She was reduced to a punching bag, and a glorified supporting role, only she still had to do leading role type of work days and weeks. Which was necessary for the comedy and the show, but she wasn’t thrilled with it.
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I think the role changed from what it started out as, and she was just over it. She wants to hunt a few more “hot girl” type roles. I’d guess she has a few more lead roles in her, and she wants to get while the getting is good. In 5 years she’ll be playing, exclusively, wives and mothers (which can be tricky for ladies who are 5 foot nothing and 100lbs soaking wet).
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She didn’t want to spend the remainder of her acting prime in this type of role. So I’m not sure how much she wants to come back.
Anna was on contract for this season. Remember last year at the end of the 2018-2019 TV season, both Anna and Alison signed a two year contract for seasons 7 and 8. Anna broke contract so she’s obviously done with this show. I don’t even think she’ll be back for the series finale when it comes.
I think she might come back, depending when the series finale is. At a certain point I think she is going to realize she isn’t going to be offered a ton of jobs.
If the show were to go for 3+ years, she might be back full time at some point in that time frame. For the reasons you say.
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I’m hoping she will come back next fall and visit her mom it won’t be the same but I will Joe she comes back the end of the season.
If it was true to form, Anna Faris’ character wouldn’t get a happy ending. Nothing in the past seven seasons would suggest that she would.
If anything, it would seem hackneyed if she does.
I’m glad Christy is going to have a happy ending. I haven’t liked the direction of her character, especially in the last few seasons, as she became more selfish and whiney. Her character just wasn’t fun anymore. And if I missed a show and had DVR’d it, I found myself fast-forwarding through her scenes where she wasn’t with the rest of the gang. I’d kind of like to see more of Wendy’s character, because I would say that after all these years, I know absolutely nothing about her.
Same, I wasn’t much of a fan of her character, especially in the past few seasons. I agree she was very whiney.
She’s gone off to college.
Shocked to see her leave. I have a problem with her chosing to waiting so long to tell anyone about her decision to leave.
Her pre-written announcement about how she thanks Chuck Lorrie sounded fake, too little to late. I wish her well. But I watched every episode and still tape shows to watch everyday. I am curious and doubt I will watch her again.
I think because janney won an oscar I think that’s why she decided to go but I know that’s why they brought Tammy in the picture but I’m sure bonnie will carry the show
Agreed. Ever since her Oscar, the show was put more and more on her shoulders. They even got rid of Christy’s kids, removing her Mom role. But Bonnie’s role and Janney’s acting really stood up to task. I honestly expected Anna Farris to leave two years ago.
As much as I will miss Christie I do believe the great ensemble cast can carry this show. I think Christie’s lead role from the beginning of the series became less of the lead. All of the other actors can carry this show.
Maybe “Christy” left to go find her kids, who magically disappeared from the show and haven’t been mentioned in a very long time. So much for her being a great “Mom”.
Hot take.
I think she will get a job as an ADA
So Christy gets a intern job offer from her black gay uncle who’s living in NY city and working at a large legal firm. Christy meets the owner’s son who is also a recovering addict lawyer and they get married. It may take two years for all this to transpire.
She has become a lawyer and moved to NY because a firm there made her a fantastic offer.
Christy has a dream which she will pursue now that she is committed to her recovery and tools to maintain recovery one day at a time.Dreams require focus and hard work…mistakes and successes and an ever expanding network of people. Never boring….lots to laugh about. Thank you u gifted writers.
👎 That’s how it will be probably.
I think she gets her law degree and gets a job that she can’t say No to . Wishing the show continued success and Christy The Best
I will definitely miss her but all.other characters are so great I do not beleive the show will suffer because of it.
Hope she makes guest appearances!
Probably Christys character landed a position as a lawyer far away ,will probably have her own series in near future
accepted to an out of state college or out of state law firm.
I could see Bonnie andAdam raising achild,be itRoscoe,Violet’s baby or a foster.
I believe Christy got an incredible job offer overseas somewhere.