Emily VanCamp speaks out on leaving The Resident, says her departure was on good terms

Deadline

VanCamp, whose nurse-practitioner character Nicolette “Nic” Nevin was written off on Tuesday's episode, cited recently becoming a mom for the first time and her long run starring on network shows for her decision to step down from The Resident after four seasons. VanCamp's exit was revealed shortly after she surprise-announced in August she had given birth. “We started talking about (my leaving) awhile ago," VanCamp tells Deadline in her first interview since news of her exit. "I spent so many years on network television, but then suddenly priorities shifted. I think there comes a moment in every woman’s life—in every person’s life—where it becomes less about work and more about family, and that’s what happened while I was making the show. Doing that many episodes in a different city and then you add Covid to that, most of us couldn’t see our families for almost a year. It really solidified for me that family is where my heart is at the moment.” VanCamp has spent nearly every year of the past two decades starring on a network show: The WB's Everwood from 2002 to 2006, ABC's Brothers & Sisters from 2007 to 2010, ABC's Revenge from 2011 to 2015 and Fox's The Resident from 2018 to 2021. She also recurred earlier this year on Disney+ Marvel series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. VanCamp was able to keep her real-life pregnancy secret while her character was also pregnant, though the timing of her and character's pregnancies didn't match. VanCamp says she has nothing but positive memories from working on The Resident, and would “absolutely” return to the series in some capacity, adding: “Never say never.” “It’s such a bittersweet moment for me. I loved doing The Resident so much for the four years I was on it," says VanCamp. "Oftentimes you hear about someone exiting a show because something bad had happened or there was some bad blood. But in this case, it’s the exact opposite. There’s nothing but love and respect between all of us and this decision was not an easy one for anybody but it was the right one for me, personally. I’m grateful that I was met with understanding and compassion." VanCamp also said goodbye on Instagram, writing in part: "Feeling so much gratitude for the relationships I’ve gained, the stories I’ve had the opportunity to tell and the many lessons I’ve learned from playing Nic Nevin on The Resident. Thank you to everyone who came on this journey with me and this wonderful character. Thank you to the most incredible cast and crew in television- I already miss you so much."

ALSO:

• The Resident executive producer Andrew Chapman admits it was a "rocky road" figuring out how to write off Emily VanCamp's Nic: "We had a sense that Emily VanCamp was going to leave the show at the end of last season, but we weren't entirely sure," Chapman tells E.T. "And then at the beginning of this season, we found out she was, and that she was unavailable to be in episodes 1 and 2. And so we scrambled, but we had a sense that this was going to happen. We just debated in the writers' room long and hard, over the course of many weeks, about how best to honor the character, how best to give Nic Nevin a sendoff that was both honored the character but also felt grounded and realistic. That was something that would feel like could happen -- and it wasn't easy. It was hard."
• Matt Czuchry says he knew VanCamp was leaving "a while ago": "I was one of the first people she had told, and she said she wanted to start a family," he tells TVLine. "I was completely supportive of that and had been, of her, from the beginning, in terms of our partnership and relationship on the show and also as friends. We had long conversations about it, multiple conversations, and they were all healthy and positive and supportive. We had many conversations at the beginning of this season, too. There’s so much respect and love there, and that goes very much into our personal lives. Emily will always be a part of my life." Did he have any input in how Nic was written off? "There were conversations that I had had with the producers and showrunners… in terms of the proper conclusion for the Conrad and Nic relationship," he says.