FOX’s spooky series “Sleepy Hollow” had a loyal fanbase, one strong enough that it ran for four seasons on a network famous for cancelling genre projects as soon as it can (hello “Firefly,” “Almost Human”).
Running from 2013-2017, the series hit one major speedbump during its run – losing its lead Nicole Beharie as Abbie Mills at the end of the third season. As a result the series underwent a baffling and cost-cutting retooling for a fourth and final season not even set in its titular town.
Last year Beharie revealed she suddenly left the show in part because of an auto-immune disease. Now, in new interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune and The New York Times, she has gone into more detail about it and reveals that she was blacklisted after her exit:
“My costar and I were both sick at the same time but I don’t believe that we were treated equally. He was allowed to go back to England for a month [to recover while] I was given Episode 9 to shoot on my own. So I pushed through it and then by the end of that episode I was in urgent care. And all the doctors, including the doctors that the studio was sending, were all confirming, ‘Hey, she can’t work right now.'”
Production shut down for two weeks because of her illness. She says she had daily checkups “to make sure I was actually sick”. When doctors told her she needed to rest, Beharie said “that’s not what they wanted to hear” and goes on:
“There’s a lot of pressure in a situation like that where so many people are relying on you alone to get up and get going. I feel like it’s taken me the last few years to really see clearly that it wasn’t personal, it’s about the way that these structures are set up.
It was very difficult to talk about at the time because I wanted to get back to work. But I was labeled as problematic and blacklisted by some people. Sometimes I think that some people I was working with didn’t like that I was unwell but loved by the audience. I would think they’d support that. But everyone of color on that show was seen as expendable and eventually let go.”
In the years immediately following her exit, she appeared in smaller roles in projects like “Black Mirror” and is currently starring in “Miss Juneteenth”.
Source: Deadline
