When I started, I always thought that three years on something was really as much as I’d like to do. Didn’t you have mixed emotions when you found out that you would be departing the show? What was your reaction?įLOOD: Honestly, I was very happy. I was very happy that everybody felt the same, and they just got to it.ĭEADLINE: You mentioned being happy. Having three years on the show felt right for me, and I think that the arc of the character with all the developments in the story was probably coming to its natural end, which was great. I didn’t know until closer to when we were shooting how it would actually happen but there’d been a few conversations during the summer as far as how the season would unfold, and then during the season there were more conversations about what might be good and what might be good for me. He also reflects on Hayes’ moral dilemma, on being part of an iconic TV show and hypothesizes about what could’ve been had the Meredith-Hayes romantic storyline played out.ĭEADLINE: How did your exit from Grey’s come about? When did you find out that Hayes may be leaving Grey Sloan?įLOOD: They came up with the exit. In an interview with Deadline, Flood discusses his departure from Grey’s, shooting his final scene in the parking lot, and what’s next for him. Like Hayes at Grey Sloan, he will be missed.” “We are grateful for his nuanced and poignant character work as Cormac Hayes. “Richard Flood is a terrific talent,” Grey’s Anatomy executive producer/showrunner Krista Vernoff said. He stayed on, and Hayes briefly formed a potential love triangle with Meredith and her new love interest, Nick (Scott Speedman). There was chatter this past summer that Flood may be leaving ahead of Season 18. But that storyline - along with others - were left behind as Covid and the fight with the pandemic took center stage last season. Thank you for that.”įlood joined Grey’s Anatomy as a recurring in Season 16, when the potential Meredith-Hayes romance was teed off, and was promoted to series regular in Season 17. You helped me believe that there might even be life after Abigail.

“In all the years since Abigail died, you are the first person who got it. “Because if I say goodbye to you Grey, I might not actually leave,” he said. In the sweet encounter, Hayes explained to Meredith why he had planed to leave without saying goodbye. Per Grey’s Anatomy tradition, Flood also had a final scene with the show’s star, Ellen Pompeo, for whose Meredith Grey Hayes was once a potential love interest. By the end of the episode, she was on the verge of a breakthrough after she caught the wife of Owen’s patient Noah taking drugs from Owen’s car.

In one of Flood’s final two scenes, Teddy confronted Hayes in the parking lot as he was carrying his belongings to his car but he would not tell her, sending her back to Owen. The young family are based in Rome and Flood admitted returning to Ireland for work is no mean feat.Owen refused to confide in her that he had been assisting terminally ill veterans who want to end their lives, a secret that forced Hayes’ hand as he opted to quit faced with the dilemma of either having to report his friend or become an accomplice. In the meantime, Richard and his Italian actress fiance Gabriella Pession are busy raising their 16-month-old son Julio. The Rathfarnham native filmed his last scenes for the show back in June and now he admitted he’s not sure what his future holds. Then we trying to pull back on that and say it was only an idea, but when the scripts came out I think everyone was genuinely shocked and a bit emotional I guess.

There was a little bit of a slip up in the script department, when something fell out of a folder or something like that. “So we were shooting eighty episodes and I had to keep it under my hat. He said: “On the first day, they took me aside and told me that they were not going to tell any of the cast. However, Flood was sworn to secrecy about the plans for his character by Red Rock bosses. I knew from conversations that it wasn’t just going to be a transfer, it was going to be death.” “I knew it was only going to be for a year and I was happy with that. Superintendent James McKay slips away in the arms of his wife Claire after being stabbed outside the Garda station

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