Actor comings and goings are inevitable in any long-running TV show,
including Showtime's smash hit Shameless. Let's explore the reasons why these one-time
series regulars chose to leave the south side behind.
As Ian Gallagher, one of Frank's middle kids on Shameless, Cameron Monaghan was a series regular
from day one. And it was quite a journey for Ian, who navigated coming out as gay,
established a combative but loving relationship with Mickey, and navigated a lasting struggle
with bipolar disorder, in addition to the everyday battles all the Gallaghers tend to face head-on.
In Season 9 of Shameless, Ian headed off to the slammer, seeming to be effectively
written out of the show. Monaghan penned a farewell to fans on Instagram, writing,
"This role has been a joy to inhabit, a wild and special ride,
and I'd like to thank #Shameless as well as you, the viewers,
for being there with him. Goodbye, Ian Clayton Gallagher. We'll meet again?"
By the announcement of Season 10, however, the actor was back in the fold. The
Hollywood Reporter broke down the actor's flirtation with departure in February 2019,
saying that Monaghan both wanted to diversify his creative portfolio,
and re-negotiate the terms of his employment with Shameless.
The outlet speculated that he got an increase in his compensation to return to the series during
the critical moments after the departure of its longtime lead Gallagher, Emmy Rossum's Fiona.
Monaghan basically confirmed the speculation, saying,
"I took some time away and talked to showrunner John Wells about possible
things we could do with the character in the future, and we got to a place both
creatively and financially where I felt comfortable coming back."
In June 2013, The Hollywood Reporter announced actor Justin Chatwin's
departure from Shameless. Chatwin, who played the shifty criminal character of Steve -- aka
Jimmy -- was involved in a volatile relationship with Emmy Rossum's Fiona.
His character departed the series, seemingly for good, at the end of Season 3.
But surprisingly, Jimmy/Steve did return to future Shameless episodes,
though only in a guest star capacity.
Chatwin reflected on his Season 5 appearance in a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter,
recalling a conversation with series showrunner
John Wells about the show's revolving cast. He related,
"John Wells said the show is like a plant in a garden, and it grows;
you never know in what direction it's going to go, or what it's going to produce, or what it's
going to look like. So people will leave and people will return and people will change."
With Frank Gallagher's unreliability one of the only constants in the Shameless universe,
his oldest daughter Fiona was forced to raise her siblings more or less by herself.
Fans connected with Emmy Rossum's ability to play the character with a mix of selflessness,
determination, and more than her fair share of emotional turmoil.
Since the series' beginning, Rossum was a constant alongside William H. Macy,
but her pay on the series didn't necessarily reflect that. Her demand for pay equal to
her male co-star played a part in delaying the show's eighth season. In August 2018, the actress
announced that she had decided to leave Fiona, the Gallaghers, and the world of Shameless behind.
Rossum wrote in her farewell post on Facebook,
"The opportunity to play Fiona has been a gift. There are few characters — female
or otherwise — as layered and dynamic. She is a mother lion,
fierce, flawed and sexually liberated. She is injured, vulnerable, but will never give up.
I knew it from the second I read the pilot script, this was different, this was special."
Rossum later told Entertainment Weekly of her decision,
"I will never be saying goodbye to Fiona."
Joan Cusack was a highlight of Shameless from the get go, playing the agoraphobic, secret sex
toy collector Sheila Jackson, who was also an occasional love interest of Frank Gallagher.
"Frank, the more you beg, the more you're in for. Now relax."
Cusack, a versatile actor with a magnetic screen presence,
was an instant fan favorite in the Shameless ensemble. She also received Emmy nominations
for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Drama Series in each of the five seasons in which she appeared.
The fifth was the charm, and Cusack took home the hardware in 2015,
even as her character rode off into the sunset.
Isidora Goreshter had one of the more memorable runs on Shameless,
appearing as the Russian prostitute and savvy opportunist Svetlana over the course of five
seasons. But in January 2018, the actress took to social media to announce that her
time on the show was finishing up. She wrote in her farewell Instagram post,
"All good things must come to an end. 6 years ago,
what should have only been one days work changed my life forever.
A huge thank you John Wells and Shameless for what turned out to be the most unexpected and
life altering job an actor could ask for. I am forever indebted to you and your belief in me."
"Who here wants to marry Svetlana?"
"Yeah!"
"Uh-huh."
After Svetlana had been written out, but before the onset of Season 9, Entertainment Weekly asked
Goreshter if her character's apparent departure from the show was permanent. She replied,
"I don't really know what they have in store. I asked them to kill me. I really
wanted to have this gruesome death scene. But John Wells was like 'No,
no, no, no. We want to leave the door open because you never know what can happen.'
Ah, fine. I really wanted to, like, get thrown into the river."
Jake McDorman joined the cast of Shameless in Season 3 as recurring character Mike Pratt,
Fiona's regular guy boss. But in Season 4, McDorman was a regular presence on the show,
having become Fiona's latest flame. In typical Gallagher family fashion,
this relationship didn't last, leading to a dead end for McDorman's character arc on the show.
With a large ensemble cast, it's not unheard of for characters to appear and disappear along
the sidelines, and McDorman was prepared for that when he signed on to the show.
As Shameless season 4 got underway, he said in an interview with Anthem,
"From episode one to twelve in each season, so much radically changes. Characters come and go.
A lot of people make mistakes and there are a lot of triumphs. Everyone gets so excited
when we get to have each season open and have things unfold from one script to the next."
With his Shameless stint in the can, McDorman downshifted into
roles as a series regular on a series of high-profile, but canceled TV shows:
a romantic comedy called Manhattan Love Story; a small-screen adaptation of the 2011 film
Limitless; and the short-lived 2018 reboot of Murphy Brown. He also landed
on the TV version of The Right Stuff in 2020, playing astronaut Alan Shepard.
Laura Wiggins appeared as series regular Karen Jackson in Seasons 1 and 2,
later returning to the series in a recurring role. As Karen,
she played a young woman who struggled with sex addiction, a torturous home life,
the fallout from giving birth to a baby with special needs and questionable paternity, and
who eventually incurred brain damage from being run over by a car. How's that for a story arc?
Once the Karen Jackson character was written out of Shameless,
Laura Wiggins moved on, too, but drew lessons from her time on the
show -- particularly in how to handle being so exposed on screen to a giant audience.
She told Parade in a 2014 interview,
"Shameless was such a weird time in my life because I never really experienced any kind
of role that put me that much in the spotlight before. [...] It wasn’t like a really scary
environment. But once everything started to air I think it kind of freaked me out a little bit."
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