Past Lives actress Greta Lee is exiting the Apple TV series The Morning Show, where she played Stella Bak, an ambitious executive leading UBA’s news division.

Headlined by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, the Emmy-winning drama explores the professional and personal chaos behind a morning news programme. Lee’s character, introduced in season two, was the president of the network’s news arm and the head of an online media outlet aimed at younger audiences.

“I was interested in Stella as a person who grew up in tech, who always thought of tech as something like a superpower that could enhance her. What happens when tech becomes a way to look in the mirror and ask, who am I really? Am I on the right path?,” showrunner Charlotte Stoudt said about writing Lee’s exit, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

In the storyline, Stella Bak departs the media empire after her affair becomes public, leaving on a flight that offers an ambiguous close to her arc.

“It was very emotional (filming her final scene). Just thinking about it, I tear up. It was very hard to leave her, even though it was time for Stella to go rediscover some part of herself, and she couldn’t do that at UBN... She had to get on that plane by herself. When you really are at a crossroads, people can support you, but you can’t have a buddy. You have to have to figure it out by yourself,” Stoudt added.

“This is the first time I’m saying it out loud but yeah, this is the end. This is goodbye,” Lee said.

“I know. It’s shocking. But, this is it. This is the end of the road for her, and I feel all kinds of things. We’re with these characters for so long, it’s surreal. I haven’t been able to say anything because I didn’t want to spoil it, but I’ve known for some time now that this is the end of the road for her and this is her goodbye,” the actress added.

Lee explained that continuing on the series became difficult as she balanced multiple projects and motherhood.

“So this was where we had to land. I was like, 'Well, I have this amount of time while filming Tron and Late Fame and Kathryn Bigelow’s movie A House of Dynamite'. So the writers came back with this storyline and it’s so bittersweet, but I also feel this was the end. Sometimes it’s that hard thing where it’s time. It’s time for a character to move on,” Lee said.

Lee garnered widespread acclaim in 2023 for her performance in Celine Song’s Past Lives, in which she played Nora, a Korean-American writer reconnecting with her childhood sweetheart after years apart.