Chicago Fire star Charlie Barnett has opened up about leaving the hit show, admitting that it "broke" him. The actor, who played Peter Mills on the hit show before leaving in season three, told Digital Spy: "[The show] was a behemoth that I never really saw coming. I was thankful to be a part of it. I really was sad to be let go. It broke me for quite a long time.
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"It was a blessing in disguise, and they all told me that. You never really see that in life, in general. You never see the bad moments becoming the good. It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be what it was, I think, if you did recognize it for what it is in the moment."
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He added that he is still in touch with the cast, saying: "Yuri [Sardarov] and David Eigenberg and I just had lunch maybe two weeks ago. I talk to Joe every time in Chicago – Joe Minoso is my [expletive] brother. I will see him forever."
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Speaking about the decision to write him out of the show, Charlie previously told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "It was just a normal day of filming. I hadn’t heard anything about it and then they pulled me into a room, sat me down and apologized. They expressed that it wasn’t about me or myself as an actor or my personality.
Charlie now stars in Russian Doll
"On the other hand, they kind of praised all that stuff, but they felt that Peter had reached a plateau and the writers didn’t know where to take him because he’s done so much already. They even apologized so much that they upped the ante in the first and second year and did more with Peter than they expected."
Charlie has gone on to have a very impressive career, and has since starred in Orange is the New Black and as Alan in Netflix’s hit series Russian Doll.
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