A funny thing happens when you kill off a leading man on a TV show: The fans get a bit…crankydoodle. Wait, that's not the word. What is it? Oh yeah…PISSED. Or so says Emily VanCamp.
"I think they're pretty pissed at us!" Emily says of Revenge fans after the shocking death of Daniel, played by her real-life boyfriend Josh Bowman. "Our fans are angry. I mean, you know, it was something that was discussed a while back, and it was a way to move the story forward. And you know, we lose people on this show. It's brutal and it's awful because we all love each other and we really do get along, so it's just brutal."
Watch the full video interview above!
Josh's character Daniel died in the show's winter finale last month, when he took a bullet for Emily's character Emily—right after learning he was going to become a father. (All the tears!)
"It was a huge bummer," co-star Nick Wechsler says of Josh's departure. "We all loved [Josh], and he's a lot of fun to have around, and he was great. I think he got even better over the course of the show."
The upside?
"[It shows that] they [the writers] are not afraid to go in any direction on this show," insists Gabriel Mann, "and then they are swinging for the rafters for the second half of this season." (Hence the reason some incredibly smart people are saying Revenge is better than ever.)
While still grieving the on-screen death of her off-screen boyfriend, Emily and her lovely Revenge co-stars—Gabriel (Nolan), Nick (Jack), Karine Vanasse (Margaux), and Elena Satine (Louise)—spent a rare night out together at an ABC party. And despite the fact that Nolan got hitched to Louise in the latest episode, let the record show: Gabriel Mann is still 100 percent Team Nemily (Nolan and Emily).
"I've been waiting four years for that to happen!" he cracked. So will it? Well, don't shoot the messenger, Nemily fans, but it doesn't sound like that's on the writers' radar for the time being.
"[Emily's] always just got so much going on in the love department!" VanCamp explains. "But we've got this new character Ben… He sort of swoops in there for a minute. We'll see where that goes. I think right now she's just trying to figure out how to be somewhat of a normal human, so she's dabbling in different things. But I think we all know at her core, it was always Aiden or Jack, and Aiden's gone, and they're developing this… I do think that these two (Jack and Emily), no matter what has happened, there's such a deep love and connection there, that we actually are starting to explore a little bit more which I think the fans will be really excited about."
And since Revenge has been so revitalized this season—in part thanks to the return of Emily's presumed dead father James Tupper—Emily says she's also up for a return from dear ol' mom.
"I mean, Jennifer Jason Leigh is so amazing!" she gushes. "I would love to have her come back, but I don't know what they have planned in terms of that. I think they've just been wanting to explore this new and crazy relationship with the father she thought was dead for all these years…There are so many things that happened, you know, and like everything she's been doing this for is right in front of her all of a sudden. It's kinda tragic and sad in a lot of ways."
And such good TV.
Revenge's next episode airs Sunday.
#RIPDaniel #NeverForget