Greta Lee is feeling good after parting with Stella Bak. The Past Lives actress took on the icy The Morning Show character back in 2021 for season two, three years after the AppleTV hit first premiered, and — spoilers ahead — bid farewell to the role halfway through the current fourth season. Now, though her exit from the show was not at all marred with drama like Stella's from UBS was, she does find her future feels similarly "open."
Speaking with People about her exit and what's next for her, Greta said: "It's kind of meta, but in a lot of ways I feel the Stella peace where the world feels open, and I feel excited by this chapter. This new chapter where so much is unknown, and I don't have a plan," adding: "But I think that for someone like me, that's the most incredible place to be."
"I never thought that I would have the chance to be where I am, and to get the shots that I have gotten to have, especially over the last few years," she continued. "I'm just taking it all in and gifting myself the moment to just take it, observe, and keep challenging myself, and keep connecting to people, and adapting with the world. And ... I think that's a brilliant thing."
Though Greta made her TV debut close to 20 years ago, on a 2006 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, it was her role on The Morning Show that largely thrust her into the spotlight, and she has since received acclaimed for roles on Past Lives and Russian Doll, receiving nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Emmys, among others.
Further speaking about the environment on set and her beloved co-stars, who include Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Jon Hamm, and most recently Marion Cotillard and Aaron Pierre, Greta said: "These people are like family. We've been through so much."
"We got together through COVID. We were navigating brand new frontiers again and again — the writers' strike, the [Los Angeles] fires. I mean, so much has changed," she added, noting: "I have a very distinct relationship with everyone, but Karen Pittman is someone I miss daily," referring to the And Just Like That… actress who plays Mia Jordan on the series.
One of the last scenes she filmed was a particularly "devastating" one with Karen, of which she recalled: "When we had to do that scene where Stella has to deliver the news that she didn't get the job, and it's all business, but that betrayal — and she knows, too — was so devastating. Oh God, that day sucked so hard … It was really brutal to have to do that, I think because, for the two of them, they were, in so many ways, their only true allies. They were cohorts, but they were more than that."
Greta also praised Jennifer and Reese as co-stars and executive producers of the show. "They're both beasts. I think I've learned so much from both of them," she said, also recalling: "I think, my first scene ever as Stella was with Reese, and she looked at me and she was like, 'Girl, get ready. It's like being dropped on a treadmill that's set to a level 10. You better start running.' And I was like, 'Oh, okay, Reese. Okay, here we go.'"