Vaugier Was A Casualty Of Budget Cuts

See Also: 'Pay Up' Episode Guide

Budgetary issues caused Emmanuelle Vaugier's character, Detective Jessica Angell, to be killed in the season five finale of CSI: New York, "Pay Up".

Vaugier was warned ahead of time that Angell would be a victim in the finale. "One of the executive producers called me at home several weeks before we were going to shoot," the actress explained to TV Guide Magazine. "It was right before the script was going to come out. She said, 'I just wanted you to know first so you didn't hear it from someone else.' And she was really great about it. She said, 'We hate to do this. We're going to get so much crap from the crew and everybody. Gary [Sinise (Mac Taylor)] doesn't know yet and he's not going to be happy.' It was really sweet."

After the script came out, news travelled fast. "Word spread like a wildfire the next day," Vaugier revealed. "Everybody was really sweet and complimentary. There were tears—mostly mine." However, the actress understood why the show was letting her go. "They're just cutting back to save some money," she said. "Also, it makes sense for ratings to kill off a character that people have grown to like. It wasn't personal. They wouldn't have kept me for three years if they didn't like me. I just told them to if they're going to kill me off they better give me a really cool death. And they did. They wrote a really sad, heartfelt episode. Reading it was awful."

Filming the episode was difficult for the actress as well as Eddie Cahill (Don Flack). "It was awful," she said. "He was emotional. I was emotional. It was the last scene of the day at 4 in the morning and everyone was tired. I was a mess. I'm not a very good dead person. Eddie said, 'I could see your eyes were tearing.'" The romantic relationship between the two characters is something the actress will miss. "I think it would have been nice for my relationship with Eddie to have developed a little more," she shared. "We were just starting to have a lot of fun with it. I think they did as much as they could on a procedural show."

Vaugier recently appeared in the season finale of another CBS series, Two and a Half Men. She reprised her role as Charlie's ex-fiance, Mia. "I'm back to stir the pot after my character splits with her husband and bumps into Alan," the actress explained. "I've returned to live in Malibu and am still carrying a torch for Charlie. It's a To Be Continued…so I'll be back in the season premiere, which we shoot in August. Now that I'm off CSI, I'd be happy to go play with them for awhile."

The original interview is from TV Guide Magazine. Thanks to ErinElizabeth from TalkCSI for the heads up.

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