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You must understand that Claudia is one of 10 or so actors on
the show. The other actors understood and understand that we cannot
renegotiate contracts in mid-stream, and they are *supportive of the
show*, and gave us extensions on their contracts so that WB could have
time to make the TNT deal work. They are all, to a man and woman, on
board otherwise.

Claudia opted to not give the extension, where the other cast
did, and now wants (or says she wants to) renegotiate, now that all the
other cast members are locked down. To do so in her case, when she did
not give us the extension, and deliberately embarrassed WB by having an
article appear in the trades saying she was out and looking for other
work, would be an insult to all the other cast members who have worked
with us to date.

Further, yes, she's right, in that the contract could not be
changed so that she could go out and do movies at a moment's notice.
By contract, we must have first call on an actor's services. That is a
requirement of ANY TV contract with an actor who is a series regular.
That cannot be changed for ANY actor, ANYwhere.

That said...I already *told* Claudia that, even though we
couldn't put it in the contract, I would be happy to work with her
*informally* on this, and that if she said she needed to be gone from
X-date to Y-date, I would write her out of those episodes so that she
could do the movies. SHE ALREADY GOT FROM ME THAT PROMISE. I've
already done similar things for her and other cast members on the show,
which is how many of them have appeared in other projects. So this is,
for me, a non-issue.

No, from my standpoint, she wanted off the show, and I have no
idea why she is running up the fans like this unless she wants to avoid
responsibility for this.

Again, this isn't a case of my word against hers. EVERY SINGLE
CAST MEMBER was there when this went down, and MANY of them tried to
talk her out of walking off the show. If you don't want to take my
word for it, ask any one of them who was there, especially Bruce or
Jeff.

I would suggest the fans *not* get into this, because a) you're
not getting solid or reliable information from Claudia, and b) it is
simply too late. She opted to pass on season 5, whether she wants to
admit this or not, whether she's running from responsibility from that,
I don't know...but it was her choice. I sat with her on Thursday night
at Midnight and told her, flat out, that I would accommodate her
request on a personal basis, and that she *had* to either contact WB
herself or have her agent do so the next day, or she was off the show,
because we HAD to get the show going. The train was leaving, and she
could be on it or not as she chose. She chose not to get on board.

What you also don't understand is that we start shooting season
5 in less than one month. We're in the process of writing scripts
*right now*, and have been since we got the production order right
about the time we went to Blackpool. You can't whipsaw the writing
back and forth -- is she in, isn't she in, maybe she is, maybe she
isn't -- and hope to have anything in shape to shoot. That was why we
had to know at that date. Normally we have a longer lead time; this
time we didn't, and this has already put the scripts back a bit. The
script with the new character is written and in; if I take it out now I
have to replace it, and there isn't *time*.

Claudia knew this. WB knew this. We were up against it. She
had to choose to be in, or out. She chose out. It's no longer our
responsibility, and it's flatly too late to bring her back. The door
is closed on season 5.

jms