Zach Gilford arrives at the LA Premiere of “L.A.’s Finest” Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
Don’t worry, Zach Gilford wasn’t thrilled with the cancellation of Good Girls either. Although the NBC comedy was ready to start pre-production for its fifth and final season, the show was abruptly pulled from the network in June 2021.
“I was super bummed,” Gilford, 41, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting his new horror film, There’s Something Wrong With the Children. “It’s between COVID and networks and everything comes down to a penny.”
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“And unfortunately, I mean, I know that was the same thing with L.A.’s Finest,” he added, referring to his Spectrum Originals series, which was axed one year prior. “It was just the way we would’ve had to shoot that show during COVID, it wouldn’t work. We needed to be on the busy streets of L.A. We couldn’t have shot it the way that show needs to be.” (News of L.A. Finest’s fate came after Fox announced it had acquired the broadcast rights to both seasons of the show.)
He continued: “And I think with Good Girls, part of it, I think it was a lot of money stuff and you keep seeing shows go away that you love and it’s just a money thing, which is unfortunate.”
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Gilford played the ex of Mae Whitman‘s Annie Marks on the beloved comedy, which still has a devoted fan base. The Parenthood alum, 34, alongside Christina Hendricks (Beth Poland) and Retta (Ruby Hill), played three suburban mothers who get involved with a gang after initially robbing a bank to take back control of their lives.
Last year, Retta, 52, broke her silence over the show’s cancellation during an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan, noting they were “very close” to getting a season 5 renewal, but “one person ruined it for all of [the] cast and crew.”
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When Kelly Ripa questioned why the writers just couldn’t “get rid of that one person,” the Parks and Recreation alum explained that “it was a little too close to when [the writers] would have to start [season 5 scripts] and figure out [a] story.”
“Trust me. Trust me, Kelly! I’m salty!” she added. “I was literally like, ‘OK, maybe there was a bomb scare at some point, and then a bomb actually went off, and that’s why that person’s gone.’”
Retta didn’t disclose the person she was speaking about, but her comments came amid rumors that costar Manny Montana and Hendricks, 47, didn’t get along.
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“We come in, do our job, and then go home. It’s very business-like,” Montana, 39, said of his working relationship with the Mad Men alum in a 2020 interview with “The Total Celebrity Show” podcast.
The following year, Hendricks claimed that Montana refused to address her by her actual name. “Manny calls [me] … Chris,” she sighed during a Q&A at 92nd Street Y at the time. “No one in my life calls me Chris. It’s not my name. I think it’s totally stupid. And he’s never taken the chance to realize that I hate it. It’s really weird.” (As noted by Gilford, Good Girls was reportedly also cut due to money, despite Hendricks, Whitman and Retta agreeing to take pay cuts.)
Due to the open-ended story lines, viewers are left wondering if exes Annie and Gregg would have ever reconciled.
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“I think they would’ve. I think that was kind of a little bit of the hope endgame. They were just such a fun duo. Her and I had so much fun together and Jenna Bans who created it, who I’ve worked with several times is just one of my favorite people to work with because she’s so collaborative and gets characters so well and would write just fun scenes to do and with Mae,” the Friday Night Lights alum told Us. “Our dynamic on screen is kind of our dynamic in real life. It was just like, ‘Yeah, guys just go bicker. Just bicker. Just give each other a hard time.’ I was like, ‘All right, cool.’ Mae loves to just try and crack me and I love to pretend like, ‘You’re not funny. You’re just annoying.’ And her goal is always to make me laugh and she was very good at it.”