Why did Damian Lewis leave Billions, role of Bobby Axelrod?
If that turns out to be the case, of course we’re more than happy to help you out! Let’s start things off here by noting what we can: Lewis is gone from the show, and we don’t expect him to have a big role in the near future. Axe is still alive, but he fled the country at the end of this past season.
The circumstances surrounding the exit were planned for a good while. Lewis is an actor who does like to take on a wide array of different things; remember that he also left Homeland after just a handful of seasons on the air. In this case, his exit was also compounded by the global pandemic, which made it even harder for him to be a substantial part of the second half of season 5. He did some of his work remotely, and in general a part of his exit was also due to his desire to be closer to his family. (Lewis’ wife Helen McCrory passed away in 2021.)
Ultimately, we have a feeling that we’ll see more of Damian in some upcoming projects but for Billions in particular, the show prepared for this by casting Corey Stoll as Mike Prince. We had a full season to get to know that character; in doing this, it made the transition between the two actors a little bit less jarring. It won’t just feel like Prince is there as a de-facto replacement for Axe, and we can just watched more of an evolved version of the story.
We will miss Lewis, though — there’s absolutely no doubt about it.
Related – Be sure to get some more news when it comes to Billions right now
Are you going to miss Damian Lewis being a big part of Billions moving forward?
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