‘True Blood’ season 7: About the Luke Grimes – recasting controversy

Typically when you have a role on a particular TV show that is recast, the most common reasons behind it are that there are serious schedule conflicts, or that the writers have plans to change the character in a drastic way (i.e. make them older) that requires a different person in the part. (Warning: There are potential spoilers about future “True Blood” episodes ahead.)

The Luke Grimes story is one that we were hesitant to discuss at first, mostly because there is a good part of it that is currently doused in sensationalism by the media. Many outlets are claiming in big headlines that Grimes left the show and the role of James because he allegedly was not comfortable with the idea of playing gay, as there were signs in the premiere that he and Lafayette may be moving towards a relationship together. We’ll leave the validity of this up to the reader, but we do want to present you with some of the other information out there to give you a full perspective.

Grimes publicist Craig Schneider recently told BuzzFeed as a result of some of the headlines that  “Luke always had an out clause as a means of pursuing other opportunities which arose in the form of features beginning with The Shangri-La Suite, followed by Fifty Shades of Grey, and most recently, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper with Bradley Cooper.” Later, he told them via phone that “It had nothing to do with storylines, which he had not been privy to at the time [that initial reports of his exit came out in a TVLine article].” TVLine reported when his exit broke last December that creative differences were the reason for the change, and again they wrote earlier this week that HBO is standing by their original statement that “the role of James [was] recast due to the creative direction of the character.”

What we are ultimately building to here is this. Casting agents will be the judge of whether or not they want to book Grimes for future work, and the court of public opinion one way or another will not have much bearing. We understand the fascination in the story given that recastings are relatively infrequent, though they have happened often in between this show and “Game of Thrones.” The positive way to look at it is that Nathan Parsons is now getting his own chance to shine as the James character, and Grimes can go off and do some other work he is interested in.

The one thing that has been left out of many other reports this week is that back when Grimes originally was announced to be leaving the show, one of the reasons given was that he allegedly joined the show because he wanted to work more with his “Forever” co-star Deborah Ann Woll, and was saddened that the story was not going in that direction. It’s interesting that most media outlets are not mentioning this now; either they may perceive him wanting to work with Woll as some sort of possible excuse, or they find it much easier to sensationalize the story with it omitted. We’ll never know the answer to that, so it really seems pointless to speculate. It’s much easier to be positive and support the new actor than huff and puff over the old one leaving.