Ricky Gervais has said that conflicting work commitments meant that Mandeep Dhillon was unable to take part in After Life season three.
The actress played Sandy, intern for Gervais's character Tony, in the first two seasons of the dark comedy but in the final season she was revealed to have moved on.
"We tried to make it work with Mandeep," Gervais told the Radio Times. "So did she, but she had a contract with this thing in America and it got closer and she just couldn't do it. Because of COVID, she had to go early.
"And that's fine. These things happen all the time. You can't get angry about it, so you rewrite it and I hope it still turns out great.
"You let all the other things fill the gap. There's too much anyway. All the episodes come in at 45 minutes [initially]. I've always got to cut 15 minutes, so you've just got to roll with it, whether people can do it or not."
The third - and supposedly final - season of After Life launched on Netflix last Friday.
Follow us on Twitter @SMEntsFeed and like us on Facebook for the latest entertainment news alerts.
