James Caan and Nikki Cox leaving NBC's 'Las Vegas'

By Stone Martindale Mar 24, 2007, 20:37 GMT

James Caan - © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi

Variety reports that NBC series "Las Vegas" will be without actors James Caan and Nikki Cox.

Caan won't be back next season, and it was Caan's first TV job, and reporter Janet Charlton claims "he was not thrilled with the corny scripts and couldn't stand to watch the show."

The season finale for Las Vegas will be fans' last chance to see the departing series regulars James Caan and Nikki Cox, who will be pursuing other options. Executive producer and series creator Gary Scott Thompson spoke on each performer's behalf to explain the departures.

""It's more on Jimmy's part, he wanted to do features again,"" said Thompson to the New York Post. ""TV is really tough–87 episodes is a long time to be away from a feature career. That's four years. That's an eternity in features. He was itching to do a movie and he couldn't do them while we were shooting. He turned down a lot of features over the last four years. Some of them we tried to make work and with the schedule of TV it was impossible.""

In the case of Cox, the Post reports the reasons varied: ""Nikki just got married [to actor/comedian Jay Mohr] and she has other things that she wanted to explore and try out. I can't speak for her personally what her plans are in her personal life. I know some of her plans but it's not my place to speak about that. That's probably a question directed towards her people. But she comes from the sitcom world and I think really wanted to go back and to do some sitcoms and try some other things.”

“They just want changes,” Thompson continued. “In Jimmy's case, it was he's towards the end of his career and wanted to move on and do some stuff that he really wanted to do. I think in Nikki's case, she's at the beginning of hers and there's other options and opportunities out there. As an actor, as a writer, as a creator, all of it, no one wants you unless someone else has you. So your opportunity to jump is usually while the iron's hot. You don't jump after the show goes down because the show's already failed. But to jump off a successful show means you're going to have lots of other options.""

"Las Vegas" airs Fridays on NBC.