Right from its beginning, the cast of Legends of Tomorrow has constantly been in flux, with characters regularly coming and going and the team dynamic adjusted accordingly. The latest departure, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, has now explained why she left and also revealed that she would welcome the opportunity to return in the future.
In an interview with Collider, she detailed what led to her desire to exit the show and what she’ll be doing instead, saying:
“I’ve just been having this dream of this production company for about two years, and I finally managed to get it off the ground. It’s called Bareface Productions, and we just finished our first short film. It specializes in creating stories that focus on the experiences of marginalized communities and individuals, and LGBTQIA people from around the world. One of the key things that we do is that we have diverse representation, at every single phase of the creative process, from casting to directing to writing to producing. Everyone is representative of the stories that we’re trying to tell, which is something that, sadly, I rarely see within Hollywood or the TV world. It was taking up a lot of time and, with the shooting schedule, I just couldn’t do both.”
As well as being mixed-race, Richardson-Sellers identifies as queer, so seeing the stories of such people told while being overseen by someone who both understands and has lived them is clearly a cause important to her, especially if shepherding them into existence meant leaving a central role on a popular TV series.
Of course, Richardson-Sellers has the distinction of being the only actor on Legends to have played two separate characters. She was first introduced in season 2 as Amaya, a World War II-era version of the superheroine Vixen created when Megalyn Echikunwoke, who voiced the character’s original incarnation in an animated web series and played her in an episode of Arrow, was unavailable to reprise the role. After Amaya was written out when she could no longer stall fulfilling a temporal obligation, the character of shapeshifter Charlie was introduced, who took on Amaya’s form to mess with the team and was then stuck like that when Constantine disabled her abilities.
Charlie’s departure was planned ahead of time, and to give her a proper sendoff (unlike Ray and Nora), she received a heavy retcon to thrust her central to the events of the main season 5 plot. And despite her departure being her own choice, Richardson-Sellers is nevertheless open to reprising the role, with the actress saying:
“The truth is, no one is ever gone on Legends. I’ve made it very clear to them that, if they ever need Amaya or Charlie for a mission, I would be back there in a heartbeat.”
The stories of both Amaya and Charlie are effectively complete as far as the ongoing events of Legends of Tomorrow are concerned, although should circumstances allow it, it would be a welcome surprise for either character to return however briefly, as well as the woman who brought them both so memorably to life.
