Brian Krause calls lack of screen time in final season a 'bummer' after being...

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...'promised all episodes'

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainm...f169cbae&ei=13

Story by Alexandra Schonfeld

NEED TO KNOW

• Brian Krause is looking back on the end of his Charmed tenure 20 years after the show's finale
• Though the actor says his lack of screen time was a "bummer" he says the show was "never about" his character Leo
• Krause now hosts a rewatch podcast with former costars Holly Marie Combs and Drew Fuller
• Twenty years after the Charmed finale, Brian Krause is reflecting on the show’s final season.

Krause played Leo on the series about San Francisco-based sisters who discover they are witches for eight seasons. After playing a prominent role as love interest to Holly Marie Combs’ character Piper for the majority of the series, things changed when the final season came around.

“The last season, I kind of just did half the season. It was a bummer. I had been promised all episodes and then they changed that last minute. And it was a bit of a bummer because I knew the show was coming to an end,” Krause told PEOPLE ahead of the series’ anniversary on May 21, 2006. “...But I knew all along the show was never about Leo. It was about the charmed ones.”

The show starred Combs, Alyssa Milano and the late Shannen Doherty who was replaced by Rose McGowan at the end of the third season in 2001.

Krause, Combs and their TV son Drew Fuller, now host the House of Halliwell rewatch podcast, allowing the trio to look back on the show's legacy, which includes that of Doherty who died in 2024.

“It's been difficult to watch [the replacement of Doherty], especially with her passing and how close Holly and her were,” Krause says of Doherty.

Though the show has been off the air for two decades, Krause makes it a point to stay connected to the fans — something he observed Doherty prioritize too in the final years of her life.

“Comic-Con itself is the new way to make residuals on our show,” he explains. “... I always thought it was a little cheesy to go do until you start meeting people. It's one thing my mom had said to me before she passed was, ‘Your fans are everything. If someone writes you a letter, you write back. Without them, there's nothing.’ So meeting people and seeing, hearing their stories and their tears, I love it.”

“And that was the one thing I saw with Shannen the last few years and how engaged she was with the fans and how giving,” he adds. “And it was really impressive. And it's kind of you follow suit, and Holly does the same, and there's no ego there. We literally try and connect with every person that comes to the table.”

Looking back at how his journey with the show began, Krause recalls first hearing that Doherty was attached and knew that was a good sign.

“Anything Shannen was going to do was probably going to be good,” he said, as Doherty had been starring in one of Aaron Spelling's other shows, Beverly Hills, 90210.

At the audition, Krause says he was looking forward to seeing Spelling after meeting him several times prior for different auditions on shows like 90210 and Melrose Place.

“I had this plan where I was going to go in and say, ‘Good to see you again.' Maybe he'd jog his memory.”

When it was finally time to go in to meet Spelling after a day of auditions, the legendary producer didn't seem to remember him at all and responded: “nice to meet you.”

“I was just angry, and over the industry, and the struggle,” he recalls, sharing that he'd been working construction at the time to make ends meet with a baby at home and needed the job. “...And I just read it really angry, something I hadn't done all day... And I just walked out all pissy, which wasn't Leo.”

By the time he made it back to his car, he had the job.

Twenty years later, Krause says though the anniversary makes him “feel old” he still meets people all over the world who are fans of the show.

“We have people come up to us that are 14, they're watching it with their mom, and that mom watched it with their grandma. So it's like three generations of Charmed fans,” he says.

“It's so much what the women did, the charmed ones, Shannen and Holly and Rose and Alyssa. Just how good they were,” he adds. “And then I also think it's a storyline of the show that you could be different and you could still be kickass. And I think that really resonates with people.”

Read the original article on People