Silicon Valley Creator: T.J. Miller is No Lebron James

Mike Judge and Alec Berg, the creators of HBO’s hit comedy series Silicon Valley spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming season of the series. Berg told THR that T.J. Miller is no Lebron James, and Judge hinted that the many of the cast and crew may have been glad to see him go. “There are a lot of different ways you can find out somebody doesn’t want to do the show anymore,” Judge said. “And it’s not fun to work with someone who doesn’t want to be there.”

Although early headlines made it seem Miller quit, the decision had already been made to cut ties, according to the interview. “It just wasn’t working,” Judge revealed. The decision seemed to hinge on unpredictable behavior by Miller with references to Miller being late on many occasions, not showing up at all or showing up unprepared or even falling asleep on set between takes. Judge said Miller was offered the opportunity to return for Season five in a diminished role that would wrap his character with the series. But Miller wasn’t interested. Instead, he decided, he’d finish out season four.

THR also spoke to Miller who didn’t deny the problems on set, but denied insider allegations that he might have been drunk or high. He said that his problems had more to do with pushing himself to do too much including stand up all the time, which meant he often didn’t get enough sleep.

Series co-creator Alec Berg is looking forward to the change, and assured fans that the show will be just as strong without Miller’s character. “These guys are the Golden State Warriors of comedy. So, it’s like, yeah, we’ve lost Andre Iguodala but we still have Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson and some other guy on the Warriors whose name I don’t know. But I don’t feel like we can’t win championships anymore because we’ve lost [Miller] — T.J. wasn’t LeBron.”

Starting March 25th, we’ll all have the opportunity to find out if that’s true when Silicon Valley returns for Season Five.

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