Torrey DeVitto was one of the anchors of Chicago Med. As Dr. Natalie Manning, she powered some of the show’s defining romances, and handled several of the most memorable medical cases. The actor loved her time on the show, and remains friends with several of her co-stars to this day.
That being said, she was actually relieved to be written off the show at the beginning of season 7. DeVitto recently went on an episode of the podcast Broad Ideas, and she told host Rachel Bilson that she would have likely asked to leave the show if the decision had not been made for her. The reason? Writing.
Torrey DeVitto considered leaving before season 7
Torrey DeVitto did not like the way Dr. Manning was being written during season 6. She told Bilson that she felt it clashed with the character she had created up to that point, and was frustrated by the way it recontextualized her performance overall:
“I’ll be very blunt, the last season I was there they wrote my character in a really weird way and wrote her into a big hole that she could not get out of.”
Apparently, Chicago Med was looking to change up the cast, and opted not to renew DeVitto’s contract, which she was actually relieved about once told. In her mind, it was the push she needed to focus on her personal life.
DeVitto was happy with her character’s resolution
“I was so grateful,” DeVitto admitted. “Because without it being a mutual conversation I would have never done it on my own because of the consistent paycheck.” She now views her final season as a make or break time in her life, and is glad the way things went. “I also knew that I was creeping up to that time where I was like, ‘If I really wanted to focus on this personal life stuff, I gotta go,'” she added.
Torrey DeVitto wound up with the best of both worlds. The actress got to focus on her personal life, and subsequently got married. She also got a chance to come back to Chicago Med and give her character a proper sendoff. DeVitto told outlets that she was thrilled by the decision to bring Dr. Manning back to reunite with Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss). We were too.
As they say: all’s well that ends well.
