Romez said:

It's weird people specifically hate Erlich.

They're all dicks except Jared.

I'd think Richard would be the more dislikeable one, he's constantly doing stupid shit.

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firehawk12 said:

Richard is the worst.

That tabs vs spaces thing is stupid.
(And I fucking agree with him is the worst part )

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SinCityAssassin said:

He can come back for the next season when the Emoji movie ruins his life.

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Metalmarc said:

Nah he's gonna be in Deadpool 2

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SoulUnison said:

I just don't get why people like this character.
This is early Season 1 stuff, he's literally cussing out and assaulting a child, and he never rises above this low.
Sure, he shows moments of cunning and insight, but he never stops being an absolutely reprehensible human being, to the point that it stopped being entertaining to watch and just started feeling abusive and sadistic.

Like... Why is this seemingly the most popular character?
It's low key disturbing to me, on some level.

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giga said:

HBO brought piss to a shit fight.

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Masterspeed said:

You probably wouldn't like Always Sunny...

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big_z said:

shitty news but I could also see season 5 being the last. the story hasn't been as focused as the previous seasons. I also wonder where they'll incubate once miller is gone.

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daviyoung said:

Why couldn't it have been Bighead?

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How “mutual” was the decision?

As mutual as public announcements go. I’m so grateful to HBO because they offered several ways that we could make this work. They were open to all sorts of compromise to allow Erlich to continue to be on the show, but ultimately this just felt like an organic ending. And the relationship with HBO — I mean, they did my special. It’s a dream come true, or at least a living, waking nightmare that was actualized. And on top of that, they gave my best friend, Pete Holmes, Crashing — a show that’s autobiographical, and I get to play myself. I’m not a very good actor; that’s a really easy job. I love HBO, but I thought this would be that thing that would change the show in a positive way. I mean, those guys are the funniest guys working.

Why are you leaving now?

I would love to do The Emoji Movie and things like that and have the time to develop animated features. I would like to keep offering up Gorburger and letting people see a very different side of talk show guests. And that was a big part of why I said, “I’ve learned everything I can from this show. I would love to continue to be involved with it, if only because fans really do enjoy the show, and they seem to enjoy the character. But ultimately I just have to make more things and different things.”

I work so much. I do every single platform. I do every single medium, down to podcasting with Cash Levy (“Cashing in with T. J. Miller”), all the way up to being in an underwater thriller with Kristin Stewart and wanting to be the funny part of that. So [I left] for my own sanity, and for the sake of slowing down, and being more present and able to devote more time to this myriad of projects that I have going on. The other thing of it is that I didn’t get into comedy to be a television actor, and the second that I felt that there was a possibility of going on autopilot — of even phoning it in with this particular project — that’s when I say, “Okay, I gotta walk away. I have to do something where this won’t happen. I can’t allow myself to show up and give a B-plus performance on a show that is an A-plus when it comes to television.” That is a huge, huge part of it.

I think for something to come to an organic end, even if it’s before the public wants it to happen, is so much better. Leave them wanting more. There was one adage that’s never wrong. In comedy, you walk off-stage when the laughs are at their peak, and people go, “Wait, what? The show’s over? It’s just over like that?” You leave them wanting more because you don’t ever want them to wish that there had been less….

Also, in a weird way, it’s interesting to me to leave a show at its height. It’s interesting to me to see how the show will grow and change with the exit of this character.

Did you feel that you had creatively plateaued playing this character — that you had said everything you wanted to say as Erlich?

There is no plateau when working with [Silicon co-creator] Mike Judge. Mike Judge is a prescient genius… I took a cue from my wife. Her favorite quote from David Bowie is — and I’m not an artist, so put “artist” in quotations marks — an artist should always be just far enough in the water that his feet are barely touching the ocean floor, and that’s where you do your best work. You don’t know what’s going to happen. I chose the most unsafe, destabilizing decision that one could make.

When did the thought of leaving first enter your mind?

I think in the middle of the season, I started to think, “If there is a way…” And when I did Underwater, this Kristen Stewart-Vincent Cassel movie, it was a nice reminder because I was a stranger in a strange land — a comedian in an actor’s world and director’s world. Why did I do this underwater thriller? Because it was a Deadpool move — an unexpected move because I get to do something different, to learn from these people — I reminded myself that I didn’t get into this game to become a successful television actor. I didn’t want to be on a sitcom where I made a boatload of money and then could do films but didn’t do a ton, but have a bunch of money and bought a cool house in L.A. and totally rehabbed it so it’s no longer ranch-style. Both of us are already bored with that example. I need to be a stand-up comedian. We’ve got some pretty heavy sh– going on right now, and the best thing I can do is stand-up comedy. I hope Meticulously Ridiculous is both well-received and something that people feel like they can return to for laughs, like Norm Macdonald’s special was for me, and Patton Oswalt’s special was for me. I’m a good stand-up comedian. But I’d like to be a great stand-up comedian, and that takes an immense amount of focus and work ethic. I have both, but I didn’t have the time.

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In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the season four finale, co-showrunner Mike Judge offered a bit more clarity on Miller's exit. "It was kind of becoming clear that he didn't want to do the show anymore, but we wanted to leave it so that there would an opportunity to come back at some point, " he said, explaining that the writers purposely left Erlich's storyline open-ended in the finale. "When the season was done, we talked to T.J. and said, 'Do you want to come back for part of it?' And he just wanted to move on."

Judge added that the producers intended to give Miller an out if he wanted to take it. "I think if somebody doesn't want to do it, you don't want to force them to. I certainly don't," said the executive producer, who also spoke with THR about the trajectory of the season and his six-season plan for the comedy. "It also wouldn't make for a very good work environment."

Now, Miller is offering his side of the story. In a wide-ranging and, at times, eccentric interview (what else do you expect from Miller?), the actor reveals that HBO offered him a reduced role in the upcoming season, which he ultimately turned down in favor of leaving the show completely. He gets candid on why he ultimately walked away from the series, on whether he'll return to Silicon Valley in the future and why exiting the comedy "felt like a breakup."

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Why was leaving Erlich in a Tibetan drug house the right ending for your character?

I just thought it was so funny. They’d written a potential exit — an organic exit — and I just thought it was so funny. I also think it’s interesting to leave a comedy at its height, one that is known for being cyclical. Everybody sort of criticizes [that part of it]. The only thing that you can talk down about the show and about Alec Berg, the showrunner for the first couple years, is that it’s cyclical. If they fail, then they succeed, and then if they succeed, they fail. It’s over and over. That’s an old type of sitcom. That’s Seinfeld, where Alec Berg used to work. It’s recycling, it’s network. This is HBO. And so I thought, what if suddenly the whole thing changed? Where’s the guy at the house? He’s gone. Richard [Thomas Middleditch] doesn’t have a foil. Jian Yang [Jimmy O. Yang] comes to prominence. All these other characters will change and grow. I read something today that I thought was really sweet, which was that Erlich as a character never really belonged. I mean, really, think about that.

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Your character was such a fan favorite…

I would argue that I think Jared is funnier.

Sure, but Erlich was iconic out of the gate, and news of your exit spawned headlines like, “Is Silicon Valley Really Silicon Valley Without Erlich Bachman?”

Well, that’s sort of what we’re talking about. A lot of people are writing really interesting stuff about like, “Well, what does happen now?” And I love that. I want to step aside. Thomas Middleditch has always wanted to be a star. He’s always wanted to be the star of the show. So I thought, really, it’s an ensemble show, and if I step aside, the ensemble will each have a little more room. I guess some people are like, “Ah, I guess he’s got too much going on, he’s too big for the show.” What are you talking about? It’s, like, the best show on television, in my opinion, and I’m going and doing The Emoji Movie — and you can publish that because Sony knows we down to get motherf—ing paid globally. But I want to make movies for children. I want to have a schedule where I can have a fun, healthy relationship where we have lazy days. I also want to be the voiceover of How to Train Your Dragon theme parks. I’m doing a lot as a public servant and jester to the American public. As Kristen Stewart always says, “It’s worldwide. It’s worldwide.” I feel like this is just an interesting thing to do, and I think if you’re a fan, you’re going to continue to be a fan — and I’ll continue to work for you.

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How did the other castmembers take the news of your departure?

This is where the publicist is supposed to step in and go, “Next question.” But to be very frank, each of them took it a different way, and I think that has to do with their situation contextually. Some people, like Kumail, congratulated me and said, “This is fantastic. In some ways, I would do the same, but I think it’s an interesting move. It’s great.” Some people, like Zach Woods — who’s very neurotic and never reads the press, so it doesn’t matter what you say about him in it — is such a sweetheart and somehow needs to make this [about] having a slow or healthier schedule overall. And then I think Martin Starr is a f—ing chanting Buddhist just like my wife, who’s like, “Cool, man. This is life. It doesn’t matter. There’s not anything to it.” So that was really, really nice, too. But the first person I called when I decided, and all my agents were like, “What are you doing?” — once everybody had said, “OK, OK, this is actually going to be good” — I called Jimmy O. Yang and I said, “Look, man, I’m leaving the show. … We’ve cultivated this double act that is so strong and I think you’re the thing that I’m going to miss the most about the show.”

Don't you feel like Erlich deserved a little more closure than he got?

I think that HBO and Alec Berg, specifically, kind of thought — and I guess apparently Thomas Middleditch — I guess they thought, "All right, maybe this is the end of the character. But like everything in the show, we’ll sort of solve this and then it’s back to normal." And they just didn’t imagine that I would be in a position of being like, “I think that’s it.” I don’t know how smart [Alec] is. He went to Harvard, and we all know those kids are f—ing idiots. That Crimson trash. Those comedy writers in Hollywood are f—ing Harvard graduates and that’s why they’re smug as a bug. … I think that in television you usually have one element that is very challenging, very frustrating. It’s an obstacle, right? So you’re doing the best work that you can do. Alec was that for me, and I think I was that for Alec. And a very good article was written that says that Erlich in the show is just this constant annoyance to Richard. And I think, in some ways, that is analogous to real life. I think in some ways Thomas Middleditch is — we have a contrarian relationship, like a big brother-little brother relationship. And this is also an opportunity for me to be like, “Let me just step off, dude. Like, just do your f—ing thing. You’re amazing.” I did a two-man improv show with him for a decade. He’s amazing.

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Leunam said:

I enjoyed his character on Silicon Valley but I'm pretty sure that's the only time I found him funny. I barely remember him in Deadpool, I stopped watching Crashing early on because it wasn't enjoyable at all so I don't know if he ever improved, and the one stand up special I saw him on years ago was really lame. I think it was on Comedy Central but I hear the one he did for HBO recently isn't very good either. The preview definitely wasn't, to me.

Despite the shaky cam I liked him in Cloverfield, at least he was able to capture lots of the action while holding the camera.

Sucks that Silicon Valley and Veep seemed to have very steep declines this season. Haven't enjoyed either, Veep less so.

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SoulUnison said:

I just don't get why people like this character.
This is early Season 1 stuff, he's literally cussing out and assaulting a child, and he never rises above this low.
Sure, he shows moments of cunning and insight, but he never stops being an absolutely reprehensible human being, to the point that it stopped being entertaining to watch and just started feeling abusive and sadistic.

Like... Why is this seemingly the most popular character?
It's low key disturbing to me, on some level.

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