Daniel Lissing Explains Jack’s Death, Why He’s Leaving ‘When Calls The Heart’

After the Season 5 finale of “When Calls the Heart” on Hallmark Channel on Sunday, Hearties are left with millions of questions, but one of the greatest being, “Why is Daniel Lissing leaving the show?” With his decision being the reason a beloved character on the series, Mountie Jack Thornton, was killed off, it makes perfect sense why fans are wondering what brought upon Lissing’s departure.

The day after the finale aired, the actor sat down with his now former co-stars Erin Krakow (Elizabeth) and Lori Loughlin (Abigail), as well as executive producer Brian Bird, for a Facebook Live to discuss the end of the season and Lissing’s reason for leaving.

“First and foremost, I want to say to all of our fans that the three of us here are very good friends, and we all love each other and we support each other,” Loughlin started off by saying. “But we are actors, and actors have contracts and sometimes contracts expire and you have a choice to make. You either renegotiate or you don’t, and Dan has chosen to move on, we respect that. No judgment. We love him; we wish him well. He’s still part of the Hallmark family.”

While he’ll be a forever member of the Hallmark family, and there’s nothing stopping him from acting in other Hallmark movies or shows in the future, his time on “When Calls the Heart” has now come to an end. This decision was a tough one for him, but an important one.

“Circumstances arose for me where I needed to leave ‘When Calls the Heart’ for reasons that are very personal to me,” Lissing said. “I went to Hallmark, and they were nothing but supportive of me. I went to the girls, and they were nothing but supportive of me.”

After he went to Hallmark with his decision to not renew his contract, the writers of the series were left with their own difficult decision to make - what they were going to do with Lissing’s character, Jack?

“We talked about, like, ‘Do we recast the role? No, we can’t recast the role. How can you recast the role? No,’” Loughlin, who is also a co-executive producer, said of their thought process behind deciding to kill off Jack. “The chemistry that these two have, we just didn’t feel like, the writers didn’t feel like that was possible.”

She continued: “We knew our time was limited with Dan, and the actor wouldn’t be coming back. So if we sent him off to the Northern Territories, now we have Elizabeth sitting at home in Hope Valley just pining away and waiting. Not much story to tell.”

The only other avenue they could’ve taken besides killing Jack would’ve been to have him relocate because of his job and break up with Elizabeth in order to not hold her back, but Loughlin said they quickly realized that that wouldn’t have been plausible because “the only way he would leave her is in death,” which is something that most Hearties can probably agree on because of the couple’s lasting romance.

Though he left on his own accord and not because he was forced out, Lissing maintained that it wasn’t anything about his character or the show that he disliked so much that he wanted to leave. Actually, it was the opposite. As he’s now walking away from “When Calls the Heart,” all he can do is think about what an amazing experience he’s had working on the project.

“It’s been the honor of my career to play Jack,” he said. “It has been the honor of my career to work with these two amazing women who I consider some of my best friends in the world. When I came out to the United States as a guy who was playing in bars in Sydney, to think that I would play a character like Jack on an American TV show is beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined.”

During the Facebook Live, Lissing was able to share his feelings about leaving, and Loughlin was able to explain how they decided on Jack’s death, but Lissing’s on-screen love, Krakow, also got the chance the share what’s been going through her mind about all of this.

“I was just sad that Dan was leaving,” she said. “That’s the bottom line: We were all really sad about it, and that’s hard. Dan, in many ways, has been my partner in crime for five years, and one of my greatest scene partners ever, and I’m just really gonna miss him.”

She continued: “This felt very special because these characters are all so close to me and all you have to do is think about it and the tears fall.”

Hearties know all too well about tears falling because there’s nothing that could stop that from happening while watching the emotional Season 5 finale of “When Calls the Heart” on Sunday. Luckily, this video with the cast helped clear up a lot of the questions fans were having, which means the next step will be waiting until Season 6 premieres next year for more answers.