‘The Good Place’: Manny Jacinto Thought a Third of the Cast Would Leave the Show After Season 1
Though The Good Place only lasted four seasons, the cast formed an incredibly close bond with one another. Considering the show boasted an ensemble cast, it’s rare that all the actors seemed to get along very well. However, the show’s six main actors: Ted Danson, Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, D’Arcy Carden, Manny Jacinto, and Jameela Jamil have all been very candid about how they are all good friends and will remain that way even now that the show ended.
But funnily enough, there was a time when Jacinto didn’t think that a third of the cast would even make it past the first season. Fans of The Good Place will recall the shocking twist of the Season 1 finale when viewers and the humans actually discover that they aren’t in The Good Place at all. But as shocked as viewers were, most of the cast was even more shocked.
Most of ‘The Good Place’ cast had no clue about the Season 1 twist
Though Danson and Bell had full knowledge about the show’s shocking twist prior to filming, the rest of The Good Place cast and the crew were kept in the dark about the truth until right before they filmed the episode. Mike Schur (who created the show) wanted his cast to genuinely believe they were in heaven so he waited until the last minute to tell them the truth.
But not knowing how Season 1 of The Good Place ended certainly didn’t stop the cast from speculating about theories. In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Jacinto (who plays everyone’s favorite lovable idiot, Jason Mendoza) recounted the many times he spent thinking about how the season would end.
Manny Jacinto had tons of ideas about how the first season would end
“We all had our speculation and our theories about what would happen, but we had no idea,” Jacinto shared about how his castmates desperately tried to figure out how Season 1 of The Good Place would finally conclude. “I was like, ‘Maybe we go back to earth.’ A lot of the theories were, ‘We’re going to go back to earth and it’s going to become like Parks and Rec, and we’re just going to reset every day, and it’s not going to be serialized anymore.'”
But Jacinto had an even stronger theory. He actually believed that two of his fellow actors would leave The Good Place cast after Season 1. “My main theory was that Ted and Kristen were so big, they’re these legends on TV right now and they don’t have time to be playing with us,” Jacinto confessed. “So I thought that they were going to leave at the end of this season and it was just going to be the four babies running the show. That was my speculation. They were going to pass the baton. I was so wrong.”
‘The Good Place’ cast wouldn’t be the same without Kristen Bell and Ted Danson
We’re sure that fans, Jacinto, and the rest of The Good Place cast is thrilled that Bell and Danson stuck around for all four seasons. After all, the show would hardly be the same without them.
