Luke Grimes Exits HBO's TRUE BLOOD; Role to Be Recast

TVLine reports exclusively that Luke Grimes, who portrayed Jessica's lover 'James' in Season 6 of HBO's True Blood will not be returning for the final season of the series.

An HBO spokesperson confirmed the news of Grimes' exit, commenting, "The role of James is being recast due to the creative direction of the character."

While a representative for Grimes declined to comment on the report, a source close to the actor told the site that he asked to be let out of his contract after he learned what producers had in store for his character in the upcoming season.

"He initially joined the show because he wanted to work with [his Forever co-star] Deborah Ann Woll," says the insider. "But when he started reading the scripts for Season 7, he was disappointed to learn that they were going in a completely different direction with James."

About TRUE BLOOD:

True Blood was created by Alan Ball, who recently left the series. Co-executive producer Brian Buckner has taken over as showrunner for the series based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris; executive producer Gregg Fienberg; co-executive producers, Buckner, Alexander Woo, Raelle Tucker, Mark Hudis and Angela Robinson; co-producers, Christina Jokanovich, Marlis Pujol and David Auge.

Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, True Blood takes place in a world where vampires and humans co-exist, after vampires have come out of the coffin, thanks to the invention of mass-produced synthetic blood that means they no longer need humans as a nutritional source.

The series follows waitress and part-faerie Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people's thoughts, vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard).

For more on the series, visit facebook.com/trueblood and twitter.com/TrueBloodHBO or hasthag #trueblood.