‘FAMILY LAW” just lost two members of the family.
Cristian de la Fuente, who plays Andres Diaz, and co-star Julie Warner, who plays Danni Lipton, are leaving the CBS drama.
Fuente will not return when the show returns next fall and Warner will only appear in the series first few episodes of the show’s third season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The show, which also stars Dixie Carter, follows the lives of a group of lawyers who spend their days mostly representing the underdogs and underprivileged, while dealing with their own crises and trying to make ends meet.
When the show started, Warner’s character was one of the most important, but the actress says she’s hit a “creative dead end.”
Fuente – a licensed pilot and reserve officer in the Chilean Air Force – was once named one of People magazine’s 50 most beautiful people.
“Family Law” has been undergoing a restructuring for next season, but Warner said her decision to leave the show was strictly due to creative differences with its producers.
“I’ll miss working with everybody on ‘Family Law,’ but my character has hit kind of a creative dead end,” Warner said. “Rather than stay with the show in a diminished capacity, I’d rather explore other options.”
“Family Law” has been losing viewers slightly since its 1999 debut. For its first season it averaged 12.4 million viewers a week.
Last season, it was seen by about 11.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
