If Maura Tierney has her way, her character Abby Lockhart will be dead by the time ER ends next year. "I want them to kill me," she tells AOL. "And they won't. They refused to kill Abby."
"I've been on the show for a long time," she says. "I had a really great time there, but it's been almost a decade, and part of me is ready to move on, but part of me is going to be very sad about it."
The 43-year-old Maura wants to check out of the ER for good even though the show is nearly finished anyway - it returns for a 15th and final season next year. But she doesn't want to wait that long.
"I think it's a great thing for the cast and the crew," the actress says. "And I think it's a great thing that [producer] John Wells and all the rest of the writers know that it's ending and have time to prepare for it and finish it in a way that's thoughtful."
Maura, who says to expect more drama from her relationship with Luka (played by Goran Visnjic) for the remainder of the season, most likely won't jump into another series afterwards — if only because nothing would compare to her ER experience.
"I feel the same way I felt when NewsRadio ended, which is that I didn't want to do another sitcom right away, because I loved the show," she says. "I couldn't imagine another sitcom that would come to me that was as good or as fun as that. And I feel the same way now about ER."
