Charisma Carpenter, who won't be returning as a regular cast member on The WB's Angel, spoke for the first time about her abrupt departure in an interview with the Boston Herald and said she was as shocked as anyone. "I was not prepared," Carpenter told the newspaper. "I don't think you're ever prepared for that kind of situation."

Carpenter played the acid-tongued Cordelia Chase for three years on Buffy the Vampire Slayer before moving over to The WB's spinoff series. "Seven years, that's a long time," she said. "I started that show. To not be finishing it is a pretty big deal for me. They went back to work on July 24. ... On that day I thought, 'Oh, today is officially my first day of unemployment.'"

Last spring, Carpenter returned to Angel just 10 days after giving birth to her son, Donovan, and spent two long days on the set, wrapping up the season, the newspaper reported. She said she is absolutely willing to return to the series to provide closure to her character's story arc and bring Cordy out of the coma in which she remained during last season's finale. "I think it would be incomplete if it wasn't addressed but I don't know what's being planned," she said. "I haven't heard anything. As we speak today, there are no plans for me to come back."
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