Why Noah Wyle Left ER After 11 Seasons

Noah Wyle was the longest-serving cast member on "ER," appearing in 254 of the show's 331 episodes. But after 11 seasons, the actor chose to step away from the NBC medical drama as a series regular — a decision driven by family priorities and a desire to pursue new creative challenges.

"I've just got other stuff going in my life right now," Wyle told E! News in 2004, explaining his decision to step away from his role as Dr. John Carter. "I've got a son, I've got family and friends that said goodbye to me 12 years ago and are wondering when I'm coming back, and this little urge to scratch a different kind of itch in my career, and it's just coming to the end of the character's run."

Fifteen years later, Wyle revisited his decision to leave "ER" in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, recalling how the show's production schedule had begun to clash with his life off set around the time he became a father. It was during Season 9, immediately following the birth of his son, that he first started to lose patience with the demands of shooting a network television show.

"It was a Thursday, and I didn't go to work Friday," Wyle recalled. "I had an early call time on Monday, and I went to work, and at about 10:30 in the morning, for the first time in [almost a decade] I looked at my watch, and I looked up from my watch, and I said, 'Come on, everybody. What are we doing? Let's go.' And I thought, 'What are you doing? Where do you want to be?' And I thought, 'You know where you want to be.' I just thought, I can't be here for 80 hours a week and miss this."

Wyle appeared in all of "ER" Season 9, took a brief hiatus at the start of Season 10, then remained a series regular through the end of Season 11. He returned as a guest star in Season 12, missed Seasons 13 and 14 entirely, then reprised Carter for a five-episode arc to close out the 15th and final season in 2009.

"It's difficult to leave something that's special," he told THR. "So to have an opportunity to come back with a little maturity and little time and a little distance and say, 'Now that that's done, I'd like to come back and just enjoy the best part of this, which is the people and the character, and wrap this wonderful experience,' it gave us all an opportunity to put some s–t to bed and come back and enjoy what we created and take a little bit of stake in feeling like we have creative ownership of being part of the final season."