Goodbye, Tom Brittney

- Grantchester has changed my life in every single way.

It's made me a better actor, it taught me to direct, it gave me friends for life.

- [Staff] Ladies and gentlemen, that is a series wrap for Mr. Tom Brittney.

(staff claps) - Most of my acting career has been the show.

It's the best time I've ever had in my life, acting, non-acting, to come to work every day and just hang out with my best friends, my family.

But I feel like I've had my time and Will's story, I think is coming to an end.

- Tom had decided that he wanted to move on and broaden his horizons elsewhere, but that decision doesn't really sink in until the day you realize that Will Davenport is no longer gonna be a part of the Grantchester family.

That was really kind of difficult to take on board.

Now because we shoot out of sequence, we shot the final goodbye, I think in the first two weeks of filming series nine.

Tom had another four weeks, but we were shooting the final scene and we're in the meadows.

All the crew were there.

It was a beautiful day in Grantchester, and he just looked at me going, "This is it."

That was a devastating day, and there was no acting required.

I love you.

(piano music) - I love you too.

- The final goodbye is so devastating for Geordie but it was also devastating for me.

I mean, we're still very close friends, but we're not gonna have as much fun as we did, and I'll miss the joy and the laughter.

(Tom laughs) - I'm gonna miss those moments.

I'm gonna miss sharing those moments with Tom where I was crying with laughter, Tom was crying with laughter, and it wasn't even anything funny.

It was just the fact that we'd got ourselves into this state.

- Leonard is very upset, which is very traumatic to film actually.

All of a sudden you're like crying your eyes out and you're like, oh, well that's a bit too much for the camera.

Like, bring it down, and you're like, okay, now.

Yeah, man, yeah.

That was really devastating.

You know, he was one of my best mates in real life.

- Grantchester really did give me best friends, a family for life.

- It's always really sad saying goodbye to somebody on this show, but for us, it's never, it's never really goodbye.

- I hope I made the viewers proud.

It was really tough taking over from James and to come into a show that people loved and to hope that it would carry on and I wouldn't tank it.

The fact that the viewers carried on watching and welcomed me in, kept on loving the show, I just hope that I leave a character behind that they loved.

I hope I made you proud.

- Every day, son.

Every day.

(piano music)