Why did Steven Hill leave Mission Impossible?

The late actor and performer Steven Hill had left Mission Impossible as the production timings were affecting his religious practices.

The series Mission Impossible is an all-time classic fictional spy drama first released back on September 17, 1966, and ran for a total of 7 years. The series was written and created by Bruce Geller and was produced by Desilu Productions. The series had a total of 7 seasons with 171 episodes aired in the span of 7 years.

The Mission Impossible series had a star cast of actors like Steven Hill, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Peter Graves, Martin Landau, Leonard Nimoy, and Lee Meriwether, among many others. In the series, Steven Hill played the role of Daniel Briggs who was the leader of I.M.F. (Impossible Missions Force) before being replaced by Peter Graves’ character Jim Phelps.

Why did Steven Hill leave Mission Impossible?

The late actor Steven Hill was replaced on Mission: Impossible as a result of various production issues while shooting the series. After a play way back in 1961, Steven decided to examine his religion, converting himself to follow the path of Orthodox Judaism. With this, it was known that Steven was quite religious about his practices and had also made a contract before entering Mission: Impossible that production time should not interfere with his practice.

While initially there weren't any disputes, Steven Hill’s religious practices created quite a limitation to the series production. Steven had made it clear that he would not be working for late hours and would not be doing reshoot scenes on Sabbath. He also took time every day to pray three times during the shoot. His role as Daniel Briggs was starting to appear less in the 1st season. Another instance that caused trouble for the production was after his shoot for the episode "Snowball in Hell" where he had to crawl through dirt tunnels and repeatedly climb a rope ladder, the actor had refused to climb and had locked himself in his dressing room. This caused the production team to change the plan and cancel out the character’s part in the episode.

Eventually, the character was replaced by Peter Graves who took over as the leader of the IMF as the character Jim Phelps.

Also read: Why did peter graves leave mission impossible?

What did Steven Hill do after Mission Impossible?

After leaving Mission Impossible, Steven Hill took a long hiatus for 10 years from 1968 to 1978, to focus on his religion and moved to a Jewish community in Rockland County, New York, where he had to work as a writer and real estate agent. It was later in 1978 when Steven made his return as an actor for the mini-series King. Apart from this, the actor was also seen on other projects like Yentl (1983), Eyewitness (1981), Garbo Talks (1984), Raw Deal (1986), and Legal Eagles (1986) among many others.