The cast of "Sons of Anarchy" must have felt a wide spectrum of emotions when they learned of Ryan Hurst's character, Opie, being killed off, and when they had to film the scene itself. On the Fan Expo Canada panel, Emilio Rivera, who played Marcus Alvarez, said he felt actual loss afterward but was better when he got back to real life. "Two weeks later him and his wife and me and my wife ... we all got together and saw a movie and I felt better again," he said."I knew he was alive." But fans of the show didn't get to have that same reconciliation as they had to live with the permanent departure of one of their favorite characters.
The death scene itself is as brutal as it is devastating. The plotline leads to Jax (Charlie Hunnam) choosing to sacrifice himself to make peace with a rival criminal organization. However, Opie beats him to the punch, eventually taking a fatal blow to the head. Theo Rossi went on to explain to the crowd that after that scene was shot, the cast went from a tight-knit ensemble to one that was dwindling exponentially. "And it went really fast after he died," Rossi explained. "Before it felt like forever."
Of course, all good things eventually come to an end and that's especially true with dramatic TV series. Fans can take solace in knowing that the actors, themselves, often share the same emotional reaction.
