Transformers: The Last Knight Explains Nicola Peltz’s Absence

Screen Rant

By Cooper Hood

Published Dec 5, 2016

Nicola Peltz's Tessa Yeager is not in Transformers: The Last Knight - but where she is will be addressed in the film says Mark Wahlberg.

After using actresses/models such as Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Michael Bay brought Nicola Peltz into the Transformers universe for Transformers: Age of Extinction. She was one of the new faces introduced in the franchise after a complete cast re-haul. As Tessa Yeager, the daughter of inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), she was featured prominently throughout the fourth film.

While previous movies have often had the female lead be the love interest of the hero, as Cade's daughter, it added a new dynamic to the franchise - even if there was a love story element with her boyfriend. Throughout Age of Extinction, Tessa is often challenging her father's decisions, but they end in a better place than where they began. Unfortunately, that relationship won't be explored further (at least not now) since Peltz is not going to appear in Transformers: The Last Knight; however, her absence will be explained.

Screen Rant was on the set of The Last Knight earlier this year and asked Wahlberg about where Tessa is during the new movie. While Cade is off with the Autobots, his daughter has been left behind. Viewers will learn why this is the case, but Wahlberg seemed to suggest it is Cade's protective nature that keeps her out of the film.

Sounds like Cade isn’t too tired, he’s sort of harboring the Autobots in this world now at this point.

WAHLBERG: Yeah, you know, he’s like a man on the run which is fun, it’s a bit of an adventure story.

Nicola Peltz Mark Whalberg and Stanley Tuccin in Transformers Age of Extinction

What happened to his daughter?

WAHLBERG: You’ll find out in the movie.

[Laughs].

We heard this movie takes place a little bit of time after the last one, so can you talk a little bit about where…?

WAHLBERG: They wanted it to make sense that I was older, a little slower. But yeah, you meet up with Cade now and he’s living elsewhere and he’s basically had to go on his own on the run, which is one of the reasons why, to protect his daughter and make sure that she is no longer hunted in the way that Cade is. But yeah, a loner.

Longtime fans of the franchise may not be overly distraught with Peltz not being involved for the sequel - as her character was heavily scrutinized by audiences. This is not going to be the first time that Bay has written out certain characters from a sequel, but it will be interesting to see how much attention is given to Tessa's story in the film. Previously, Megan Fox's departure after Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was explained in a single line of dialogue and Sam never looked back. For Cade, his relationship with Tessa is seemingly stronger than ever at the end of Age of Extinction.

Cade is a very protective father and the decision to keep Tessa away from all of this does make sense for both characters, but whether or not it will be a lingering factor in why Cade does what he does remains to be seen. He could very well be second-guessing his decision to leave his daughter throughout the movie, providing some sort of internal conflict for the character. Regardless, with a new cast of characters set to interact with Cade, it should be interesting to see how many references to Tessa and Cade's life before finding Optimus are included.

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NEXT: Transformers: The Last Knight Preview

Transformers: The Last Knight hits theaters on June 23, 2017. Next up is the Bumblebee spin-off film on June 8, 2018, followed by Transformers 6 on June 28, 2019.