Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has been spilling the tea on her time on the show, having stepped back as a series regular in 2023.
Appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast, the actor took us through everything from difficult salary negotiations to the surprising – and sad – reason why she stayed on the show so long.
During the episode, Pompeo opened up about several moments from the series that she really didn’t want to film.
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When host Alex Cooper asked about the time Meredith went on the rebound with George, even though she knew he’d liked her for years, her guest recoiled.
“Can I tell you an inside story about that?” Pompeo began.
“This is crazy. TR and I are such good friends, and we had to do a love scene, and we were both crying. We cried, we cried.
“And the scene was so uncomfortable and awkward, and he didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to do it. And when we filmed it, it was so bad, and then the network said there was ‘too much thrusting’.”
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Pompeo said they had to re-shoot the scene, which meant they had to ‘do it twice’.
"By the way, I’ve never watched that scene, I’ve never seen it,” she continued.
“I don’t know how it was shot or covered or how it was edited.
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“But I’m full on in tears the whole entire scene. And those are real tears.”
But there’s another, much more iconic, scene that Pompeo pushed back on.
She said there was ‘a lot of stuff’ she didn’t want to do, but often knew creator Shonda Rhimes knew what she was doing.
"I didn’t want to say ‘Pick me, choose me, love me’ - and to Shonda’s credit, she knew that was gonna pop,” she said.
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“I was like, ‘Why would I do this, why would I beg?’ And you have to just suck it up and do it. And it ended up being the biggest thing ever, the most iconic thing ever.”
Pompeo also addressed the reason why she stuck with Grey’s for so long, having found herself at a bit of a bittersweet crossroads.
“At a certain point, I had a choice to sort of finish my contract or stay, and at the age I was, I was like, ‘Oh, well I’ll be 40 when my first contract is up. I better re-sign and take this money,’ because they offer you, ‘If you re-sign, we’ll give you this giant raise,’” she said.
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“So I thought – back then, 20 years ago – women at 40, it’s over. That’s a wrap, honey. So I was like, ‘I better sign and I better do this because this is the most money I’m ever going to make, and the most opportunity I’m ever going to get.”
Pompeo, who now stars in Hulu miniseries Good American Family, added: “Women in this industry are so incredible because look at how far we’ve come, and every little bit matters, but we all collectively push this giant boulder up a hill, and we’ve gotten it to a really good place where, here I am, at 55 years old – I just turned 55 last month – and I’m getting a whole second chapter here after this, with this new show.”
Topics: Celebrity, Grey's Anatomy, TV And Film, Podcasts
Jess Hardiman