Ellen Pompeo has been playing the iconic Dr. Meredith Grey onscreen for a decade and a half in the popular long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy – but she’s had to fight to become one of TV’s highest-paid actresses.
In a recent interview on Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert, Ellen revealed that there were a few bumps along the way that seriously made her think about quitting.
One was when Sandra Oh left the show in 2013.
“To be honest, when Sandra Oh left the show I was like, ‘Ugh. How do I go on without Sandra?’ Because, as amazing as Patrick [Dempsey] is, he wasn’t really in the show that much. His impact is so huge obviously, he’s such an iconic part of the show, but more of my work, my day-to-day scenes, were with Sandra,” Ellen explained. “And she was such an amazing scene partner. Then I was like, ‘Is there a show without Sandra?'”
Another was when Patrick, who played her onscreen love interest, Dr. Derek Shepherd, left the show in 2015. However, she says that leaving the show just because “the man left” wasn’t exactly the kind of story she wanted to tell.
“When Patrick left, I had something to prove. Because now we circle back to that negotiation conversation. He left season 11 and then I was renegotiating season 12, so I could’ve left because the man left, which is not a story that I want to tell, like, ‘he’s not here anymore so I have to go.’ So that story then becomes, ‘what can I do without the man?’ ” she said.
Back in 2018, Ellen opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about how her salary negotiations on the show had gone.
“[They’d say] ‘We don’t need you; we have Patrick’—which they did for years,” she told the outlet. “I don’t know if they also did that to him, because he and I never discussed our deals. There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that.”
On Armchair Experts’ latest episode, however, Ellen revealed that she was made to feel like she was “no good” without Patrick on the show.
“They had put that in my head for so long, that I was no good without him. So I had to then rewrite the ending of that story and say, ‘Well, who’s right? Are they right or am I right? Am I actually good without him?’ So I had to take over that script and rewrite that story and prove to myself that they were wrong in all the things they put into my head over all of those years,” she shared on the podcast.
Instead of backing down, she took the opportunity of Patrick leaving the show as a way to prove them wrong – and make some changes on the set.
“I was just so beat down and meant to feel like they could do the show without me. Patrick Dempsey leaving the show was that for me. I was like, oh, I have a window here, now how are they going to tell me they don’t need me? You don’t have him, so you can’t use him against me,” she recalled on the podcast.
“After Patrick left I said, ‘OK, I am going to stay. I’m going to prove that they need me.’ But then also I really wanted to change the story of the experience of the show and I wanted to see if we could turn the culture around and we could make the set a happy place,” she continued. “It was a lot of bad behavior being taught, being shown, being copied, so that was another challenge for me.
“I have this opportunity to make this bundle of money because the studio needs me, but what else could I do?” she continued. “What else could I do for me? What other challenge can I present myself with?”
Ellen has since gone on to become one of TV’s highest paid actresses, inking a historic $20 Million Dollar deal to stay on the show.
As for when she thinks it’s be time to hang up her doctor’s coat, “I do not want to be the grapes dying on the vine,” she said. “Already to watch myself age from 33 to 50 now onscreen, that’s not so fun. Because you really see it because I’m in the same clothes, I’m in the same character. The way I see myself aging, that’s a mother–ker.”
“But at the same time, I think the overall goal of my life is to always keep my ego in check. I don’t want to tell myself lies. I don’t lie about my age. I don’t put anything in my face. I don’t want to tell myself any lies. I’m not doing myself any favors,” Ellen continued. “But certainly I think to dip out sooner rather than later, at this point, having done what we’ve done, to leave when the show is still on top, is definitely a goal. I’m not trying to stay on the show forever. No way. The truth is, if I get too aggravated and I’m no longer grateful there, I should not be there.”
BUT, don’t panic, guys, she says her roles on the show – she’s also a producer on top of her starring role – help her look at things in a more positive light. And one thing she looks forward to is being able to discuss important issues through the show.
“The not getting bored and phoning it in, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You’ve got to know when you can slow down and when you can speed up. I just try and check myself all the time,” she said. “Being engaged in the story and having some control over my storyline and talking about things that I think are interesting is kind of what helps.”
“What at this juncture keeps me going is because the show is such a monster, we have this enormous platform and we have some sort of leeway to talk about human trafficking, to talk about sexual assault, to talk about big pharma,” Ellen added. “So if we can impart some ideas, I think it’s an important platform. So I try to stay in a place of gratitude.”
