Katherine Heigl and Ellen Pompeo are reuniting and opening up about their time on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
The pair sat down for a rare discussion in an “Actors on Actors” conversation for Variety and reminisced on the iconic television show and its evolution, the controversial comments Heigl made around leaving the show and the Shonda Rhimes’ series’ impact on their lives.
Their chat comes on the heels of Pompeo’s February exit from the medical drama that has shifted popular culture since its midseason 2005 premiere.
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Katherine Heigl says she was ‘naive’ to backlash for her ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ exit
Pompeo and Heigl touched on the difficulties that come as part of being in the spotlight and producing television that can play on emotions and exploit actors.
Heigl, who played Isobel “Izzie” Stevens, exited “Grey’s Anatomy” after six seasons in 2010.
Heigl gained a reputation for being “difficult” during her “Grey’s Anatomy” years from 2005 to 2010. In 2008, she abstained from awards consideration because she said she did not feel she “was given the material” that season to “warrant an Emmy nomination.” In 2009, she publicly expressed dissatisfaction about her 17-hour workday on “Grey’s,” which she called “cruel and mean.” She has opened up in the past about seeking out assistance for anxiety after the backlash.
“I was so naive. I got on my soapbox and I had some things to say, and I felt really passionate about this stuff. I felt really strongly,” Heigl said. “There was no part of me that imagined a bad reaction.”
Heigl spent most of her life in “people-pleasing mode,” as many women do, she said. It was disconcerting to have such a strong negative reaction, she said.
“When Izzie left, there was just so much going on. It’s really hard to show up on set when there’s so much. And then there wasn’t even social media,” said Pompeo, who played Meredith Grey.
Heigl was dealing with a great deal of anxiety at the time, she said. “I was up here in my head, in my gut, in my mind, in my life,” Heigl said. “I was just vibrating at way too high of a level of anxiety.”
“This is not specific to the character of Izzie leaving, but stress on sets … I’ve only been on one set my whole entire career, so I guess people could critique this comment, but I hear a lot of stories; I don’t hear about a lot of support,” Pompeo said, noting that there’s an “exploitive nature” to the industry during the creation of a show.
Last year, Pompeo backed Heigl’s comments about the medical drama’s work hours.
Pompeo said Heigl was “100% right” and “ballsy” for telling the truth.
“And had she said that today, she’d be a complete hero,” Pompeo continued. “But she’s ahead of her time, made a statement about our crazy hours and, of course, let’s slam a woman and call her ungrateful. When the truth is, she was 100% honest, and it’s absolutely correct what she said.”
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Pompeo revealed she had never watched much of “Grey’s Anatomy” until recently.
“What’s interesting is I hadn’t watched a lot of ‘Grey’s,’ because we were always working,” Pompeo said.
That changed when her daughter Stella Luna, now 13, wanted to watch in sixth grade. “She was like, ‘Mom, I’m the only one who hasn’t seen it.’ So I said OK,” Pompeo said. “In the summer, she started watching it.”
But Pompeo found it tough to watch. “And at first I was like, ‘Oh, this is so amazing, and we’re going to watch it together,'” she said. “Then it was episode after episode after episode, and I was like, ‘I don’t have the stamina for this!’ I filmed all these episodes; I can’t now go back and watch it again.”
Katherine Heigl on channeling her personal experience during ‘Grey’s’ filming
Heigl reflected on filming a Season 2 episode when Denny Duquette, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, dies — one of the many moments that Pompeo said “made the show as iconic as it is.”
Preparing for that scene took a toll on Heigl, who reached deep into her past to pull from her personal experience.
“When it got to the point where he dies and she’s laying in the bed with him, I wanted so badly to nail that scene,” Heigl said. “I wanted it to feel the way it was written on the page. I don’t like to do that whole ‘Go into the dark place and listen to the music that’s going to tear my soul apart’ thing. And the worst was that I really went there.”
The actress was only 7 years old when her brother died, but she remembers spending the week in the hospital.
“I don’t enjoy thinking about that much or that week in the hospital or him in that bed, but I chose to do that for that scene,” she said. “I don’t think I’d do it again. I don’t think I would put myself in that headspace again to achieve that. I think I would try harder to just act it.”
Contributing: Sara Moniuszko and Jenna Ryu
