Ellen Pompeo and Meredith Gray have had many love interests over the course of 19 seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy,” from Patrick Dempsey’s Derek Shepherd to Scott Speedman’s Nick Marsh, but such constant relationship conflict eventually became a source of frustration for the actor. During the “Grey’s” reunion interview with Katherine Heigl as part of the miscellaneous The series “Actors in Actors”, Pompeo lamented Meredith’s lack of growth in her love life.
“When you stay on a show and with a character for the long haul…for me, I really need to understand things and I really need to see the development and the growth,” Pompeo said. And with network television specifically, there has to be some consistency for the audience. The audience wants familiarity. Writers get stuck on consistency of something, which is the hardest thing, and which I’d always argue against and say, ‘We have such a great fanbase. They’re so loyal. They’ll come.’ We are literally with us no matter what we do. I think it’s good that Meredith stops making bad decisions.”
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Pompeo wanted Meredith’s love life to stop being a source of conflict for the character, as it proved her inability to grow from the previous relationships she had.
“One of the things that brought me down was Nick and Meredith from all of that,” Pompeo said. Scott Speedman plays Meredith’s love interest, Nick Marsh, and I love Speedman. He’s awesome. And somehow, Meredith can’t figure out how to make the relationship work after all this time. And I think if it’s going to work, where’s the conflict? … There has to be Conflict. It’s not that I don’t think there shouldn’t be Conflict. There ought to be Conflict. I think I just have different ideas about what Conflict should be.”
Pompeo stepped down from her regular role on “Grey’s” in February, midway through the show’s 19th season. Up until that point, Pompeo had been the face of “Grey’s” since the 2005 pilot episode.
“I’ve been on the show for a long time, and I’m happy to let that pass,” Pompeo told Heigl of moving on, though she added, “It’s kind of a disgrace, because I didn’t quite leave.”
Pompeo is no longer a series regular on “Grey’s,” but she still provides voiceover as Meredith remains the narrator for every episode. The door is still open for her to return, as she did in May during the 19th season finale.
“I hope to make a few games next year, if I can find some time,” Pompeo told Heigl.
Pompeo has always been vocal about her issues with “Grey’s Anatomy.” in her loop “Tell Me” podcast Last August, I encouraged the series to change the way it approaches stories about social issues. She said she was tired of the one-off episodes and wanted the social issues to be more “subtle” during the season.
“I think if I had any desire, frankly, it would be to kind of preach in one episode about certain things,” Pompeo said at the time. “It’s like, we do one episode about let’s see… Asian hate crimes are the ones we did last season that were really impactful. I think I’d like to see things happen more subtly over time. You know, it hits you more continuously and kind of less on your head for just one hour and then never talk about it again.”
“Grey’s Anatomy” is returning to ABC for a 20th season. Click Here to read Pompeo and Hagel’s Full Conversation on “Actors in Actors”.
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