Ellen Pompeo is opening up about the onset drama and toxic culture that brewed in the set of Grey’s Anatomy.
The actors on Grey’s worked 17 hour shifts and were under enormous pressure to compete with other shows and actors, which led to a highly competitive and toxic onset environment, which made many actors leave the show, including Patrick Dempsey, who played Ellen’s Meredith’s husband.
Ellen hails executive producer/director Debbie Allen for creating a more positive dynamic on set.
Reflecting on all the headlines that off-screen drama made, the Good American Family star told Variety: “The sad thing about it is the actors get a lot of flack for bad behavior, but what people don’t recognize is actors are very emotional people and very often come from weird situations.”
“Yes, it’s a dream job and it’s a privilege to be able to do, but it also does require adults on set to not just care about whether you’re on time and whether you know your lines and how you say them,” she explained.
“You need someone to be the heart and the soul, to bring people together and to be a coach, in a way, with love. It’s unfortunate that more shows don’t put people in place to just be there, almost as a parent,” she continued.
Despite the problems, the actress is grateful for the experience: “I know I’m a better actor because I worked with that cast in the first 10 years. They’re all so extraordinary. I try my hardest to really remember all the good and not just remember the bad.”
Though her interest in playing Meredith may have waned, Pompeo’s investment in the quality of storytelling on “Grey’s” has never wavered — and she is refreshingly candid in her assessment of how the show has changed. She thinks the early seasons “looked so much better when we shot on film” than on digital. She is aware that “Grey’s” has evolved from being an addictive, character-driven drama into a plot-driven procedural, where “there’s a very obvious effort to manage comedy and drama.”