Ellen Pompeo reveals she didn’t want to say iconic Grey’s Anatomy line

Ellen Pompeo has portrayed Dr. Meredith Grey on television for two decades, but that doesn’t mean she agrees with everything her character does or says. 

In an interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast promoting her new limited series, Good American Family, the actress, 55, revealed an iconic line she didn’t want to say. 

‘There was a lot of stuff that I didn’t wanna do at the time,’  the actress explained, specifying one scene in particular when she was asking Patrick Dempsey’s Dr. Derek Shepherd to leave his troubled marriage. 

‘I didn’t wanna say, “Pick me, choose me, love me,”‘ she stated.

Explaining her resistance to the dialogue, the Golden Globe nominee said, ‘I was like, “Why would I do this? Why would I beg, why would I?”‘

Giving in to the pressure, Pompeo said, ‘And you know, you have to just suck it up and do it.’

She credited Grey’s creator Shonda Rhimes with knowing the line was going to ‘pop.’

‘And it ended up being, you know, the biggest thing ever, the most iconic things ever. So, I’m not always the best judge of, you know, what’s gonna [work].’

Pompeo, who stepped away from full-time work on Grey’s Anatomy in 2023 was the recipient of a lot of online backlash after she spoke about her reaction to co-star and on-screen love interest Patrick Dempsey making more than she did on the show.

‘He had done 13 pilots before me. Nothing personal to him, just in general, only a man can have 13 failed TV pilots and their quote keeps going up, right?’ she stated.

‘But in all fairness, his quote was what it was,’ she conceded. ‘He was a bigger star than I was at that point. No one knew who I was. Everybody knew who he was, so he did deserve that money.’ she said. 

‘I’m not saying he didn’t deserve that money,’ she continued. It’s just, being that I was the namesake of the show, I deserved the same and that was harder to get.’ 

‘I wasn’t salty about him getting what he got. I was salty that they didn’t value me as much as they valued him,’ Pompeo explained.

‘She was no one before this show and this show made her rich and famous. The other actors that left wanted a challenge but she went for financial security so she hit the jackpot. To now try and diss Patrick was really not needed,’ was a common theme among detractors. 

After re-negotiating her salary, Pompeo became the one of the highest paid actress on TV in 2018, receiving $20 million a year.

That number includes including signing bonus, producing fees, ownership in the show and other extras. 

‘I got a lot of emails that day when that story came out from amazing people, congratulating me,’ but they were not necessarily from her peers. 

Her manager had forewarned her that news of her new salary would make a lot of people unhappy. 

‘He said, “Are you ready to be unpopular? I just don’t want you to think that everyone is going to go in and cheer for you and clap for you because there are going to be a lot of people that aren’t happy for you,”‘ Pompeo said.

‘Then the ones who are quiet you know who don’t say anything, and you see it, and you’re like. “OK.” I don’t know what to say, don’t hate the player, hate the game.’

When host Alex Cooper pointed out that men never face the same scrutiny, Pompeo agreed: ‘It’s a lot, and it’s patriarchy and it’s misogyny…’

Explaining why she’s worth that generous salary, the star explained she is privy to information the public doesn’t have. 

‘I see exactly how much Grey’s Anatomy makes for ABC/Disney. I get to see the number. It’s my face, it’s my voice. I’ve done so much work promoting the show all over the world for the past 20 years. I am the Disney princess of that franchise.’