Ellen Pompeo & Katherine Heigl Reflect on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Fame & Drama

Scrubbing in!

Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl reunited for a candid discussion about their “Grey’s Anatomy’s” days for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series. Seriously!

“It’s pretty cool to be a part of something that’s lasted this long,” said Ellen, who scrubbed out of “Grey’s” as a series regular after 19 seasons on the show, though remains a narrator and executive producer.

“I’ve been on the show so long, I’m happy to let that go. I think it’s okay for Meredith to stop making bad decisions,” Pompeo said while reflecting on her fan-favorite character Meredith Grey leaving Seattle Grace. “I felt so happy to be able to step away, and I felt like I accomplished something incredible.”

Ellen noted that her departure from primetime’s longest-running medical series is not permanent.

“I will be making some appearances, hopefully next year, if I can find some time,” she told Katherine. “It’s not a complete goodbye. And I think we’ve got an interesting story to tell.”

Meredith Gray’s exit from the most famous hospital on television wasn’t the only headline-making goodbye. Katie and Ellen spoke about the fallout of Heigl’s character Izzie’s departure from the Golden Globe-winning ABC drama.

“When Izzie left, there was just so much going on,” Pompeo said. “It’s really hard to show up on set when there’s so much. And then there wasn’t even social media.”

”I was so naive. I got on my soapbox, and I had some things to say, and I felt really passionate about this stuff,” Heigl recalled on the frenzy surrounding her departure. “I felt so strongly that I also got a megaphone out on my soapbox. There was no part of me that imagined a bad reaction. I felt really justified in how I felt about it and where I was coming from. I’ve spent most of my life — I think most women do — being in that people-pleasing mode. It’s really disconcerting when you feel like you have really displeased everybody. It was not my intention to do so, but I had some things to say, and I didn’t think I was going to get such a strong reaction.”

Heigl added that the backlash she got led her to feel “such shame” and question if she really was “this bad person.”

“I was in my late 20s. It took me until probably my mid-to-late 30s to really get back to tuning out all of the noise and going, “But who are you? Are you this bad person? Are you ungrateful? Are you unprofessional? Are you difficult?” Because I was confused! I thought maybe I was. I literally believed that version, and felt such shame for such a long time, and then had to go, “Wait. Who am I listening to? I’m not even listening to myself. I know who I am.”

Ellen commended Katherine for being a trailblazer with the way she used her voice.

You were just a little early, because they came out with this thing where everybody has their own megaphone, and they get a blue check. It’s called Twitter. You were just a little ahead of your time, lady,”

Ellen stressed the importance of showing grace and understanding to others during difficult times.

“There has to be some forgiveness, or some grace, for not everybody being able to handle every situation perfectly,” she reasoned. “I’ve certainly never handled every situation perfectly. I’d like to see other people try to walk a mile in your shoes during that time, and let’s see how they would’ve handled it.”

The “Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo” podcast host also emphasized the role the pressure of fame plays. “But also, can I mention the incredible amount of attention that you got very quickly is another thing that is like a disease in this town,” said Ellen. “Everybody gets built up, built up, built up, built up. They create this thing, and then almost wait for something to happen. As an outsider looking in, I saw a lot around you that wasn’t anything to do with you, or your fault. Not many people would know how to react to that much attention, that much focus, that much pressure.”

Heigl was written out of “Grey’s” in season six after a public feud with the series creator Shonda Rhimes. In a 2008 Vanity Fair cover story, she criticized the writing on the show and said she wanted to see more “cooperation between the business end and the creative end.”

A few months later, the “Firefly Lane” alum withdrew her name from consideration for an Emmy nomination, just a year after winning Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role of Izzie.

“I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and, in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention. In addition, I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials,” she said in a statement at the time.

“I was just vibrating at way too high of a level of anxiety,” Heigl told Pompeo during their Variety chat. “For me, it’s all a bit of a blur, and it took me years to learn how to deal with that, to master it. I can’t even say that I’ve mastered it, but to even know to work on it, that anxiety and fear — and stress is stress. And if you leave stress too long, unmanaged and unaddressed, it can be debilitating.”

Ellen, who has been an executive producer on “Grey’s Anatomy” since 2017, said she now tries to help actors manage stress on set.