Ellen Pompeo Got ‘Frustrated’ by Grey’s Anatomy for Not Letting Meredith ‘Figure Out How to Make a Relationship Work’
Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) had many love interests over 19 seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy,” from Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) to Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman), but such constant relationship conflict ultimately became a source of frustration for the actor. During a “Grey’s” reunion interview with Katherine Heigl as part of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, Ellen Pompeo lamented over Meredith’s lack of growth in her love life.
“When you stay on a show and with a character that long…for me, I really need to make sense of things and I really need to see evolution and growth,” Pompeo said. “And with network television specifically, there has to be some consistency for the audience. The audience wants familiarity. The writers get stuck in the consistency of something, and it’s harder, which I always would argue against and say, ‘We have such an incredible fan base. They’re so loyal. They’ll literally come along with us no matter what we do.’ I think it’s okay for Meredith to stop making bad decisions.”
Pompeo wanted Meredith’s love life to stop being a source of conflict for the character, as it proved her inability to grow from previous relationships she had.
“One of my frustrations is the Nick and Meredith of it all,” Pompeo said. “Scott Speedman plays Meredith’s love interest, Nick Marsh, and I love Speedman. He’s fantastic. And somehow, Meredith can’t figure out how to make a relationship work still after all this time. And I guess if she were to make it work, then where’s the conflict?…There has to be conflict. It’s not that I don’t think there shouldn’t be conflict. There should be conflict. I guess I just have different ideas about what the conflict should be.”
Pompeo stepped down from her series regular role on “Grey’s” in February, midway through the show’s 19th season. Until that point, Pompeo had been the face of “Grey’s” since its 2005 pilot episode.
“I’ve been on the show so long, I’m happy to let that go,” Pompeo told Heigl about about moving on, although she added “it’s a little bit of trickery, because I’m not completely gone.”
Pompeo is no longer a series regular on “Grey’s,” but she still provides voiceover as Meredith remains the narrator of every episode. The door remains open for her to return, as she did in May during the Season 19 finale.
“I will be making some appearances hopefully next year, if I can find some time,” Pompeo told Heigl.
Ellen Pompeo Teases Her Future On ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ After Exit
The actress said of Meredith Grey leaving Seattle: “It’s a little bit of trickery, because I’m not completely gone. Actually, the storyline is very cool.
“There’s a lot of real research that’s changing very rapidly about Alzheimer’s disease and about what they believe is the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s pretty controversial. So Meredith’s character left to go to Boston because her daughter needed to go to a special school.
“I will be making some appearances hopefully next year, if I can find some time,” she went on, adding: “No, it’s not a complete goodbye.”
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