Ellen Pompeo was “deeply against” one story line in the current season of Grey’s Anatomy.
“I don’t always have a say in the choices the character makes,” Pompeo, 55, told Variety in an interview published on Tuesday, April 29. “Writers will initially service a plot before they might stop to think, ‘Would the Meredith Grey that [Ellen] built — would she make that choice?’”
Pompeo admitted she was not happy with the “choice Meredith was making” in regards to Dr. Evynn Moore (guest star Lena Waithe, who made her debut on the show last month) lying about her wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis so she would still be eligible for a liver transplant.
“My problem with that storyline was the Meredith Grey that I’ve created would have always been like, ‘I’m pissed that you lied, [but] let’s figure out how to game the system together to get you this f***ing liver. F*** the system. The system is broken,’” Pompeo said, noting that her character chose “to be mad and snitch” on Waithe’s character.
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“Meredith has subverted the system for 20 years to do the right thing,” Pompeo continued. “She’s done free surgeries, whatever it takes, to actually heal and help people.”
The actress — who has played the titular Meredith Grey since 2005 — was not quiet about her feedback to the show’s higher ups, either.
They “recognize that all of my outspokenness about the creative on the show is all out of a place of caring deeply about the show,” Pompeo said, referencing creator Shonda Rimes, in part.
“I see my job as trying to keep Shonda Rhimes’ legacy as good and solid as we can and the minute you stop caring or phoning it in or getting lazy, we’re not really doing what we’ve been paid to do,” she added.
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Pompeo has been contracted to appear on Grey’s Anatomy for a few episodes of season 22. She is an executive producer on the long-running series and her voiceovers are included in each episode. However, if Pompeo decides to step back from the show, she doesn’t see it ending as a result of her hypothetical departure.
“It’s not like if I leave the show completely, they’re going to stop the show,” she said. “The show is still massively successful.”
Pompeo’s statement comes a little over a month after she admitted to thinking that Grey’s Anatomy would end following Sandra Oh’s departure in 2014.
“She was such a loss,” Pompeo said during a March episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “She’s so immensely talented and I really didn’t think the show could go on without her and I was OK with that. It literally felt like half of the show just leaving.”
