From being broke soon after her professional acting debut in the entertainment industry to becoming one of the highest-paid television actresses of all time, Ellen Pompeo did wonders with her iconic role in Grey’s Anatomy. For over 21 seasons spread over the course of around two decades, she really outperformed herself as Meredith Grey, leaving viewers amused each time.
But throughout the time that she embodied the respective fan-favorite character, there have been instances where Pompeo didn’t necessarily agree with her onscreen counterpart. In fact, so was the case when it came to the most iconic line of the entire series as well, considering how she confessed to saying it simply because “you have to just suck it up and do it.”
Ellen Pompeo hated her most iconic line in Grey’s Anatomy
Grey’s Anatomy has seen a lot of drama prevailing in it, being one of the most popular medical melodramas on television of all time. One of these included the very lead’s begging the one she loved to leave his wife for her. This goes back to a 2005 episode of the series where Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey begged Derek Shepherd (played by Patrick Dempsey) to leave his wife for her.
Looking back at it now, that was also when the iconic line from the drama series, ‘Pick me, choose me, love me’ came to be, which has gone on to become one of the most memorable dialogues of that entire masterpiece show. However, looking back in retrospect, Pompeo recently confessed that she was not really a fan of that particular line, and for reasons all too understandable.
On the recent episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, the Good American Family actress’ comment on that iconic scene from Meredith Grey was: “Girl. bye.” Continuing, she even came clean about how she didn’t want to say it in the first place, confessing, “There was a lot of stuff that I didn’t wanna do at the time. I didn’t wanna say, ‘Pick me, choose me, love me.’”
In fact, on Variety’s Actors on Actors, she pointed out how she “fought that speech so hard.” So if she was so against doing it in the first place, how did she end up pulling it off? Well, as the Old School star said, she only did it because she had to do it.
I was like, ‘Why would I do this? Why would I beg, why would I?’ And you know, you have to just suck it up and do it.
But little did she know that the very scene that she didn’t want to enact simply because she didn’t resonate with the dialogue turned out to be one that would go on to rank among the fan-beloved series’ most remember-worthy moments of all time. And, for that record, Ellen Pompeo is willing to admit that her judgment about what might work hasn’t always been the best.
Ellen Pompeo admits she’s not always the best judge of things that might work
During her 2023 episode on Variety’s Actors on Actors with her former Grey’s Anatomy co-star Katherine Heigl, Ellen Pompeo acknowledged how the one scene she was so against ended up being one of the best scenes of the show. She said,
That’s another really interesting thing about life. Some things that I was so against — I was like ‘Why would I beg a man? I can’t beg a man on TV, this is so embarrassing.’ And then it turns out to be, like, one of the most successful scenes.
Talking to Cooper recently on her podcast, she also pointed out how the series creator Shonda Rhimes knew that the line “was gonna pop” and would resonate deeply with the show’s audience.
But that one moment also taught Pompeo the very important lesson that not everything she presumed and ordained about things was right. As Pompeo went on to say about the scene, “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].”
Well, that’s for sure, but it all worked out for the best in the end, so that’s that too.