The Grey’s Anatomy actress Camilla Luddington was reduced to tears during an emotional chat with a psychic medium on the latest episode of her podcast Call It What It Is.
On Sunday’s episode, the 40-year-old British actress and her co-host, former Grey’s Anatomy actress Jessica Capshaw, invited the medium Theresa Caputo to chat about the afterlife.
But the discussion reduced Luddington to tears after she and Caputo — who claimed that dead souls use her body to communicate with others — began speaking about her late mother.
The film and television star previously shared in a 2020 Instagram post that her mother had died 17 years earlier.
Luddington was open about having never sought out a medium before, and Caputo said the host had a defensive manner.
‘I think that I have family members that are not into it, right? So, and so that is a little hard. And also I feel like, I guess my question is, if someone’s on the other si— sorry,’ Luddington said, via Newsweek, before abruptly stopping herself as she started to choke up.
‘I just felt that you needed to know that the soul knows of the woman you’ve become, has not missed out on your life,’ Caputo responded.
She said the ‘soul’ she pictured was aware that Caputo had had children — she shares daughter Hayden, seven, and son Lucas, four, with her husband Matthew Alan — though the medium couldn’t identify who the ‘soul’ in question was.
She at first suggested it was a ‘mother figure,’ before adding that she wasn’t sure if it was Luddington’s ‘grandmother or an aunt or someone like a mom or your actual mom.’
However, she claimed that the dead person had been ‘holding [the] souls’ of Luddington’s children before they were born ‘into the physical world,’ so she already knew the children.
Caputo contributed few specific details, but instead goaded Luddington into giving her more information about herself.
She asked Luddington to confirm that she had children, and after getting that information, Caputo asked, ‘Do you feel like you see this soul in your child? Whether it be their eyes or an action, is that correct?’
Luddington gave Caputo some more help by explaining that it is her ‘mother that’s on the other side.’
‘She’s been gone a long time and I see her—’ Luddington said before pausing as she began to sob.
‘It’s OK, sorry,’ she said, as if to soothe herself. ‘I see her with my daughter, my daughter is very similar.’
The medium tried to put her at ease by claiming that her daughter could still know her grandmother despite having been more long after her death.
The Grey’s Anatomy star added that she thought that ‘when [my daughter] was little she saw my mom.’
Caputo took that as a positive sign, replying, ‘Perfect, know that that was real. Know that that was the soul showing [itself] — young children and animals are very sensitive to the souls of the departed.’
She explained that, ‘Because we as adults, our minds are so busy with burdens and guilt and just business of the day. Young children, their minds are free, that’s why they say, “Kids say the darnedest things,” right? And a lot of times it’s the truth because they just say what it is they’re feeling.’
Despite the seeming positive news, Luddington remained apprehensive. She revealed to Caputo that she worried that her mother would be stopped from ‘coming through’ because she was Catholic, and Caputo’s view of life after death was starkly different from Catholic — and most Christian — interpretations of the afterlife.
But Caputo put her at ease, saying her religion didn’t matter in these areas.
‘I’ve had souls tell me, “Oh my God, I was afraid they weren’t going to come through because they were an atheist, they didn’t have a faith, they didn’t have a religion,”‘ she claimed.
Luddington has been a fixture on Grey’s Anatomy for more than a decade as Dr. Jo Wilson, a general surgeon who later switched specialties and trained to be an OB-GYN.
She joined the series as a recurring character starting in 2012’s ninth season, before joining the main cast starting with the following season.
Her costar Jessica joined earlier in 2009’s season five. Capshaw was intended to only have a limited arc as pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins, but series creator Shonda Rhimes was so taken with her performance that she extended her stay for the rest of season five, then made her a main cast member in season six.
Capshaw left the series after 2018’s fourteenth season, but she and Luddington had already established a strong friendship. Jessica later appeared as a guest star in this year’s 20th season.