BFFs Jessica Capshaw and Camilla Luddington launched a new podcast earlier this year built around their long-time friendship. But according to the two Grey’s Anatomy stars, their relationship got off to a very rocky start.
On the most recent episode of Sophia Bush’s Work in Progress podcast, Luddington, 40, revealed that on her first day as a member of the Grey’s cast back in 2012, she managed to get on Capshaw’s bad side.
“You’re looking at me thinking, ‘How could you not love me instantly?’ ” Luddington joked. “But Jessica did not. Jessica did not like me.”
Capshaw, 48, who played Dr. Arizona Robbins on the long-running ABC medical drama from 2009 to 2018, explained that when Luddington joined the cast as Dr. Jo Wilson in season 9, she had recently returned to work after having her daughter. “I think that I was dealing with a ton of different things,” she said. “I was not going easy on myself. And I think what we all know is that when you’re not going easy on yourself, you likely aren’t going easy on others.”
Capshaw said that she and Luddington were on set during a break from filming. “She was — she loves this part — gorgeous and fun and had this contagious laugh, and everyone was so excited to work with her,” Capshaw said of Luddington. “[Series creator] Shonda Rhimes had gotten a food truck with burgers, and I had gone out to go get one.”
“She got a burger truck,” Luddington chimed in. “I thought, ‘I’ll go outside, and this is great. I’m gonna snap a picture, and I’m gonna tweet it and say thank you, Shonda, for the burger truck.’ ”
“I snapped a picture. I did the tag. I put it on Twitter, and I sat back down in my seat not thinking about anything else,” she continued. “This monster comes storming in…”
“The story gets bigger every time she does it,” Capshaw noted with a laugh.
“She was like, ‘Who posted the picture?’ ” Luddington recalled. “And what I truly did not know, truly, is that she was at the in a sliver of the picture, to the side was Jessica Capshaw motorboating, like, four burgers. And, like, I did not know. I thought I was taking a picture of the truck.”
“She was doing burger shots, and I posted it. And she thought it was pure sabotage,” she added.
“She was trying to take me down,” Capshaw joked.
“I deleted that so fast,” Luddington said. Nevertheless, she added, things remained “icy” between the two during her first season on Grey’s.
Ultimately, though, the two later cleared the air when they ended up being the only two to show up for a planned cast dinner.
“We were forced to reconcile,” Luddington said, “but then we just loved each other.”