It is no secret that the first 10 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy stood out for showing an acting harmony on screen that was not in the least accompanied by a behind-the-scenes work environment that today would be described, to say the least, as toxic. Once the show secured its place among the most watched, over time many open secrets of what actually happened came to light and that have recently been spiced up by some comments from its protagonist, Ellen Pompeo.
The interpreter of Meredith Gray referred to the hostile working conditions, selfish attitudes and labor injustices that many members of the team had to suffer to carry out the show. He admitted that over the years, regardless of the fame and fortune that the great opportunity to lead the cast of Grey’Anatomy had brought to his life, more than once he tried to get off the bus and leave the unhealthy work environment of the Shonda Rhimes medical series. Pompeo recalls that the cast and crew were shattered before Debbie Allen came to the fore as producer and executive director in 2012.
“No one should work 16 hours a day, 10 months a year, no one,” Pompeo said.
“I hope that after COVID nobody goes back to having 24 or 22 episodes a season,” she continued.
“That’s why people get sick. That’s why people break down and why actors fight! Do you want to get rid of many bad behaviors? Let people go home and sleep,” she said.
Beyond her doubts, there was a fact that determined her decision to stay on the series, after having a child, the Grey’s Anatomy actress realized that she had someone else to take care of, so she decided to stay on the show for pay your support. But that determination came with conditions that would drastically change the working environment behind the scenes, something the production not only accepted but recognized was necessary for the show to continue displaying the levels of excellence for which it was famous.
Now a decade after those stumbles, there are other rumors that threaten the end of the series, but this time they have to do with the creative exhaustion of the writers and the desire to withdraw from their own protagonist. There are many speculations that possibly season 19 could be the time for ABC to put an end to it, especially after some criticism of the plot added to some ups and downs in audience levels that in the past would have been inconceivable. .
While it is true that many important characters have left the show, the popularity of the series remained afloat as long as Ellen Pompeo remained in the cast as star Meredith Grey. However, although this veteran actress is the centerpiece of the drama, since a couple of seasons ago, she has begun to express with more and more determination her desire to close the cycle that began in the year 2005.
Now 52 years old, Ellen Pompeo has also revealed that she is tired of the routine and that after the completion of Grey’s Anatomy she would like to take a break from acting for an indefinite and perhaps definitive period of time to pursue other artistic passions behind the scenes. Comments that are complemented by past statements by the creator Rhimes, who on previous occasions also came to recognize that she has written the end of the series eight times but, although some have been seen on screen, they were never taken as a final closure.
