Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has said that filming one sex scene for the show made her and her male co-star cry.
Pompeo starred as Dr Meredith Grey across 19 seasons of the hit medical drama, beginning in 2005. She left the series as a regular in 2023.
The actor, 55, appeared on Alex Cooper’s popular Call Her Daddy podcast where she opened up about one particular intimate scene in season two between herself and TR Knight.
TR Knight, 51, played Dr George O’Malley from season one to season five.
Pompeo told Cooper that she was closest to Knight and her other co-star Justin Chambers – who played Dr Alex Karev.
One of the season five storylines saw Meredith rebound from a relationship with George’s character, who had a crush on her for years.
The intimate scene in question sees the two characters awkwardly have sex when Meredith starts crying.
“TR and I are such good friends. And we had to do a love scene and we were both crying. We cried. We cried,” she said.
“And the scene was so uncomfortable and awkward and he didn’t wanna do that. I didn’t wanna do it. And when we filmed it, it was so bad.”
To make matters worse, Pompeo recalled that the network was unhappy with the scene, claiming “there was too much thrusting”.
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“In your worst nightmare to have to do it one time, we had to reshoot that s***,” said Pompeo who added they she never watched that scene.
“I’ve never seen it, but I don’t know how it was shot or covered or what the end [was], how it was edited, but I’m full on in tears, the whole entire scene,” she said, clarifying that although the scene required her character to cry, she was crying for real. “Those are real tears,” she said.
Elsewhere, Pompeo spoke about Sandra Oh’s “emotional” last day on set. Oh previously starred as Meredith’s best friend Dr Cristina Yang. A fan favourite, she exited the programme at the end of season 10 in 2014.
“I can speak for myself. I can’t speak for her, but for me it was really emotional because I really like, she was such a loss because she’s so immensely talented and I really didn’t think the show could go on without her and I was okay with that, but it literally felt like half of the show just leaving,” she said.
