As Dr. Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo has the distinction of playing one of the longest-running characters currently on television — and one of the longest-suffering characters too. This season alone, Meredith's coped with aftermath of her husband Derek Shephard's death and confronted the doctor responsible for it; and in tonight's mid-season premiere (directed by Denzel Washington), she'll suffer a violent attack at the hands of a patient. Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Pompeo on her lunch break earlier this week to talk about Meredith's future, why ageism is alive and well in Hollywood, and what she and Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes have discussed about the end of the series.

Meredith is savagely attacked by a patient in the mid-season premiere. How does this twist compare to some of the many other big twists or shockers on the show?

That's what Shonda does best, is give us these big twists and turns. And even though the fans get upset at these big, dramatic changes, I cannot tell you how important big, dramatic changes are for the writers, who have to write 24 episodes of television [every season]. One of the most amazing things to come out of this year is the addition of Penny, who is played by Samantha Sloyan, and who was the doctor who made the fatal mistake to not get a CT on Derek Shepherd. That part of episode five, the dinner party, where it's revealed that Penny is [in Seattle], was one of the most compelling episodes of this season. And that could not have happened had we not had the changes that we had last year.

Unfortunately, these big changes are tough. And they're tough for us emotionally, too, when we lose people, but that helps us act, and it helps us tell the story. Sorry, I got off on a tangent, but this [twist] ranks right up there.

What was your reaction to the script?

I was skeptical when they told me that something else catastrophic was going to happen to Meredith. I said, "Well, how is the audience going to respond to that? And how do I tell that story truthfully, being that I've just played the story of losing my husband?" But the fact that Denzel [Washington] stepped in makes everything OK. It gives everything a justification, because he's such a creative genius that he can get away with anything … I can't say enough about how he inspired me. I certainly gave it more than I usually do for him. I really wanted to inspire him and make him grateful that he came to work with us. I didn't want him leaving here saying, "Why did I go and do that?"

How did Denzel come to be involved?

He's very good friends with Debbie Allen, who's our directing producer and also plays Catherine Avery. She's our boots on the ground for the actors. She helps our communication with the writers run smoothly, so everyone feels like they're heard. She had this idea to bring him in. And I think that Pauletta Washington, who is Denzel's wife, is a big fan of the show. Behind every great man, there's an even better woman. I'm sure that Pauletta whispered something in his ear.

But ultimately, we can't take any credit away from him. He was gracious enough to come here and inspire a group of actors who, you know, we come to work every day, and it gets tedious! I'm not gonna lie. It's a great job, we're super blessed, we're living our dream, all those wonderful things. But I'd be lying if I said 12 seasons didn't get tedious. To have someone like him come in, that's moving. That's a fire under your butt.

It seems like the two of you formed a strong bond in the process of doing this.

He's one of the best to ever play the game. To be on the show this long, I don't expect opportunities to be with creative geniuses like that anymore. You sort of think that piece of it is behind you. We get to work with Shonda Rhimes, that's pretty great. But if I had a list of five actors that I wanted to work with, he's definitely one of the five. So to be able to work with him in any capacity, even if it's not acting, is a dream come true.

Is the attack something that will move Meredith forward in her life, and if it is, can you give us a sense of where she might be moving to?

So, after the attack, she goes into therapy, which is an idea that Shonda and I discussed. And then in therapy, she starts exploring what it means to be alone, and [how] she's never alone, and how alone does she want to be? Everyone else thinks it's time for Meredith to move on and start dating again. And so Meredith has to explore that opportunity of, "OK, what does dating again look like, and how do you do that?" We're moving toward Meredith dating again, so everyone has to get ready for it. I can tell you that I've shot a few scenes, although I don't know where they're going to go, but I have shot a few scenes, and I'm very happy and excited with the way this is unfolding. It's exciting for Meredith, and it's some happiness, some light. I hope we get to keep going to down that path.

We're moving toward Meredith dating again, so everyone has to get ready for it.

So it sounds like maybe Meredith's ladyplace isn't as boarded up as she may have thought earlier this season.

Well, you know once she starts saying all that shit —"I'm a widow, it's dead down there" — the next thing to come is a big ol' handsome man. It's just like when people walk into the hospital and we say, "You're OK, you're going to be fine." It's over! They're dead!

A lot of fans have latched onto the idea of Meredith and Alex getting together at some point. Is that something you could ever see happening?

I don't know how much I can really say — because I don't want to get fired!



I'd feel very bad if I got you fired from Grey's Anatomy.

Listen. I said the same thing to Shonda, because Meredith seemingly doesn't like Jo [Alex's girlfriend]. And so I'm not really sure. Camilla [Luddington, who plays Jo] and I have really struggled with how to be truthful in these scenes. Why do I not like her? Why am I so hard on her? But ultimately that's up to the big boss, what happens. This is Shonda's show. And whatever Shonda wants to write, however she wants this show to go, or end, or continue to go, I have to be open to whatever she wants. My job is not to judge the characters' choices or her choices. I just have to act my ass off. I never have thoughts about — well, I may have thoughts or opinions in my head, but they don't really matter. Let's say Meredith is going to wind up with Alex's character and I can't reconcile [that]. As difficult as that is for me to wrap my mind around, that would make it interesting if I had to do those scenes.

Getty

So being in that unfamiliar space lets you think creatively, or at least differently?

Yeah. I think writing the death of Derek Shepherd is one of the hardest things Shonda's ever had to do. But as hard as that was for everyone involved, season 12 has been great creatively.

Is Patrick Dempsey's departure an absence you're still feeling?

I'd rather not really talk about that, because I don't want anything I say to get misconstrued or blown out of proportion. Not to say that you would misconstrue it, but anything I say is going to be dissected like crazy. I would just say that Patrick was a huge part of the show, as was Sandra [Oh, who played Cristina Yang]. What I like is when people treat people who have left the show equally. Sandra Oh leaving was huge also, as big as Patrick leaving. Neither one was easy for anybody. But one wasn't more devastating than the other. I took issue last year when people said, "How will the show go on without Derek Shepherd's character?" when no one had ever asked me how will the show go on without Cristina Yang. I thought that was incredibly sexist and not fair to Sandra, because she, too, is one of the best to ever play the game. There are very few girls that have the talent that that woman has.

So it sounds like it was a little surprising to hear the fan outcry over Derek leaving compared to the outcry over Cristina leaving.

Yeah. Every main character that we've ever lost has been devastating, to everybody here. It's not like people were happy when we lost Katherine Heigl, or Isaiah [Washington], or T. R. [Knight]. They were all brilliant, brilliant actors. On this show, we had a chemistry that comes around once every 20 years. So it's always hard when somebody leaves. But I don't like when they put more importance on [Patrick].

I think part of that might have come from the fact that when Sandra left, we had her farewell season, so people had more time to adjust, but with Patrick leaving, it was much more sudden.

Yes. And, obviously, I'm going to keep quiet about that. [Laughs.]

Can you talk about the experience of shooting that last scene together?

For me, it was really hard. Those are hard scenes to shoot, when you have to get so emotional. You have to go to dark places to get in that head space. It wasn't fun, for sure.

What I like is when people treat people who have left the show equally. Sandra Oh leaving was huge also, as big as Patrick leaving.

Do you remember the first meeting that you had with Shonda?

I do. We went to lunch and talked and got along great.

At that point, she was pretty unknown, and it was sort of seen as risky to give her a show.

Well, she had never done TV.

Right. So you have that Shonda, and then you have the Shonda of today, who's not only this hugely powerful woman in Hollywood, but a cultural juggernaut. How is she similar to that first version of Shonda, and how has she changed?

I think "change" is a positive word. But I like the word "evolve" or the word "evolution" even more. What's amazing to me is how women evolve over time. Women get better with age. And we're not really given that credit. I think men are given that; they get gray and rugged and handsome. But women are sort of past their prime at 40, culturally speaking, up to this point. And now is a really exciting time, because women have always evolved, but no one has really shone a light on it. Now we're able to do that, to shine a light on just how much women do evolve and how they do get better. You see all these actresses doing amazing business things. Gwyneth has got GOOP and Jessica Alba has Honest [Company] and Elizabeth Banks is directing. Women are so evolutionary. And they find ways to adapt and keep going, which is so inspiring to me, and Shonda is the same.

Has she changed as a boss?

She's become a much, much, much better leader. When she started out, she wasn't used to having 300 employees on a show. And now, she probably has, I don't know, 800 employees? I don't know technically if the crew works for her or the studio, but coming on and running a show with seven actors, or however many we were in the beginning, was not easy. To manage all the personalities, and run a writer's room, and manage actors' personalities and whims and creative wants and desires? That's challenging. And now she does it on four shows and writes and has three children, and has really grown as a person.

I don't think she necessarily loved attention when she first started. She's OK with the attention now. She's embraced it, and she's been able to maybe digest the fact that she's spawned a cultural movement toward awareness that was so desperately needed. You can call her a showrunner, call her a writer, call her whatever you want. But she moved a whole nation. She woke everybody up. And thank God she did. Obviously, having black children and a black husband, I couldn't be more proud of what her work has meant culturally.

Getty

Grey's is one of a very few shows that consistently hits around a 50/50 ratio or better when it comes to women writers and directors on the show too. Is that felt on set?

I read these articles and see these statistics, that there are no female writers, directors, camera operators [on TV] — we've got them all over here! Yeah, and the other topic everyone talks about [is] wage equality, which is a huge thing in the motion picture industry. We've never had that problem. Me personally! I can only speak for myself. But [the issue] no one talks about the ageism.

You think that should be discussed more?

That's a whole other piece that we haven't cracked open yet, the ageism with respect to women in Hollywood. So let's get us equal pay, and now the next step is to talk about the ageism.

I read an interview with Reese Witherspoon the other day, and she said that she was offered some part to be the girlfriend in some movie, and it's true. I read scripts every once in a while. I'm really not all that interested in working on my break, honestly. I'm fucking exhausted from the show, and now that I have kids it's like, no way. But I still read scripts. I read one last week, and it was the wife role, and she's in the kitchen, making toast. The beauty about my life is I don't have to go do a part like that, because I get paid so well here and I get to tell so many amazing stories and be the center of the storytelling here. Why would I want to go and do a feature and be the wife? And make toast?

You can be in features if you're 25, if you're a young little ingénue. But the men in these movies are in their 40s and 50s. I could go on and on about this all day, and I won't, but there's some brilliant actresses out there. And they shuttle in the ingénues and give them a six- or seven-year run in their 20s, and then they shuttle them through and bring in the new girls. It's so prevalent to me. There are Oscar winners and incredible actresses who aren't getting roles in these amazing movies, because they're going to people in their 20s. Or [they get cast as] a wife or a girlfriend because they don't talk or do anything, so it's not going to get in the way of the guys.

Why would I want to go and do a feature and be the wife? And make toast?

You said a couple of years back that once you were finished with Grey's, you planned to stop acting. Do you still feel that way?

Listen, the truth is, I don't get any offers! I mean, every once in a while … But there's another prejudice that happens, which is [the stigma against TV actresses]. You know, some TV actresses can't do movies, and why is that? If people tune into you for 12 years in a row, seven months out of the year, however long we're on the air for, that's a pretty solid audience. Why they would think those same fans wouldn't follow you into films is interesting.

I watch things, and I know someone as one character and sometimes, if they've done an amazing job, I can't get that character out of my head either. I get it. But I don't get that many offers to be honest. And I don't know if that's because people think that I'm so tired and I'm on Grey's and I'm not available to do things. Or maybe they think I'm a terrible actress.

Now, though, TV is more prestigious than ever. It's where prestige actors go.

I remember my publicist telling me at the beginning of the show … I think it was like [about] Elle magazine or something, she said, "They don't put TV stars on the cover of magazines," and I thought, "Oh wow … that feels terrible. OK?" The wonderful news is 12 years later, now that's no longer a truth, and TV girls can be on magazine covers. I can't, because I've been on the same show for 12 years and I'm not that interesting. I'm not the new, hot thing so you can't exploit me in that way, but that's another sort of prejudice that did exist, that I watched exist, and I've watched go away, which is great. A lot has changed over 12 years.

There are Oscar winners and incredible actresses who aren't getting roles in these amazing movies, because they're going to people in their twenties.

What's gotten harder about playing Meredith over time?

You have to suspend your disbelief to be able to watch TV and act in TV. Now that Meredith has kids … we don't see the kids! I do scenes all the time with the sisters in the house. And it's like, where are my kids? I don't get up in the morning and make myself a coffee and sit and kibbutz at my kitchen table. I get up, I start the French toast, I've got the smoothies going, this one's gotta get dressed. You say to the writers, "Shouldn't Meredith be getting her kids ready in the morning?" It's a little challenging just for my mama bear gut-level instinct.

Do you think much about the end of Grey's? Do you know how much longer you have in you?

I do think about it. I think about it a lot. And I can't really talk about my future plans, but yes, Shonda and I talk about it. We feel like we're in this together, and I think we don't want to do the show without each other. I think when either of us is ready, when we feel like it's time to wrap it up [we will]. When she feels like it's time to wrap it up, I'm happy to, and if I were to feel that way, she would probably be OK too. We have a good relationship in that way, and hopefully it's a decision we'll come to together.

The most freeing thing about my place in my life right now is I feel absolutely no pressure to prove anything. The only pressure I feel is to my daughters, to be a good mother. Other than that, I feel no pressure to have to prove anything. Anything. Which is such an amazing, free place to be.

Follow Lauren on Twitter.

Lauren Hoffman Lauren Hoffman writes about television, women in pop culture, and her feelings.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io