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Ellen Pompeo is scrubbing out of Grey’s Anatomy.
In a way she never has before.
The actress is currently starting in Good American Family, a brand new drama on Hulu whose first two episodes were made available on March 19.
The role marks Pompeo’s first lead since she sky-rocketed to fame back in 2005 as Meredith Grey, the title character of the longest-running medical drama in TV history.
Back in 2022, Pompeo pared down her screen time significantly on Grey’s Anatomy… although she still serves as a producer and still makes the occasional cameo.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just knew that I really couldn’t do Grey’s anymore,” Pompeo explained this week on the Call Her Daddy podcast of that decision.
“It was to the point where I really just felt like an animal at the zoo. I’m a big believer in destiny. I thought, if there’s something else I’m meant to do, it’s gonna find me. But I know I have to leave this.”
Pompeo, who earned $20 million per episode in her last ABC contract, had hinted in the past that she was done with acting.
But here she is again.
“Sometimes you know you’d like opportunities to come while you’re doing something, so you have an easy exit,” the actress said on this podcast. “You have a soft landing – and it turns out I actually did get a soft landing. But I was sort of thinking like nothing’s coming along, and I really believe in this town, if they want you, they will find you.”
When a new offer didn’t immediately present itself, Pompeo began to have some doubts. As anyone would.
“I’m on TV for 20 years, the biggest show ever, like everybody knows who I am. “Clearly, these people don’t want me,” she said of her feelings at the time.
“They’re not coming for me. No one’s offering me this [and] no one’s offering me that. I mean I’ve been offered a few things, obviously, but like could never make it work.”
Good American Family stars Ellen Pompeo, Mark Duplass, Imogen Faith Reid, Dulé Hill, Christina Hendricks, Sarayu Blue and Jenny O’Hara.
It is based on a true story and here is the official synopsis:
Told from multiple points of view, as a means to explore issues of perspective, bias, and trauma, this compelling drama is inspired by the disturbing stories surrounding a Midwestern couple who adopts a girl with a rare form of dwarfism.
But as they begin to raise her alongside their three biological children, mystery emerges around her age and background, and they slowly start to suspect she may not be who she says she is.
As they defend their family from the daughter they’ve grown to believe is a threat, she fights her own battle to confront her past and what her future holds, in a showdown that ultimately plays out in the tabloids and the courtroom.
In the past, it was challenging for the star to step away from a program that shot for 10 months a year.
According to Pompeo, though, times have changed and “it’s become a little easier” to take on other roles since networks have reduced their orders to 15 episodes.
“But anyway, I had really stepped away, and I had said I really have to step away I can’t do it anymore,” she added on the podcast.
“And if nothing else comes, nothing else comes. It’s my destiny. [If] no one wants me, that’s okay, I can swallow that pill like I swallow everything else and at least I’m financially okay.”
Ellen Pompeo Explains Decision to Leave Grey’s Anatomy: I Felt Like an Animal! was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.