Ellen Pompeo, who played Meredith Grey in Grey’s Anatomy, recently shared that she didn’t want to say one of her most famous lines at first.
Speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Pompeo recalled the famous 2005 scene where Meredith begs Derek Shepherd to choose her over his wife. The line—“Pick me, choose me, love me”—became one of the most iconic moments in the show’s history. However, Pompeo admitted she was uncomfortable with the idea of her character pleading for love.
“I didn’t want to say it,” she revealed, explaining that she felt it made Meredith look weak. She questioned why her character had to beg for a man’s attention. Despite her hesitation, she later realized that Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes knew the impact it would have on viewers.
Pompeo shared a similar thought in a 2023 interview with her former co-star Katherine Heigl. She admitted that she found the scene embarrassing at the time but later understood its emotional power.
“I was crying in that scene, but honestly, I was really crying because I had to beg a man on TV,” she said.
Pompeo also revealed that filming Grey’s Anatomy had other tough moments. She recalled how both she and co-star T.R. Knight cried while shooting their characters’ intimate scene in season two because they were so uncomfortable with it.
Looking back, Pompeo now understands why these scenes became so powerful, even though she struggled with them at the time.