Ellen Pompeo, TV’s $20 Million Woman, Reveals Her Behind-the-Scenes Fight for “What I Deserve”
The ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star recalls in her own words the personal struggles and advice from Shonda Rhimes that led to a milestone: highest-paid actress on a primetime drama.
By Lacey Rose
On March 27, 2005, ABC debuted a medical drama titled Grey’s Anatomy from a then unknown creator, Shonda Rhimes. The show was an instant smash, and everybody involved was ecstatic.
Everybody, that is, except for the series’ star, Ellen Pompeo, the Grey of Grey’s Anatomy. “I knew I was fucked,” she recalls thinking at the time. After all, Pompeo was supposed to be a movie star.
Following a rocky childhood in a blue-collar, mob-heavy Boston suburb, where she and several siblings were raised by her father and grandparents (her mother died of an overdose when Pompeo was just 5), she found her way to Hollywood. Before long, her breakout role as the love interest in the 2002 film Moonlight Mile had sparked interest from major filmmakers. “Sam Mendes, Steven Spielberg, Warren Beatty,” she rattles off the names. “They were all, ‘We were blown away by this performance’ and ‘You’re a superstar.’”
