Ellen Pompeo

[groovethang]

Oct 1, 2021 1:22:51 GMT -4 codert said:

Her being dragged on Twitter for her rant against Denzel Washington gave me a chuckle as I drank my morning coffee.

There’s always bee something “off” about Ellen Pompeo for me. Probably started in that episode of Punk’d I think it was where she was having lunch wi the her then boyfriend, now husband, where she joked about stabbing the waiter with her fork, making him bleed. At least I think I’m remembering that correctly ::off to google::

ETA: it was the waitress, who was set up to hit on her boyfriend for Ellen’s punking

[Mutagen]

The most shocking part of this incident was learning that Denzel Washington directed an episode of Gray's Anatomy. What?

Summary of Ellen's comments. Did she think this story would make her look good?? Complaining to his wife? Girl...

That being said, I also recall a story from the Magnificent 7 remake press tour about Denzel lecturing a day player for not responding "in the moment" when he improvised a line. For me, neither of them comes across well in that story.

[peace47]

Oct 1, 2021 11:47:18 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

The most shocking part of this incident was learning that Denzel Washington directed an episode of Gray's Anatomy. What?

Summary of Ellen's comments. Did she think this story would make her look good?? Complaining to his wife? Girl...

That being said, I also recall a story from the Magnificent 7 remake press tour about Denzel lecturing a day player for not responding "in the moment" when he improvised a line. For me, neither of them comes across well in that story.

It does sound like there was a misunderstanding where Ellen improvised a line in character and Denzel perhaps thought she was speaking *as herself* to another actor and giving that guy direction. I agree that neither comes off particularly well, although Ellen making a comment to his wife comes off worse, IMHO. It’s actually kind of interesting because Denzel’s and Ellen’s power dynamics were comparable in drastically different ways: Ellen as the queen of that set and Denzel as a mega-superstar of film. I did chuckle at the end of the article where it said that Denzel has never directed another TV episode again. He probably doesn’t pick up Debbie Allen’s calls so quickly anymore, lol.

I’m separately surprised to read that Patrick appeared on a podcast with Ellen, even though I know he’s been back on Grey’s to do scenes with Ellen since he left. I had thought that she was an instigator for getting him off the show due to their personal clashes, so I didn’t think he would want to go out of his way to interact with her, although I guess now the conventional wisdom is that he wanted out and was just making life difficult for everyone, including Shonda? That set sounds pretty fascinatingly toxic, going back to the beginning.

[Ginger]

Mar 17, 2020 16:49:51 GMT -4 peace47 said:

It does sound like there was a misunderstanding where Ellen improvised a line in character and Denzel perhaps thought she was speaking *as herself* to another actor and giving that guy direction.

Yes, and I can see from Denzel's side that actors FLIP OUT when they are given "notes" from another actor, so he felt it was his job as a director to protect that actor.

From Ellen's side, I have a hard time imagining that a guest director coming in to a TV show built around a famous, highly-paid, award-winning male lead actor would come in an SCREAM at said male star and dress him down in front of the entire crew for making a faux pas. Like on the set of NYPD Blue, some guest director would come in an scream and berate Dennis Franz or Jimmy Smits in front of everybody for improvising a line? I really doubt it.

She screamed *back* at Denzel after he screamed at her. She stood up for herself. She demanded respect as the leader of that show, which she is. Good for her.

I don't even watch Gray's, but I did read recently that somebody on the show said Dempsey left basically because he's lazy, and he wanted to be off racing cars instead of coming to work, and he made sure everybody knew it. It made me laugh that somebody was willing to be so blunt and not cover for him.

[featherhat]

Dempsey wanting off the show or at least be able to leave for racing whenever he felt like it was pretty evident for years before he left, so it's not a surprise that was one of the big issues. He and Ellen got on well (so they used to say) before their later falling out so it also doesn't surprise me that they're willing to do things together. I haven't watched the show in over a decade and I can't believe I still remember this stuff.

I remember watching the clip of that punk'd and she definitely didn't come off well. It's shitty when someone flirts when you're right there but threatening to stab someone is never good. But she's never been a wallflower and has admitted she was right in the middle when the BTS drama was at its height from 2006 onwards when the show became a stratospheric success.

[canuckcutie]

Ellen was both the lead actress and an Executive producer. She absolutely set the tone on set. Screaming at a guest director and stating it was “her set” doesn’t exactly make it seem like a welcoming place to work.

The author of the behind the scenes book about Grey’s states in the book that the cast felt the “need to kiss the ring” to get Ellen’s permission for stuff, even for things as innocuous as posting pictures from the set. It was well known that it was “Ellen’s set” and she got a costar fired who wasn’t deferential enough.

It sounds like an absolutely toxic place to work to be honest.