Denzel Washington is more than simply one of America’s most beloved actors. He’s also a sometime director. Every now and then he uses his clout to get a personal project made. Think Antwone Fisher, The Great Debaters, and Fences, the latter which brought the legendary playwright August Wilson to the big screen. He has one other directing credit, though: a 2016 episode of Grey’s Anatomy. And at one point star Ellen Pompeo and he did not get along.
On the latest episode of her podcast Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo, the longtime Meredith Grey remembered a time when she went off-script, ad-libbing a line during an emotional scene she shared with Patrick Dempsey.
“I was like, ‘Look at me when you apologize. Look at me,’” Pompeo recalled yelling. But her director didn’t like that she improvised. And her director was Denzel Washington. “And Denzel went ham on my ass. He was like, ‘I’m the director. Don’t you tell him what to do.’”
But Pompeo responded in kind. “I was like, ‘Listen, motherf*cker, this is my show,’” she recalled. “This is my set. Who are you telling?”
Pompeo clarified that it was a one-time spat and that she has the “utmost respect for him as an actor and director.” Besides, it happens. “So, we didn’t get through it without a fight, but that’s actors for you,” Pompeo added. “Passionate and fiery and that’s where you get the magic, and that’s where you get the good stuff. So, it was an amazing experience, it really was.”
In other news, Denzel Washington has directed a single episode of television, and it was for Grey’s Anatomy. How about that.
(Via E! Online)