Sure, we all know. Dozens of you on the market at all times say the identical factor when confronted with something remotely Gray’s Anatomy-related.
And to reply your typically sardonic query: Sure, it’s nonetheless on.
The sequence acquired picked up for its twenty second season, which implies it’ll proceed trudging alongside and making historical past because it does. From the sounds of issues, Ellen Pompeo will nonetheless have her identify hooked up to it.
Just lately, she did an interview about her newest mission, Good American Household.
Within the EL PAÍS interview, she opens up about why she nonetheless sticks round at Gray’s Anatomy, even when a few of us nonetheless really feel like, in some ways, the sequence can’t proceed to really thrive in its new period if it nonetheless fixates on Meredith Gray.
Her response to that inquiry was brutally sincere, in a manner that many both agreed with and understood her wholeheartedly or had been delay by her candor.
However as we’ve discovered through the years, Ellen Pompeo is nothing if not candid.
That may make no sense, emotionally or financially. The present was streamed greater than a billion occasions in 2024. Greater than a billion occasions. The businesses that personal and stream the present make some huge cash from our photographs, voices, and faces. If I had been to stroll away fully, all people will get to earn cash from my laborious work for 20 years and I wouldn’t make any cash. To me, it doesn’t make any sense that everyone [else] will get to revenue off of my laborious work. And emotionally, the present means quite a bit to folks. I wish to have an perspective of gratitude towards the present.
Contemplating all that Gray’s Anatomy has achieved and Ellen herself due to it, that reply makes good sense.
If we haven’t discovered something from the 2024 Writers/Actors Strikes, the life and trade that we are likely to glamorize from the skin wanting in is way from that.
There’s not a lot glamour about being a working actor when you haven’t achieved a specific amount of fame, and job safety is commonly scarce.
Not solely that, however we’ve discovered about how little actors make compared to their work, the inequity they typically face, particularly factoring in issues like gender, race, and age, and the way rapidly the trade can pull the rug from below somebody’s toes.
There’s not almost sufficient company within the enterprise, and plenty of of those that have discovered a solution to safe some had an extended highway forward of them earlier than they did.
Ellen Pompeo is considered one of them. It’s straightforward to get wrapped up in how she’s one of the recognizable faces on broadcast or finally secured herself as one of many highest-paid actresses on primetime tv.
However we additionally should contemplate how lengthy it took her to succeed in that time. Within the earlier days, Pompeo was nearly unknown.
Her capacity to steer a sequence regardless of that was uncommon in and of itself, and it’s definitely one thing that wouldn’t occur immediately, the place tasks stack as many well-known faces right into a sequence as potential or at the least one big-name one to greenlight one thing.
It took some time earlier than Pompeo was getting the identical sort of pay as her male costar, Patrick Dempsey, and he or she needed to actually advocate for herself at a time when the identical trade would’ve gaslit her into believing she was coming throughout as ungrateful.
In an trade that’s fickle as all hell and supremely unpredictable, Ellen Pompeo’s achievement and upkeep of the kind of success she has by way of Gray’s Anatomy is nearly unprecedented.
Give it some thought: so few sequence make it to double-digit seasons, not to mention have over 20 years below their belts. Offhand, exterior of Gray’s Anatomy, that leaves NCIS, Legislation & Order, and Legislation & Order: SVU clocking in at a whopping 26 seasons.
The latter shares an identical high quality to Gray’s Anatomy, being a female-led sequence that achieved such a feat.
When you’ve got job safety, you don’t take it without any consideration. Gray’s Anatomy stays a profitable juggernaut sequence. It nonetheless secures spectacular rankings and views throughout stay viewing and streaming mixed.
You will discover it out on two streaming networks, and it’s been on lengthy sufficient for syndication one million occasions over. It’s a cultural phenomenon that also finds new audiences to at the present time, a sequence that primarily spans generations in viewership as Gen Z and youthful uncover it and partake.
So long as the sequence continues to earn cash and pleases the followers, it’ll proceed, so on condition that consistency, Pompeo’s want to remain on and proceed capitalizing on her 20 years of labor is completely affordable.
It’s simply as a lot her child as Shonda Rhimes and Disney.
The strikes uncovered how simply and infrequently creators are pushed out of their work or exploited. Contemplating all that, who can fault this girl for eager to trip a profitable prepare till the wheels fall off or it runs off the tracks?
She’s greater than earned the fitting to take action.
There’s additionally the matter of this sequence taking all of her “finest” years as an actress.
Whereas blessedly, the trade has widened its scope in embracing actresses past a sure age, it doesn’t make it any much less difficult to safe particular tasks and alternatives when there’s such a slim view of what sort of ladies must be on the forefront of something anymore.
It’s not not like how her costar, Chandra Wilson, who has additionally starred within the full 21 seasons, sticks by the mission.
Job safety and the flexibility to open up new doorways to different issues, like route and manufacturing, make these selections a no brainer.
So, hey, gather your bag, Ms. Pompeo!
Over to you, Gray’s Fanatics. Did you agree with what Pompeo stated? Pontificate under!
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