Ellen Pompeo initially thought Grey’s Anatomy would end after Sandra Oh left the show in 2014.
Pompeo, 55, and Oh, 53, were BFF duo Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang on the long-running medical drama from its 2005 inception. So, filming Oh’s last day was “really emotional” for Pompeo, she said on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
“She was such a loss,” Pompeo told host Alex Cooper during the Wednesday, March 19, episode. “She’s so immensely talented and I really didn’t think the show could go on without her and I was OK with that. It literally felt like half of the show just leaving.”
Cooper, a diehard Grey’s Anatomy fan, understood the emotional reaction.
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“It felt like a piece was gonna always be missing,” Cooper, 30, said. “When, obviously, anyone from the core left, it felt wrong but that’s because she was your person, and you were her person on the show.”
Oh appeared as Cristina for 10 seasons before the character moved to Switzerland and opened her own research hospital. Her exit came with one of the most iconic lines in the show’s history: “He’s very dreamy, but he is not the sun. You are.”
During Wednesday’s podcast episode, Pompeo further discussed how her onscreen best friend made television history throughout her Grey’s Anatomy tenure. (Oh won a Golden Globe and SAG Award for her portrayal of the character.)
“There’s been a lot of moments, but all of those feminist moments. Cristina Yang talking about an abortion on network primetime television, saying that the woman is the most important relationship in your life, not the man,” Pompeo said. “She really is a feminist trailblazer, in terms of what we see on the screen on primetime television. She changed the game, for sure.”
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Oh has spoken candidly about her decision to leave the show, and leave Cristina in the past.
“Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let her go,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2013. “It’s such an interesting thing to play a character for so long and to actually get the sense that she wants to be let go as well. [Cristina] wants to be let go, and I am ready to let her go.”
Despite Pompeo’s past thinking that the show would come to an end following Cristina’s departure, Grey’s Anatomy is still on the air. The drama series is currently in its 21st season.
