Ellen Pompeo and Denzel Washington “Went at It” in Heated ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Fight: “This Is My Show, Motherf***er”

Ellen Pompeo opened up about a heated exchange she shared with Denzel Washington when the Oscar-winner directed an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

In a new episode of her podcast Tell Me With Ellen Pompeo, the actress chatted with her former Grey’s costar, Patrick Dempsey. As their discussion turned to directing, Dempsey asked Pompeo what it was like working with Washington, who helmed the 2016 episode “The Sound of Silence.”

While Pompeo started off by saying Washington was “amazing,” she added, “He went nuts on me.”

During one scene from the episode, her character Meredith Grey receives an apology from a patient who broke her jaw. While shooting, Pompeo decided to improvise in response to her scene partner.

“He made this choice to speak very softly. And then [Meredith] was pissed that [she] had to sit there and listen to this apology, and he wasn’t looking at [her] in the eye,” she said. “And I yelled at him, and I was like, ‘Look at me when you apologize. Look at me.’ And that wasn’t in the dialogue, and Denzel went ham on my ass.”

Pompeo continued: “He was like, ‘I’m the director. Don’t you tell him what to do.’ And I was like, ‘Listen, motherf*cker, this is my show. This is my set. Who are you telling?’ Like, ‘You barely know where the bathroom is.’ And I have the utmost respect for him as an actor, as a director, as everything, but like, yo, we went at it one day.”

She added that she eventually chatted with Washington’s wife, Pauletta Pearson, who encouraged him to direct the show because she was a fan.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, he yelled at me today. Yeah, he let me have it today, and I’m not okay with him, and I’m not looking at him, and I’m not talking to him,'” Pompeo said. “So we didn’t get through it without a fight, but you know, that’s actors for you — 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.”

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