Ellen Pompeo On Patrick Dempsey Leaving Grey’s Anatomy
Ellen Pompeo is talking about her salary in Grey’s Anatomy and how she wants to inspire other women to rise up against the wage gap.
According to THR, after 14 seasons, Pompeo just signed a deal in late 2017 that will make her the highest-earning actress on a TV drama, earning $575,000 per episode (she films 24 in one year), plus a seven-figure signing bonus and two full backend equity points in the series, she is estimated to bring another $6 million to $7 million. She will also be getting a producing fee, plus backend on this springs brand new Grey’s spinoff.
So how did she manage to negotiate such a great deal? According to Pompeo, Patrick Dempsey’s departure from the show in 2015 “was a defining moment, deal-wise.”
âThey could always use him as leverage against me â âWe donât need you; we have Patrickâ â which they did for years,â she says. âI donât know if they also did that to him because he and I never discussed our deals. There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that.â
âAt one point, I asked for $5,000 more than him just on principle, because the show is Greyâs Anatomy and Iâm Meredith Grey. They wouldnât give it to me,â she continues. âAnd I could have walked away, so why didnât I? Itâs my show; Iâm the number one. Iâm sure I felt what a lot of these other actresses feel: Why should I walk away from a great part because of a guy? You feel conflicted but then you figure, âIâm not going to let a guy drive me out of my own house.â â
While looking back on Dempsey’s exit, Pompeo says that at first, she had a “nice chuckle” about the “rating spike.”
âBut the truth is, the ink wasnât even dry on his exit papers before they rushed in a new guy,â she recalls. âI was on vacation in Sicily, decompressing â it was a long working relationship and it was a tumultuous end and I needed a moment to just chill with some rosĂŠ â and theyâre calling me, going, âWhat do you think of this guy?â âWhat do you think of this guy?â Theyâre sending pictures.â
âI was like, âAre you people fâing nuts? Why do you feel that you have to replace this person?â â she says. âI couldnât believe how fast the studio and the network felt like they had to get a penis in there. We brought in Martin Henderson, but they didnât love the storyline, so that ended.â
According to Pompeo, Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the series is the one who “empowered” her to know her worth and assert herself.
âWhat happened is that I went to Shonda and I said, âIf youâre moving on to Netflix and you want the show to go down, Iâm cool with that. But if you want it to continue, I need to be incentivized. I need to feel empowered and to feel ownership of this show,â â says Pompeo. âAnd she was like, âI absolutely want to keep the show going. Itâs the mothership, so letâs find a way to make you happy. What do you want?â â
âIn Shonda finding her power and becoming more comfortable with her power, she has empowered me,â she says. âAnd that took her a while to get to, too. It was part of her evolution. Itâs also why our relationship is so special. I was always loyal to her, and she responds well to loyalty.â
âSo, she got to a place where she was so empowered that she was generous with her power,â she continues. âNow, what did that look like? It looked like her letting me be the highest-paid woman on television, letting me be a producer on this show, letting me be a co-executive producer on the spinoff and signing off on the deal that the studio gave me, which is unprecedented.â
THR cover: @EllenPompeo, TV's $20M woman, reveals her behind-the-scenes fight for "what I deserve" https://t.co/m3wFoUQ1al pic.twitter.com/Yu7tJYRBv9
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) January 17, 2018
Grey’s Anatomy star, Pompeo says she relied on Rhimes, 48, during much of the negotiations.
âMaybe itâs my Irish Catholic upbringing, but you never want to [be perceived as] too greedy,â she says. âOr maybe itâs just that as women, thatâs our problem; a guy wouldnât have any problem asking for $600,000 an episode. And as women, weâre like, âOh, can I ask for that? Is that OK?â Iâd call Shonda and say, âAm I being greedy?â But CAA compiled a list of stats for me, and Greyâs has generated nearly $3 billion for Disney. When your face and your voice have been part of something thatâs generated $3 billion for one of the biggest corporations in the world, you start to feel like, âOK, maybe I do deserve a piece of this.â â
âIâm 48 now, so Iâve finally gotten to the place where Iâm OK asking for what I deserve, which is something that comes only with age,â she adds. âBecause Iâm not the most ârelevantâ actress out there. I know thatâs the industry perception because Iâve been this character for 14 years. But the truth is, anybody can be good on a show season one and two. Can you be good 14 years later? Now, thatâs a fineâ skill.â
Greyâs Anatomy airs Thursdays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.