15 Mind-Blowing Grey’s Anatomy Facts That a TRUE Fan Would Know
Can you name two actors who went out for the role of McDreamy, besides Patrick Dempsey?
1. Rob Lowe turned down the role of Derek Shepherd. He wrote in his memoir Stories I Only Tell My Friends about getting an “urgent call” from producers: “I agreed to meet with the people making Grey’s Anatomy. I had read it and loved it — the writing was crisp, real and very entertaining — and it’s always been a good idea to hear out talented people.” But he decided to stick with another role he was offered, on a CBS show called Dr. Vegas; that show was canceled after five episodes.
2. Isaiah Washington (Dr. Burke) also auditioned for the role of Derek. WHAT?!
3. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) wasn’t part of the original pilot. His character was written in as a foil to the more sensitive Dr. George O’Malley after the first episode was shot, and his scenes were digitally added later.
4. Sandra Oh auditioned for the part of Dr. Bailey, but it was ultimately Dr. Cristina Yang who spoke to her. She asked the producers for the role, and the rest is history.
5. The show was going to be called Complications. Um, catchy…?
6. Washington learned all the surgeries he performed on the show, shadowing surgeons so often that Rhimes was almost certain he could have replicated the actual procedures. “I think if he stopped at an accident on the street he’d know exactly what to do,” Rhimes told Oprah. “He has pulled shifts at hospitals where he follows the surgeons around for 48 hours.”
7. Sarah Drew, who plays April, went into labor 13 hours after filming her character’s first birth scene. “It was a big, long 10-hour work day of doing the labor and delivery scene on the show,” Drew told Access Hollywood. “And, I went home, it was 8 p.m. and at 6 a.m., I woke up with a really intense contraction three-and-a-half weeks early, so didn’t think I was in labor.” She was! Hannah spent 11 days in the NICU, but was thereafter doing “great.”
8. Jesse Williams (Jackson) started his career as a high-school teacher. He taught American history, African history, and English.
9. Jessica Capshaw auditioned for multiple roles, including Derek’s love interest Nurse Rose (played by Lauren Stamile), before getting cast as Dr. Arizona Robbins.
10. The organs used on the show come from real cows, with a few lamb brains thrown in. No wonder some of the actors have admitted to feeling squeamish on set.
11. Bokhee, a recurring scrub nurse in the OR, is a scrub nurse IRL. She’s had very few lines but a huge impact on the cast nonetheless.
12. Creator Shonda Rhimes was always obsessed with surgery. “My sisters and I would call each other up and talk about operations we’d seen on the Discovery Channel,” she told Oprah. “There’s something fascinating about the medical world — you see things you’d never imagine, like the fact that doctors talk about their boyfriends or their day while they’re cutting somebody open. So when ABC asked me to write another pilot, the OR seemed like the natural setting.”
13. The show was almost set in Chicago, Rhimes’ hometown, but she changed her mind to avoid the resemblance with ER. Chicago Grace doesn’t have the same ring to it anyway.
14. Patrick Dempsey was terrified of Shonda Rhimes at his audition. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, she’s scary,'” he said at a Paley Center talk. He remembers calling his agent after the fact and saying, “It’s not going to work at all — Shonda Rhimes hates me.” What she says she was actually thinking the entire time? “Oh my god, he’s so dreamy.”
15. In fact, Patrick earned the nickname “McDreamy” before his character did. “When we were shooting the pilot, Patrick was seriously the most adorable man we’d ever seen on camera,” Rhimes told Oprah. “We’d watch the monitor and think, ‘Look at his dreamy eyes!’ So we started calling him Patrick McDreamy, and it stuck.” Miss you, Derek.