Denzel Washington Weighs in on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Incident With Ellen Pompeo

During an episode of her podcast in September, Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo recounted a story where she butted heads with Denzel Washington while he was on set directing an episode of the medical drama. Pompeo got some flack at the time over how she came off in the story, and in a new interview with Variety, Washington weighed in on the situation. 

When asked if they got in a screaming match on set, Washington replied “no, no” while claiming that he had no memory of the incident in question. However, the outlet reported that The Tragedy of Macbeth star gave a “slight grin” and added, “But it’s all good.”

Washington was directing the Season 12 episode “The Sound of Silence,” when they began to butt heads over Pompeo’s added direction of another actor –– which didn’t sit well with the two-time Oscar winner. “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 a—,” she told her former co-star Patrick Dempsey on her podcast Tell Me With Ellen Pompeo. “He was like, ‘I’m the director. Don’t you tell him what to do.’ I was like, ‘Listen, motherf—, this is my show, this is my set. Who are you telling?’” 

She added: “So, we didn’t get through it without a fight, but that’s actors for you. Passionate and fiery and that’s where you get the magic.” The actress added that she and Denzel eventually made up. Dempsey empathized with his former co-star on the episode of her podcast. 

“You’re living in that emotion all day long, so things can set you off really quickly so it’s really hard to keep that boiling, that emotion so it’s accessible — especially in television ’cause you gotta crank it out — that you are raw the whole day, and it’s important to create the right atmosphere on set where you’re safe to be able to do that,” he said in response. 

Dempsey went on to share that he had a Denzel story of his own. The Enchanted star says he ran into Washington during a trip to craft services for a breakfast burrito on the wrong set. “He’s like, ‘Hey, man, you’re on the wrong set, this is not your set. Get out of here,’” he shared. “And then he looked at me and he winked and he was just giving me s— in a good way but scared me to death ’cause he gave me the Denzel Washington look.”