‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Takes Swipe at Show’s Director

Grey’s Anatomy alum Jessica Capshaw took a jab at a past director on the show during a recent podcast.

Newsweek reached out to a Grey’s Anatomy spokesperson via email for comment.

On the March 24 episode of Call It What It Is, which the Holidate actress cohosts with Grey’s Anatomy star Camilla Luddington, the pair interviewed Luddington’s TV fiance, Chris Carmack, and discussed what it’s like playing the same character for a long period of time.

“Something happens as an actor on a show when you’ve been on it for years,” Carmack, who stars as Dr. Atticus Lincoln on the ABC medical drama, said. “Your backstory and your relationships with all the other characters and actors becomes so ingrained and second nature, your work gets better. Your work gets more mature.”

Capshaw—who played pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins on the series until 2018—agreed, noting, “There is something to be said what you just said, Chris.”

“I remember, it must have been when I was not feeling so new anymore, but there was, you know … when you’re shooting 24 episodes, you have a lot of different directors,” the 48-year-old explained. “And I remember it was a new director, and I don’t know that they were our favorite,” she laughed.

“There’s been some we’ve cycled through,” Luddington, 41, said, referring to directors on Grey‘s.

“Yeah we’ve had ones that just came, and maybe it just wasn’t a good fit. And this particular person, who was not a good fit, was giving me a little bit of direction, and I remember being like, ‘Oh, I think I’ve gotten to the point where I know what I would do more than this visiting person,'” Capshaw recalled, without naming names. “And it wasn’t an ego thing, it was just like, ‘Oh yeah I’ve been here a minute.'”

Luddington—who joined Grey‘s in 2012 as Dr. Josephine “Jo” Wilson and is still on the series today—praised the long-running Shonda Rhimes hit, which began in 2005.

Luddington revealed she and Carmack, 44, filmed together on Monday and said some of their scenes were “ridiculous.”

“They’re funny, right?” she teased. “The fact that on our show we get to play comedy and drama is so—that’s not every show.”

“We’re so lucky that we get these really deep, dramatic scenes, and then we get scenes that are just completely ridiculous that are so fun,” Luddington added. “I actually feel really fulfilled as an actor.”

Luddington and Camack agreed, however, that they wish they had more “hero doctor moments” on the series, with Luddington admitting she was once “jealous of” actress Sarah Drew, who played Dr. April Kepner.

“She was a trauma surgeon on the show,” the England native said. “She just had, like, patient beds being wheeled in from an ambulance, and she was on top of the person doing chest compressions, and I was like, ‘You look awesome,’ like you look like the hero all the time.”