BY NINA STARNER/MARCH 30, 2024 9:00 AM EST
When you consider that “Grey’s Anatomy” is a show about stomach-turning medical emergencies, it makes sense that some things might have been gross behind the scenes. This detail — revealed by original cast members Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl — is a lot grosser than anyone might expect, though.
The two former colleagues sat down in June 2023 for Variety’s Actors on Actors series to interview each other, and while they were sharing fond memories of their time on the “Grey’s Anatomy” set, Pompeo said things could get wild during long shooting schedules. “[It’s] a Friday night, 2 in the morning, and you got to run real cow bowel,” Pompeo remembered.
When Heigl prompted Pompeo to explain what she meant by “running cow bowel,” Pompeo continued, “This is terrible. And Katie would always advocate and try to speak up, but we used a lot of real animal parts in the surgeries back in the day. After hours and hours under the lights, it starts to smell terrible. You’re wearing a mask, so that helps, but it’s just not the most pleasant experience. Your feet are tired, and you’re staring at this cow heart and bowel.” Certainly, the surgical mask would have been a blessing in that moment, but that still sounds incredibly gross.
During the early days, the Grey’s Anatomy actors got used to gross on-set conditions
Despite acknowledging just how gross it was to use real animal parts (cow bowel was the only one specified by Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl, but other animal parts such as chicken fat have been mentioned as being used during surgeries on “Grey’s Anatomy”), the two actresses also said they got used to the entire thing. Heigl said the cast members, who also included T.R. Knight, Sandra Oh, and Justin Chambers playing the original interns, started snacking in the same room as the cow bowel.
“I just remember by, I want to say Season 2, we’d become so desensitized to it, we’d be standing on our marks eating ramen over the cow intestines,” Heigl said, making the entire situation that much grosser. “And they’d be like, ‘OK, we’re ready to go.’ And we’d be like, ‘OK, thank you so much for—’ We just stopped caring. That’s when you’re like, ‘Things have gone too far.'”
Both Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl have left Grey’s Anatomy
In the years since they led the cast as the original interns of “Grey’s Anatomy,” both Katherine Heigl and Ellen Pompeo have moved on to other projects. So what are they doing now?
Pompeo ostensibly left “Grey’s Anatomy” behind in February 2023 but still serves as an executive producer on the series, provides its voiceover, and appears on the show to boot; she was a huge presence in the Season 20 premiere, and it’s very possible that Meredith Grey will continue to pop up on “Grey’s Anatomy” for quite some time. In the Variety interview, Heigl asked Pompeo what her “last day on set” was like, and Pompeo was quite candid. “It’s a little bit of trickery, because I’m not completely gone,” she explained before delving into Meredith’s storyline (which centers around Alzheimer’s research) and the reason for her departure, which was to send her daughter to a school in Boston. “I will be making some appearances hopefully next year, if I can find some time,” Pompeo concluded.
As for Heigl, she’s fresh off a leading role on the wildly popular Netflix series “Firefly Lane,” where she stars alongside “Scrubs” alum Sarah Chalke, but it’s clear that she’s willing to shake off allegations about how she behaved on the “Grey’s Anatomy” set and still discuss her time on the series … even if that involves talking about cow bowel.
