"Grey's Anatomy" stars Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl are reflecting on their "Grey's Anatomy" days together.
The actresses, who played Meredith Grey and Izzie Stevens, respectively, recently took part in Variety's "Actors on Actors" series and reminisced about working on the landmark prime-time medical drama, having been part of the cast when it premiered in 2005.
Pompeo's and Heigl's characters were two of the surgical interns -- alongside Sandra Oh as Cristina Yang, T.R. Knight as George O'Malley and Justin Chambers as Alex Karev -- who were at the center of the show, which has now aired for more than 400 episodes.
Continue reading for some of the highlights from their conversation.
At one point in their "Actors on Actors" conversation, Pompeo asked Heigl if she remembered when the show's title was almost changed to "Complications," to which Heigl said no.
Pompeo said the mood on set that day was "just like somebody had died" because everyone had been working hard on the show, loved the show and felt that if the title were changed "it'll never go."
"It was just this collective mourning on set but that only lasted for a day or two," Pompeo said.
While Heigl said she "hasn't gone there yet" and watched "Grey's Anatomy" with her eldest daughter Naleigh, Pompeo revealed she has tried to watch it with her eldest daughter Stella.
Pompeo said Stella came up to her and said it was "embarrassing and weird" that all her friends had seen the show and she hadn't, so Pompeo decided they'd take the plunge together.
"At first I was like, 'Oh, this is so amazing, and we're going to watch it together,'" she recalled. "And then it was episode after episode after episode, and I was just like, 'I don't have the stamina for this! I filmed all these episodes. I did it. I can't now go back and watch it again.'"
Pompeo said she hadn't watched a lot of "Grey's Anatomy" throughout the years "because we were always working," but Heigl said when she was on the show she watched every episode as it aired.
One of the most emotional storylines in "Grey's Anatomy" history is between Izzie and Denny, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
In the series, the two characters meet when Izzie is Denny's doctor throughout his treatment for heart issues. The two become engaged only for Denny to ultimately die after receiving a heart transplant, ending with a particularly devastating scene in which Izzie is seen crawling into the hospital bed beside Denny after he has died.
"I wanted so badly to nail that scene, right? I just wanted it to feel the way it was written on the page," she recalled. "I wanted it to be as, like, heart-wrenching and all of the things."
Heigl said it wasn't her thing to "go into the dark place" to put herself into the emotions of a scene like some actors do, but she decided to go there and think about losing her brother who died when she was 7.
"I don't enjoy thinking about that much or that week in the hospital or him in that bed, but I chose to do that for that scene and I don't think I would put myself in that headspace again to achieve that," she said. "I think I would try harder to just act it."
Meredith left Seattle during season 19 and popped back up in the season finale -- and Pompeo said that won't be the last we see of the titular character.
“It's a little bit of trickery, because I'm not completely gone," she said. "The storyline is very cool ... but there's a lot of real research that's changing very rapidly about Alzheimer's disease and about what they believe is the cause of Alzheimer's disease. It's pretty controversial."
"I will be making some appearances hopefully next year, if I can find some time," Pompeo teased. "It's not a complete goodbye, and I think we've got an interesting story to tell."
As for what's next for her, Pompeo has booked a role on an upcoming Hulu series that begins shooting in September that's under the working title of "The Orphan."
"Gonna be a very interesting role to play. I haven't played another character in 18 years. That's crazy -- crazy town, crazy town," she said. "This one is intense."
