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Throughout its run for 19 seasons, ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy’s tremendous popularity makes it a fan favorite, and the series’ followers have been given a chance to revisit a past character who was central to some of the most intriguing plotlines.
We are speaking of Izzie Stevens, played by Katherine Heigl, who bid farewell halfway through season 6, following which she was barely and occasionally referenced.
Heigl’s departure raised a lot of questions about her possible reasons for taking such drastic step. While gossip spread about her tiff with the executive producer, Shonda Rhimes, Heigl provided more specific details shaping her decision to leave.
The actress – who then was married to Josh Kelly – said that she wanted to prioritize parenting over her career at the time. She spoke to Rhimes about it, who advised her to juggle both responsibilities. as she revealed to E! Online.
“So before I was due back, I spoke again to Shonda about wanting to leave. Then I waited at home until I was given the formal okay that I was off the show. The rumors that I refused to return were totally untrue.
“[Shonda] wanted to try to figure out how I could do both [parenting and Grey’s], and I kind of wanted to do both. There wasn’t a great way to compromise the work schedule that didn’t negatively affect the crew or the cast. It wasn’t feeling fair to them or the show to ask them to bend around my needs.”
Thereafter, Heigl hit the headlines for refusing an Emmy for her performance in the show, which made it quite clear that not everything was right between her and the showrunners.
After over a decade, Heigl and Pompeo sat for an interview with Variety, and the former took this opportunity to revisit the controversies surrounding her leaving, saying that it was anxiety and stress which overwhelmed her and propelled her to step down.
“I was up here in my head, in my gut, in my mind, in my life. I was just vibrating at way too high of a level of anxiety. For me, it’s all a bit of a blur, and it took me years to learn how to deal with that, to master it. I can’t even say that I’ve mastered it, but to even know to work on it, that anxiety and fear—and stress is stress. And if you leave stress too long, unmanaged, and unaddressed, it can be debilitating.”
Further on, Heigl appreciated and congratulated Rhimes for her contribution to modern television and casting women as the primary protagonists.
“Kudos to Shonda for changing the entire dialogue of network television at a time that really didn’t have women in those kinds of roles in the story, didn’t have as much diversity. I was young. I wasn’t paying that much attention. It felt like a job, a great job. I didn’t realize it was as impactful as it was.”
Besides the topic of leaving the show, both Heigl and Pompeo seemingly had quite a bit of fun during the interview. We got to hear both of them speaking in detail about repeatedly watching the show and how despite their engagement with the drama, they managed to spare some time to see their actions on camera.
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