At 55, Pompeo accepts that stepping out of the long shadow of her iconic character won't be a matter of an overnight. In a Deadline interview, she spoke openly about the path forward. "I just hope I get a chance to play another great character," she said. "I don't have anything in the works yet, and I'm reading stuff.
Pompeo started phasing out of her status as Grey's Anatomy's linchpin character in 2022, after 17 years of anchoring the ratings-grossing ABC medical drama since its debut in 2005. Her reduced visibility on the show enabled her to seek out other creative ventures — most prominently Hulu's limited true-crime series Good American Family, in which she played a dramatic role as a character based on the chilling Natalia Grace case.
That change, Pompeo maintains, was deliberate. "What was fun about this is the opportunity to really play a character — voice, physical movements, wardrobe, all of it." It wasn't merely an exercise in acting — it was a thoughtful choice to expand her range and signal to viewers that she's up for something new.
But Pompeo is pragmatic about the uphill battle of rebranding herself beyond Meredith Grey. "I have to get them out of this hole that I dug us all in, this glorious hole of Meredith Grey," she stated with a wink, recognizing the role's iconic role within pop culture. "It's my job."
She's not hoping that fans will immediately accept any character she takes on just because she's graduated. "I can't hope that people can see me as anything different that I want," she said. "So I'm hoping for another great character that I can sort of sink into and make it easy for the audience to accept me as that character — not make them work so hard not to see Meredith Grey."
Though Pompeo doesn't yet have her next project in the works, she's still dedicated to discovering something significant — a role that not only moves her as an actress but also enables audiences to fall in love with a new person.
And while saying goodbye to Meredith Grey may never be easy — for Pompeo or her fans — she's determined to blaze a new trail, one complicated character at a time.
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