25 Facts About Grey’s Anatomy That Only Super Fans Know
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Grey’s Anatomy introduced the TV world to so many incredible characters, but a lot of them have secrets that only true fans know.
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The show Grey’s Anatomy has been around since March 27th, 2005 and is still being aired today. It is an American medical drama that focuses around the lives of surgical interns, residents, and attendings. It depicts many surgeries, traumatic events, and more importantly to the show, on-screen romance and drama between the doctors and occasionally even some patients. This show has been no less than successful in its long time on air, and though very few original cast members still remain, it is still going strong today.
The main character of this show is Meredith Grey, a character who was been through more than most of us could ever even fathom ever having to go through. When watching from season one episode one, all the way up to the most recent episode, you can follow the journey of this twisted young intern and watch her grow as a person and lose people along the way. This show has done phenomenal in terms of ratings and it has a huge fan base, in fact, it is the most watched TV medical drama out there today. There a lot of people out there who may think that they know everything that there is to know about this show and its behind the scenes drama, but it turns out that there is a lot more to this show than we ever realized before. So in this article we have compiled a list of 25 secrets about Grey’s Anatomy that only the biggest of fans would know.
25 Toying Around With The Name
Grey’s Anatomy has been no less than successful in its time on the air thus far. The creator behind it, Shonda Rhimes, seems to be somewhat of a genius when it comes to making shows. She leaves no stone unturned and really makes sure to perfect every little detail in order to make a masterpiece. The way in which she names her shows is certainly no exception to this, in fact, Grey’s Anatomy almost got a completely different name altogether.
When Shonda Rhimes originally pitched the show, her idea was to call it Grey’s Anatomy, and she ultimately did. However, before settling on the title Grey’s Anatomy, she was a little indecisive. We say this because she had changed the title from what we know it to be, to Complications. Of course, the title Complications would have also been fitting, because let’s be honest, the show is filled with complicated procedures, complicated relationships, and even complicated people, but it would never have been as perfect as Grey’s Anatomy. It is a good thing that she stuck with the original title, because it so perfectly captures the show and what it is all about. She really could not have come up with anything more perfect and fitting than that.
24 Alex Karev Almost Didn’t Exist
Alex Karev was one of the original interns that we have been following since season one episode one. His character has really grown since the beginning, as he is now Meredith’s go-to person, and he has blossomed into an amazing surgeon. It is safe to say that his character has been a vital one throughout the years, so it may come as a shock to some people that he wasn’t actually in the original pitch for the show. In fact, Shonda Rhimes did not add in the character of Alex Karev until after the pilot was already shot.
They later added all of his scenes for the very first episode digitally, which might seem a little hard to believe if you go back and re-watch it. It is hard to imagine what the show would have been like without Alex there getting under the skin of George in the beginning, or marrying Izzy when she fell ill with cancer, so we are glad that his character got added in. However, had he not been added in, we can not help but wonder who would have been the love interest of Izzy after Denny had passed away, or who Meredith would have called when she went into labor after Derek’s passing.
23 Meredith And Burke
There is no doubt about the fact that the on-again-off-again relationship between intern Meredith Grey and attending Derek Shepard was steamy, drama-packed, and romantic, but it almost didn’t happen. As it so turns out, when the show was still being scripted Shonda Rhimes wrote it into the script that Meredith was actually supposed to end up with Preston Burke, who we all know almost married Christina. Of course, when Ellen Pompeo, the woman behind Meredith Grey, got word of this she said no.
Apparently, she couldn’t see her character ending up with him, and it is probably a good thing too because no relationship could have possibly been better than hers and Derek’s was. Obviously, knowing what Preston Burke’s character ended up being like, he would have been a terrible match for the character of Meredith because they do not go together at all. It is crazy to think about how much of this show could have been different had they stuck to the original story line. The show might not have even made it this far had they stuck to half of the things that we mention in this article. Luckily for us, they made the right choice when it came to this vital relationship.
22 The Bad Habit
When we think of doctors, we usually think of healthy and happy people, because if a doctor can’t keep themselves healthy then how in the world are they going to keep us healthy, right? So when we see the actors and actresses of Grey’s Anatomy, we kind of apply this to them as well, not because we look at them as real-life doctors, but more so because they are playing the role of a doctor and they should know right from wrong when it comes to their health. This is why it might be surprising to viewers of the show if they were to go behind the scenes when the majority of the actors and actresses are on their smoke breaks.
The actors and actresses that are included in this bad habit are, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, Kate Walsh, Ellen Pompeo, Patrick Dempsey, and even T.R Knight, just to name a few. Now, of course, this should not come off as that surprising because a very large portion of the American population smokes, but these are not the type of people that you would take for smokers.
21 Izzy And Denny
Anyone who has ever been a fan of the show, Grey’s Anatomy, knows the story of Izzy and Denny. It was a love story that had everyone on the edge of their seats for an entire season. Seeing Izzy fall for this incredibly handsome yet very sarcastic perishing patient won over the hearts of everyone watching. They seemed like a match made in heaven, it was just a shame that Denny had to pass away due to complications after his transplant, something that tore Izzy apart and left her feeling hopeless and alone.
Knowing how perfect these two were together, even though they never did get to be together outside of the hospital, makes this little-known secret somewhat shocking. It turns out that Izzy was never supposed to fall in love with Denny in the original script, it was actually Christina who was supposed to fall for him. Knowing the character of Christina, we know just how absurd that match would have been, seeing as there was not a mushy, loving bone in her body. The fact that they changed it to Izzy worked out perfectly, and that story could not have turned out better than it did.
20 Preston Burke Was To Be Married
Preston Burke was a character that was described as a cardio god, a ladies man, yet very smart and humble. It turns out that Preston Burke’s story was originally supposed to be slightly different than it was when we saw it, in fact, he was supposed to be married. No, we aren’t talking about that wedding he had where he left Christina at the alter either, he was supposed to be married with kids since episode one. Apparently, Burke was originally supposed to be a married man who felt trapped in his marriage and wanted to leave his wife, finding comfort in the arms of Christina, who was by his side at all times in the hospital.
Knowing the strong-willed and intelligent man that they actually made Burke out to be, and knowing what kind of person Christina was, it would be hard to picture this as being part of the storyline. So, perhaps it is a good thing that they decided to nix that part out before the show aired. Knowing how different things could have been in the early episodes, before Burke left the show, is kind of mind blowing if you ask us. The story of Christina and Burke was a bittersweet one that we all loved.
19 Bailey And George
Doctor Miranda Bailey was/is a strong-willed, independent, motherly, tough-loving character who has played a vital role in this show since day one, but she almost turned out completely different and it kind of creeps us out a little bit hearing how she could have been. In the original scripting of the show, Bailey’s character was supposed to be quirky, blonde, and more importantly, she was supposed to have a very hot and heated relationship with intern George O Malley.
Thinking about it now probably creeps a lot of people out, because George and Miranda had more of a mother and son relationship in the version of the story that we got to see. An iconic moment between the two characters was in the early seasons of the show when Miranda was in labor with her son, her husband having brain surgery after a crash on his way to the hospital, and Miranda unwilling to give birth without her husband there. That is until George stepped in and gave her a little bit of that tough love that she is known for. This leads her to name her child after George, a sweet moment that had everyone in tears.
18 McDreamy’s Demise
When it comes to this show, relationships and grown-up interaction were plentiful, there is no doubt about that, but there was always one couple that viewers loved the most and the show would not have been the same without them. Meredith and Derek had gone through a lot of traumatic stuff together, and yet they remained strong and went on to have two children of their own and adopt one. However, this relationship was cut short when they eliminated the character of Derek, an episode that broke the hearts of viewers everywhere.
All fans of Grey’s Anatomy were completely shaken by the demise of their beloved McDreamy, but the man who played him, Patrick Dempsey felt that it was time.
Patrick Dempsey ended up leaving the show in season 11 due to time commitment issues and to pursue a career in racing. Of course, he has since decided to take a break from his racing career as well in order to focus on his family and once again, acting career. Of course, the show will never be the same without him, but it has forced the character of Meredith to grow tremendously. It was a very sad time in the show, but we have to admit it was pretty well played.
17 Izzy Says Good-Bye
In the fourth and fifth seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, the character Izzy begins seeing the Ghost of her deceased loved, Denny. The scenes with her and the ghost of Denny went as far as her engaging in grown-up behavior behind closed doors with him, and it ended up being slightly comical. However, we later come to learn that Denny was really just a hallucination that she was having due to cancer. After the character of Izzy discovers that she has cancer she confides in Christina who winds up telling everyone because she can not bear to keep it to herself. After a what seemed to be a long battle and some close calls, Izzy ends up recovering fully. Phew! Good thing too, because the way that people drop like flies on this show, we were sure she was a goner.
She then came back to work at the hospital for a short period, before having it out with her newlywed husband, Alex, and it was at this time that she left and never came back. There was a lot of drama surrounding why the actress decided to leave the show, but the main reason that viewers were given at the time was that she had wanted some more on-screen time, but since there was such a big cast you practically had to beg for it. If you ask Shonda though, she would admit that it was just a lot of drama and that the show is better off.
16 The Night Out
If you started from the very beginning of this show, then you will remember this episode very clearly and how it all started out, Meredith has a little bit much. Her drink of choice is involved, and she then wakes up the next day with a strange man in her house. She later learns that the strange man is actually the head of the Neuro department where she just started her intern year. Throughout the show, you can see numerous people going to Joe’s bar after work to get rid of their stress, but it usually came down to Meredith and Christina.
The twisted sisters who loved their drinks, in fact, whenever something even remotely bad would happen they could be seen ‘dancing it out’ with bottles in hand in the middle of Meredith’s living room. Apparently, there was actually some reasoning behind putting this in the show. Creator Shonda Rhimes admits that she put this in the show because at the time women were never really seen on TV as heavy consumers and she felt that it was something that should be put in the story. Who knows, without all of that, we may have never had the story of Derek and Meredith.
15 Derek And Addison
If there was ever a time in the show where fans found themselves infuriated, it would have been when Derek’s wife Addison was introduced into the show. Before she had magically shown up at the hospital at the end of an episode, we didn’t even know that she had existed, and of course, by that point, we were all rooting for Derek and Meredith so this was just baffling. Of course, Derek being the nice guy that he was, he gave Addison another shot but ultimately ended up back in the arms of his true love Meredith.
In the original script though, things were supposed to be a lot more complicated than they actually were.
It turns out that Derek and Addison were originally supposed to have a teenage daughter. That certainly would have complicated things for him and Meredith, and we all know that Meredith was not mature enough at that point in the show to play the role of a stepmom. It also would have totally thrown off the story of Addison, who, as we know from her spin-off Private Practice, missed her chance to have a kid after she terminated the only pregnancy she ever had.
14 Arizona’s Disappearing Prosthetic
There seem to be a lot of traumatic events that take place on this show, understandably so since it takes place in a hospital, but the doctors themselves are constantly being put in harm’s way. One instance of this was when a large group of both attendings and interns were on a plane on their way to harvest some organs when the plane suddenly crashed in the middle of nowhere, leaving them to fight for their lives. During this crash, Lexi Grey perished, and Mark Sloan later passed away after they were rescued, Meredith and Christina walked away physically unharmed, Derek’s hand was greatly injured, and Arizona Robbins ended up having to have her leg amputated.
For almost an entire season we see the struggles that Arizona went through with coming to terms with losing a leg, and learning how to use her prosthetic, and it was a pretty emotional ride. However, not long after that season took place, and they stopped focusing on her recovery she magically seemed to regrow that missing leg. Of course, they don’t say that she re-grew it, but they no longer try to make it look like she has a prosthetic and so it comes off as if it just magically came back.
13 The Openings And Endings
Throughout the past 14 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, there is no doubt that a lot has changed, but one thing has remained the same, and that is the opening and ending of each episode. Usually, when an episode is first starting there is some dialogue that we hear during the first scene, and the same thing happens again during the last scene of the show. When the show was originally being thought of, that dialogue was supposed to Meredith’s one-sided conversations with her mother. But Ellis passed away in the early seasons so that never would have worked.
There is, however, a theory now that when the show ends, we will discover that the dialogue we were hearing was an older Meredith reading things from her diary to try to remember things that happened throughout her life after she developed alzheimers just like her mother had. Now, there is no evidence to back this one up, and it really is all just talk that someone thought up one day but we have to admit, it would make total sense. Afterall, we did learn in one episode after Meredith had some genetic mapping done, that she too has the alzheimer’s gene.
12 Isaiah Washington: Dedicated To His Work
When it comes to Grey’s Anatomy there are a lot of things that go on that remind us that it is nowhere close to real life, but we have to admit that the surgeries do look pretty legitimate. This is probably mostly thanks to great actors such as Isaiah Washington, the man behind Preston Burke, who are so very dedicated to their work. As it so turns out, Isaiah Washington was so dedicated to his work that he made sure to learn how to perform all of the surgeries before actually doing each episode. He claimed that this helped him be more prepared and made the show look more realistic, and he might be onto something with that, because it looked like he really knew what he was doing.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that he could perform the surgeries in real life, but it did give him the advantage of knowing what tools to ask for and where to put his hands. Maybe the other cast members from the show followed his lead because they all look pretty convincing to us. Sounds like a smart move on his part, too bad he left the show so early on, something we will go more in depth about in another entry.
11 The Originals
There is not doubt about the fact that this show was truly amazing in its early seasons, in fact, there is something about the early seasons that the new seasons just can’t seem to live up to. In the very first episode of this show, we were introduced to the interns, Meredith, Izzie, George, Alex, and Christina. A group of young surgeons to be who were filled with secrets, romance, drama, and pure talent when it came to their careers.
Of course, there have been other very vital characters in the show, such as the residents and attendings, but this group of individuals are who made the show so great.
Meredith and Christina were the twisted sisters who were there for each other through everything, George and Izzy were the best of friends who did experience a brief romance but remained friends until the end, and everyone loved Alex even though he was a bit arrogant at times and he eventually went on to marry Izzy. However in the many years that this show has been around characters have been lost and eliminated, leaving us today with only two of the original interns, Alex and Meredith. It is such a shame that people who are just now starting to watch this show in its later seasons will never know the pure awesomeness that was the original cast.
10 How Many Things Meredith Has Been Through
Meredith Grey is obviously the main character in this show, after all, it is called Grey’s Anatomy. Even more obvious is the fact that this is a television show that falls under the drama genre, so clearly there are going to be some pretty dramatic things that occur in each episode. However, you wouldn’t think that they would put the main character through so many traumatic experiences and still expect the show to be relatable. The average person only ever has about one truly traumatic experience in their life, Meredith Grey, however, seems to be a target for traumatic things because she has been through just about everything imaginable.
We all remember that intense episode where she had her hand on a bomb inside of a body cavity or that awful episode where a shooter comes into the hospital looking for Derek and eliminates a large portion of the doctors and Meredith suffers a miscarriage while trying to save him. Or how about that plane crash that ended her sister, destroyed Derek’s hand, lead to Mark’s demise, and took Arizona’s leg? We think that it is safe to say that this character has been through way more than anyone could ever imagine going through.
9 Isaiah Washington Gets Fired
The departure of Preston Burke on the show Grey’s Anatomy seemed very sudden, unexpected, uncalled for, and poorly executed, there is no doubt about that. It all started in the season finale of only the third season, it was Christina and Burke’s wedding day, we all knew that the character of Christina was not yet ready for marriage but she was prepared to do it because she truly loved Preston Burke. The episode ultimately ends after Christina takes too long to come down the aisle and Burke meets her just outside of the doors only to tell her that he is setting her free.
Fast forward to season four episode one, Burke never does come back, and Christina is coping fairly well. This wasn’t how the story was originally supposed to go though, in fact, Burke was never supposed to leave Christina at the altar. So how did this all come about? Well as it so turns out Isaiah Washington, the man who played Preston Burke, had some time restraint issues when it came to filming. To make matters worse he kept using homophobic slurs towards the actor who played George, and when he refused to stop doing so, he and Shonda decided it would be best to just let him go.
8 Derek Was Almost Dr. House
Hospital shows seem to be somewhat of a guilty pleasure, everyone loves to indulge in them from time to time, and their selections are pretty wide these days too. Back when Grey’s Anatomy first aired though, there was another hospital show that was just as awesome and everyone fell in love with both of them. Dr. House was a TV show that circled around the life of a substance-addicted doctor named House who was a bit of a jerk to everyone around him, but a genius doctor without a doubt.
What does this have to do with Grey’s Anatomy, you ask?
Well, it turns out that Patrick Dempsey (who played Derek Shepherd) didn’t always want to play the part of Derek, in fact, he originally auditioned for the role of House on Dr.House. Of course, that role ended up being handed to actor Hugh Laurie, who did a fabulous job on it and was certainly the perfect fit. It’s a good thing too, that the role was handed over to Hugh Laurie, because that’s what ultimately made Patrick audition for the part of Derek on Grey’s Anatomy and the show would never have been the same had that part gone to someone else.
7 April’s Pregnancy
The character of April Kepner has grown incredibly since she first came into the show, she started out as this shy immature young-looking girl, and she has since matured into a strong independent woman who has been through a lot. In this show, April has had two pregnancies, most true fans will remember the sad time when she gave birth to her stillborn son, but they will also remember how incredible it was when she gave birth to her beautiful little girl Harriet. What some fans might not know though, is that when the character of April was pregnant with Harriet, the actress was pregnant in real life too.
In fact, they even went into labor at the same time. When April gave birth to Harriet was quite the scene, Bailey’s husband Ben had to deliver the baby on the floor of Meredith’s living room and it was far from easy because the baby was still-breached at the time. Less than 24 hours after filming that intense birthing scene, the actress ended up giving birth to her baby in real life. Talk about timing! Apparently, while she was filming that scene she thought that she was having Braxton Hicks contractions, but when she went home for the day, she realized that those contractions were not going away.
6 The Wonderful Love Triangle
In the early episodes of this show, everyone was drawn in by the steamy and, at first secretive, relationship that was Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd. However, viewers were thrown for a giant loop when in season 2 a tall redheaded woman named Addison showed up, introducing herself to Meredith as Derek’s wife. In this scene, the shock on Meredith’s face is very much there as the tall beautiful redhead says the following line, “and you must be the woman that’s sleeping with my husband.”
It was at that moment that viewers started to lose their minds.
Most people would just assume that the shock of Addison’s arrival on both Derek and Meredith’s faces was just really good acting, but it turns out that it was real shock. Apparently, Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey had no idea that the character of Derek was supposed to be married until they were getting ready to film that scene. So they were actually just as surprised as their characters appeared to be. This was actually Shonda’s intention all along, she wanted to make sure that the shock factor was strong, and it certainly did work because both Ellen and Patrick admitted that they had no clue this huge plot twist was even coming.
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