The Truth About Ellen Pompeo And Sandra Oh's Relationship
Ask anyone to list the best on-screen friendships in television history, and it's almost guaranteed that Ellen Pompeo's Meredith Grey and Sandra Oh's Cristina Yang would be mentioned. Both characters have been solid right from the start in "Grey's Anatomy," and together, they conquered their cutthroat surgical internships, residencies, and fellowships, and had each other's backs when the other would screw up or find themselves in a sticky situation.
"You're my person," they would always tell each other, and they truly were. Through messed-up surgeries, boy trouble, and even tragedies like hospital shootings and plane crashes, Meredith and Cristina never left each other's sides. However, in Season 10, Oh made the difficult decision to leave "Grey's" to pursue other acting opportunities. "Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let her go," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013. "It's such an interesting thing to play a character for so long and to actually get the sense that she wants to be let go as well. [Cristina] wants to be let go, and I am ready to let her go. We have to start the process, story-wise, for the Grey's writers to think of why she's going to go."
On the show, even long after Cristina had left, the characters, especially Meredith, would still mention her from time to time to maintain the narrative that they're still the best of friends. But many are also wondering if the on-screen friendship between Ellen Pompeo and Sandra Oh translates to a real-life bond.
Ellen Pompeo and Sandra Oh are friends in real life
"Grey's Anatomy" fans would be delighted to know that Ellen Pompeo and Sandra Oh are friends even off-screen. While they're not exactly the best friends everyone hoped they would be, they still have a close rapport. After all, you can't spend 10 years on a show together and not form some sort of bond.
Pompeo never harbored ill feelings towards Oh when she left the show. In fact, when the actor won a SAG Award for her work in "Killing Eve," Pompeo took to Twitter to tell the world how proud she is of her former co-star. "Since Arliss @IamSandraOh has been a girl you cannot take your eyes off of when she's on screen... her skill is hard to put into words but man these accolades are sooo deserved," she wrote at the time. "Absolutely thrilled for this talented woman."
She also said that while she would love to have Oh back on "Grey's," she's perfectly content with supporting her from the sidelines and watching her kill it in other projects. "Selfishly I would love to see Sandra Oh come back to 'Grey's'... but I also love 'Killing Eve' so much, and I love seeing her have so many of these incredible moments," she told TV Line. "So, as much as I love Sandra, I'd rather see her shine out on her own. I enjoy that more. That's more gratifying to me."
Ellen Pompeo almost left Grey's Anatomy with Sandra Oh
It's hard to imagine "Grey's Anatomy" without Meredith Grey herself, but Ellen Pompeo revealed that she once contemplated leaving the show right by the time Sandra Oh announced that it would be her final season.
"When Sandra Oh left the show I was like, ugh, how do I go on without Sandra?" she said in an interview on "The Armchair Expert" podcast. "More of my work, my day-to-day scenes, were with Sandra and she was such an amazing scene partner. I was like, is there a show without Sandra." She eventually decided to stay, and luckily, Oh helped her prepare for her exit. "[She] left in the most amazing way," Pompeo told Entertainment Tonight. "She gave everybody so much notice. She knew 10 seasons was all she wanted to do and they don't get much classier than Sandra Oh."
When she filmed her last scene with Pompeo, Oh said that it was one of the hardest scenes she's ever done, but one that she will always cherish. "It was deeply emotional... I can't speak for how it was for her to shoot that, but at the very end, I remember feeling for our chests embracing," she recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. "I'm holding her and I can hear that she's tearing up. I was holding her and it felt like we were one body."