How did Ellen Pompeo survive the mean streets of Everett to become dramatic television’s highest-earning actress? Easy. She stood up for herself.
In an essay in The Hollywood Reporter, Pompeo, who’s starred on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” since the medical drama debuted 12 years ago, comes across as both wise and ruthless.
And it’s paid off. The 48-year-old actress, who once harbored ambitions of being a movie star, signed a contract in 2017 that pays her $20 million annually — that’s $575,000 per “Grey’s” episode — and she received a seven-figure signing bonus as well. (If you think she’s overpaid, consider this: “Grey’s Anatomy” has made $3 billion for Disney.)
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No, Pompeo isn’t appearing in critically-acclaimed movies, but so what.
“I’ve chosen to financially empower myself so that I never have to be ducking predators and chasing trophies,” she says. “It’s not for everyone. You have to be more interested in business than you are in acting.”
Pompeo says the departure of her “Grey’s” castmate Patrick Dempsey was good news for her when it came time to negotiate her new deal.
“They could always use him as leverage against me — ‘We don’t need you; we have Patrick’ — which they did for years,” she says. “I don’t know if they also did that to him, because he and I never discussed our deals. There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that.”
About that “ducking predators” comment: Pompeo repeats a story she’s told before about a meeting she had with producer Harvey Weinstein back in the day.
“I went right up to his room at the Peninsula, which I would never normally do, but Harvey was a New York guy, so it made sense. Plus, it was in the middle of the day, and he had an assistant there,” she says. “He didn’t try anything on me. Had he, I’m a little rough around the edges and I grew up around some very tough people, so I probably would have picked up a vase and cracked him over the [expletive] head. But I also feel completely comfortable saying that I walked into that room batting the [expletive] out of my eyelashes. My goal in that room was to charm him, as it is in most rooms like that.”
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