"Made a doll": When Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo broke silence around shooting coma scenes

During Grey's Anatomy Season 17, Ellen Pompeo's character, Meredith Grey, spent a significant part of the season in a COVID-19-induced coma. To avoid having the actress lie in a hospital bed for long hours, the production team made a lifelike doll of her. However, this decision led to some unexpected drama, both on and off-screen.

In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Pompeo revealed that she once tweeted about the doll, which got her "in big trouble."

"I tweeted about the doll and then I got in big trouble because they said, 'You're ruining the illusion for the audience.' And I said, 'The audience can't possibly think that's me.'"

The actress didn’t specify who asked her to take the tweet down, but it was clear that the production team wanted to maintain the magic of TV.

Pompeo admitted that, at first, the doll looked shockingly realistic, almost too real for comfort.

"It was crazy. I couldn't even look at it. It was scary."

But over time, something strange started happening.

"I think what happens is, with the lights and the heat, that latex degrades. And so the doll kept looking worse and worse. By whatever episode it was, I was like, 'It's starting not to look like me.' At first, it looked really like me, and then it just starts looking worse and worse, like Meredith's not looking so good."

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The coma storyline

Pompeo joked about how people on set must have thought her character’s condition was declining dramatically, even though it was just the doll falling apart.

"I was like, 'That's a doll! That's not me! I'm gorgeous!'"

The process of making the Meredith Grey doll wasn’t fun for Pompeo, either. She described the experience as uncomfortable and claustrophobic.

"It's weird. It's uncomfortable. They basically just cover your head in latex and paper mâché, and it feels like it lasts forever. It dries up your nose."

Being encased in a mold for hours sounds like a nightmare, but the result was a doll that initially looked eerily close to Pompeo before it started falling apart.

Season 17 of Grey’s Anatomy focused heavily on Meredith’s coma and her near-death experience. The show used this time to bring back beloved characters, including Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) and George O’Malley (T.R. Knight), in dream sequences.

Pompeo revealed that she had pitched a specific idea for this season.

"It was my idea to pay homage to many things in many different seasons and to give the audience things to watch out for."

Fans speculated that this Season might have been Pompeo’s last, though she remained on the show for a bit longer before ultimately exiting in Season 19.

The story behind Meredith Grey’s coma scenes in Grey’s Anatomy is both hilarious and a little creepy. While the doll was meant to help production, it ended up causing trouble for Pompeo, making things awkward on set, and slowly decomposing under the lights.

If nothing else, it added another unforgettable moment to the history of the long-running medical drama.

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