Ellen Pompeo recalled a 'knock-down, drag-out fight' with a 'Grey's Anatomy' director after he asked her to do a stunt that injured a professional stunt woman, says a new book
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- Ellen Pompeo had a "knock-down, drag-out fight" with a director before performing a stunt.
- The stunt involved being blown backwards after a fictional bomb was detonated inside the hospital.
- "He insisted I do the stunt. I said, 'A fucking professional stunt woman just gave herself a concussion doing it," the actress said.
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One of the biggest events in "Grey's Anatomy" history happened in 2006 when a bomb was discovered inside of a man and Meredith Grey is sent hurdling backwards after it detonates.
Actress Ellen Pompeo, who's played the fictional doctor for 17 seasons, said she fought with the director of the now-iconic episode when he asked her to perform the stunt, which had just injured a stunt woman on set.
During the second episode, titled "As We Know It," Meredith sticks her hand in a man's chest cavity to prevent an active bomb from exploding. She then had to hand the bomb over to "the bomb squad guy," Dylan (Kyle Chandler), to defuse and dispose of it - but the bomb explodes in his face before he accomplishes his mission.
The impact sends Meredith - who's watching Dylan's precarious steps from the door of the OR - reeling backward, causing her to hit her head.
In "How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey's Anatomy," by Entertainment Weekly's editor at large Lynette Rice, director Peter Horton said while filming the high-stakes scene, a stuntwoman was injured while trying to capture being blown back.
The director said the young woman "wasn't quite prepared" to get "yanked" or to have "her head snapped back" as she fell on the floor.
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"And boy, did it. You could hear it," he continued, adding that she "clearly she had whacked her head hard" so she "had to go through concussion protocol."
Still, Horton needed another take. So he asked Pompeo to take the woman's place.
"We had a knock-down, drag-out fight because he insisted I do the stunt. I said, 'A fucking professional stuntwoman just gave herself a concussion doing it," the actress told Rice in 2017.
"I can barely see straight," Pompeo added, noting that she'd been working for 18 hours.
Eventually, Pompeo did perform the stunt, but the actress said "of course they used" the stunt woman's take.
Horton insisted, however, that the editors "used part of Ellen's take, which is the part she never remembers."
The director, who not only directed the pilot episode but served as a executive producer for the series from 2005 to 2007, also told Rice that he'd never put Pompeo "in jeopardy," adding: "We pulled her much slower than we pulled the stunt double."
"How to Save a Life" gives "Grey's Anatomy" fans an in-depth look behind-the-scenes of the show's most iconic episodes.