Katherine Heigl wished Denny's demise on 'Gray's Anatomy' to be as 'heart-wrenching' as potential, so she considered her personal brother dying when she was 7

• Katherine Heigl went to a painful place to behave out Izzie’s grief over Denny’s demise on “Gray’s Anatomy.”
• Heigl instructed former costar Ellen Pompeo she recalled her brother’s demise to make the scene “heart-wrenching.”
• On reflection, Heigl stated she does not suppose she’d go there once more and would “simply act it” as an alternative.

Katherine Heigl opened as much as Ellen Pompeo about placing herself right into a painful “headspace” to be able to movie certainly one of her most iconic “Gray’s Anatomy” scenes.

As a part of Selection’s Actors on Actors sequence, Pompeo and Heigl reunited to speak about their time on the hit medical drama.

At one level within the dialog, the 2 had been reminiscing about a few of the enjoyable occasions that they had throughout filming and Pompeo introduced up the season two finale, “Shedding My Faith.”

Within the episode, Heigl’s character Izzie Stevens, Pompeo’s character Meredith Gray, and the opposite interns had been attending a promenade they’d deliberate for the niece of Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) on the hospital.

Pompeo recalled “sleeping on the ground” of the Veterans Affairs hospital in Northridge, California the place they filmed the finale.

She additionally remembered standing exterior within the hallway whereas Heigl shot the scene the place Izzie cuts the left ventricular-assisting system (LVAD) maintaining her love curiosity Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in steady situation, in an unethical effort to deteriorate his situation so he would transfer up on the heart-transplant listing.

“Nobody truly even wished you to do this scene. We’re like, no, change it, let’s do something to alter it,” Pompeo instructed Heigl of the controversial second that precipitated the demise of fan-favorite character Denny within the finale.

Heigl stated the Denny storyline “was so intriguing” to her and enjoyable to work on, crediting Morgan as a “dream” to work with.

She then recalled to Pompeo how she “so badly” wished to nail the scene the place Izzie breaks down after discovering Denny has unexpectedly died in his hospital mattress after a seemingly profitable heart-transplant surgical procedure.

“I simply wished it to really feel the best way it was written on the web page. I wished it to be as heart-wrenching and all the issues,” Heigl instructed Pompeo.

To take action, she employed an performing strategy she stated she usually would not use: recalling her personal brother’s demise, which occurred when she was 7 years outdated, to be able to channel the ache Izzie could be feeling within the scene.

“I do not try this entire ‘go into the darkish place and take heed to the music that is gonna tear my soul aside,’ and take into consideration all of the issues in my life. And the worst was that I actually went there,” Heigl stated. “I used to be 7 when my brother died however we had been within the hospital for per week. And I do not take pleasure in excited about that a lot or that week within the hospital or him in that mattress, however I selected to do this for that scene.”

On reflection, Heigl does not suppose she’s “put herself in that headspace once more” to get that sort of efficiency.

“I believe I might attempt more durable to only act it,” she stated.

Heigl’s older brother Jason died in 1986, per week earlier than his sixteenth birthday. In keeping with Heigl’s 2021 Instagram put up commemorating the thirty fifth anniversary of Jason’s demise, her brother was in a automobile accident and remained within the ICU for per week earlier than being taken off life assist.

Pompeo identified that moments like Izzie’s breakdown over Denny’s physique, which gained Heigl loads of crucial reward when the episode initially aired, “are what made the present as iconic as it’s.”

“Artwork is all the time value it, as a result of folks watch that scene and it is cathartic for them. Most individuals have misplaced folks, and all people loves a great cry,” Pompeo instructed Heigl. “We made folks really feel issues, Katie, and that’s the largest reward as an actor — to have the ability to make folks really feel.”

You’ll be able to watch Heigl and Pompeo’s full dialog for Selection under.