Chyler Leigh News

The youngest and second-newest Grey's Anatomy cast member, Chyler Leigh, celebrates her birthday today. She is 26. Happy birthday to the lovely actress!

She's only been on 13 episodes (11 this season and two at the end of Season Three, when her character was introduced), but she's already left her mark.

While Chyler Leigh began her tenure on Grey's Anatomy as America's Most Hated, most viewers have warmed to young Dr. Lexie Grey now that she is not seen as an unwanted obstacle to Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd being together.

Here's wishing Chyler Leigh a happy birthday, and looking forward to seeing what happens with the Lexie-Alex-Ava love triangle when the show returns!

The cute brunette is stirring up Grey's Anatomy fans as Lexie Grey, and not just because she's so gorgeous - she's been the center of attention ever since she was introduced as the sister of Meredith Grey and recent love interest of Alex Karev.

Little is known, relatively speaking, about the past works of this actress. Well, that said, some Grey's Anatomy fans have unearthed a 1997 B-movie, called "Kickboxing Academy," that Chyler Leigh starred in when she was just 15.

Interestingly, the actress' love interest in the virtually unknown movie is played by her real-life brother, Christopher Khayman Lee. And yes, the New York Daily News reports, there are kissing scenes in the movie. A few of them.

Chyler Leigh, 25, has certainly come a long way.

Hey, whatever you have to do to get your career started, right? Chyler Leigh, who was in a number of failed series and smaller films before getting her big break on Grey's Anatomy, has also overcome considerable personal adversity in her life.

We're glad she's a member of the Grey's Anatomy cast and look forward to learning more about her - as well as seeing where her character is headed.

Here's the shocker from the first two (and, from the looks of spoilers, at least the next few) episodes of Season Four of Grey's Anatomy:

Lexie Grey doesn't hook up with anybody.

Not McDreamy, not McSteamy, not George. Nobody.

"Around here, it's the ongoing joke," the petite actress who plays Lexie, Chyler Leigh, tells the New York Post. "Who am I going to sleep with?"

Who indeed? As Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes tries to recover from a grim third season, she's trying hard to recreate a satisfying soufflé of sublime surgeons with fragile, complicated love lives and life-and-death medical crises.

The most potent new ingredient she's poured into the pot is Chyler Leigh, who plays Meredith Grey's Harvard-educated half-sister, Lexie.

Leigh interviewed for the high-profile role last November, but wasn't told until three days before filming the two-part season finale last April that her character would be Meredith's sister.

"This was all a huge secret," says Leigh. "They didn't want anyone to know I was coming."

But now the actress can fill in the blank.

"Lexie's mother died unexpectedly. Her father (Meredith's dad, Thatcher) is a basket case and drinking. "Lexie Grey was supposed to do her internship at Massachusetts General but came home to be with her dad."

Does half-sister Meredith welcome her with open arms?

Hardly. Especially after Meredith finds out that Lexie and Derek (Patrick Dempsey) have already met over drinks at Joe's Bar.

"Meredith pretty much doesn't want anything to do with her," Leigh said.

Leigh, who is married to actor Nathan West and has two young children, says she never watched Grey's Anatomy before the audition and had to play serious catch-up prior to joining the cast for Season Four.

When she found out last fall that she was up for a role, "my husband and I rented it on DVD and watched non-stop for about a day and a half. I was emotionally drained and exhausted. But I fell in love with the show."

Even the third season? Chyler Leigh pauses, and then decides not to censor herself. At 25, she is a quick-witted and intense young woman.

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Good thing Chyler Leigh has a sense of humor.

Talking about McDreamy and McSteamy with her on the set, Will Keck of USA Today complimented Chyler on her real-life McDreamy - a handsome actor.

Which was nice, until his name was mentioned (Jason Behr of Roswell), and Chyler looked as if the reporter were from another planet.

Jason Behr, it turns out, is actually the husband of Private Practice actress KaDee Strickland (and the ex-boyfriend of Katherine Heigl, incidentally).

Fortunately, Leigh just laughed and talked about her love for actor Nathan West, her actual husband. Unfortunately, she wouldn't fill us in on who her character is going to hook up with this season. Stay tuned on that.

New faces are checking in to Seattle Grace to help fill recent vacancies. Veteran actor Edward Herrmann, 64, signs up for a few episodes as Norman, the world's oldest intern; someone from the past may be returning (we're not telling who); as well as Diahann Carroll, as Dr. Preston Burke's mom.

But the biggest staffing change is Chyler Leigh, 25, who plays a character with a familiar last name: Grey. Meredith's half-sister, Dr. Lexie Grey.

While having another Grey around naturally complicates life for Ellen Pompeo's character, cast members rave about the addition of Leigh.

"She's the sweetest, coolest, funniest chick," says Katherine Heigl (Izzie).

"I think she is one of those girls who is quiet, because it's her first season on the show. I imagine it's awkward and difficult to come in to a cast that has been here for years. But you spend a little one-on-one time with her, and she's hysterical."

Chyler Leigh has much to celebrate beyond landing a role on one of the hottest dramas on TV in Grey's Anatomy. It comes after some very rocky times.

Born in Charlotte and raised in Virginia Beach, her folks divorced when she was 12. She moved with her mother to Miami, where the mother remarried her first husband. Like Lexie Grey, she, too, has distant half-siblings.

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If Chyler Leigh already feels nervous, like the new kid in school, let's hope she doesn't read too many Grey's Anatomy fan sites.

Leigh joined the show as Lexie Grey, Meredith Grey's half-sister and new Seattle Grace intern, for Season Three's final two episodes. Two weeks ago, she became a series regular.

The news hasn't gone over well with fans, but on her second day of filming on the Grey's Anatomy set this season, the new cast member tells People magazine that she - and everyone else - is happy to be back.

"Everyone is super gung-ho about the season," Leigh said. "Shonda Rhimes said in her blog that this is going to be a different season. Last season was so dramatic, everything came crashing down. This season will be the redemption from that mayhem."

The show was rocked by the controversy over Isaiah Washington's remarks, ending with the actor's dismissal and parting comments.

But Chyler Leigh, 25, says the experience of joining a hit show as big as Greys Anatomy has been a series of pinch-me moments.

"I'm still in every moment looking behind myself going: Who me?'" she says. "I still walk on and before every scene my heart starts pounding, but that's always been the case for me. I use it as a motivator."

Leigh is married to actor Nathan Woods and has two children with him, Noah, 3, and Taelyn, 10 months. She's had several roles to prepare her for the experience, including gigs on Reunion and The Practice.

"At first I had that kind of new kid in school feeling," the newest Grey's Anatomy star jokes. "But everyone has been warm and welcoming with lots of hugs and pats on the back. This whole experience has been wonderfully overwhelming. My biggest thing right now is just: Buckle up! I don't know what to expect."

TV Guide reports today that the Grey's Anatomy brain trust has officially promoted Chyler Leigh (a.k.a. Mer's half-sister, Lexie Grey) to a series regular.

An ABC Studios rep confirmed the move, stating that Chyler Leigh is signed for at least 13 episodes at the present time.

The news confirms our story from last week about Leigh possibly joining the cast.

It also comes in spite of a report that Grey's test audiences chewed up and spit out the Lexie character during a recent focus group.

Her flirtation with Derek Shepherd - one of only two scenes featuring Lexie Grey thus far - didn't help.

In any case, Chyler Leigh appears to be here to stay.

In related news, the spin-off, Private Practice, also added a new star in KaDee Strickland (The Wedding Bells) to play the administrator of Oceanside Wellness Center. She too will be a series regular.

Despite appearing for a grand total of about two minutes at the end of Season 3, Chyler Leigh almost instantly became Grey's Anatomy's most hated.

So great is the animosity and concern over the arrival of Lexie Grey that many readers couldn't bear to participate in our Caption Contest involving her.

What's to come of the younger Grey intern in Season 4? We'll have to wait and see.

But here's a little tidbit from the TV Guide insider Michael Ausiello on Grey's Anatomy and Chyler Leigh...

Question: I hear that Mer's sister on Grey's Anatomy (a.k.a. Chyler Leigh) will be made a series regular next season. Seriously?
Ausiello: Nothing official yet, but that's what I'm hearing, too. Speaking of Grey's Anatomy, the title of the season premiere just landed on my lap, and, considering what Shonda Rhimes put us through in that finale, it sounds very promising. It's called, "A Change Is Gonna Come."

Looks like there's plenty more to be seen from Lexie Grey. And what do you think the change that's gonna come refers to?

Perhaps it's appropriate that as Addison - once the most hated TV wife in America - mulls her departure from Seattle Grace, a new Grey's Anatomy guest star may spell trouble for Meredith and Derek.

According to E! Online's Kristin Veitch, sources close to Grey's Anatomy report that Chyler Leigh â€" the former Reunion star who plays the woman in the bar we saw in the previews for this week - has just been offered a role in a multiple-episode arc for next season.

Fans no doubt hope that her storyline has something to do with Cristina or Burke or Dr. Bailey or Callie or Izzie or... pretty much anyone but Derek Shepherd.

But if the first few seasons of Grey's Anatomy are any indication, we wouldn't count on it. Even if they belong together, the producers seem to devise new ways to drive Mer and Der apart.