Shonda Rhimes News

T.R. Knight isn't the only Grey's Anatomy name involved in theater work.

Chandra Wilson, who plays Dr. Miranda Bailey, has been starring in Chicago this summer, delighting audiences in the famous role of Matron “Mama” Morton in the hit musical.

At one of her recent shows, Wilson received a special visitor - none other than Grey's Anatomy creator / producer Shonda Rhimes. Here's Chandra with her boss backstage ...

After months of speculation surrounding the fate of Grey’s Anatomy’s George O’Malley, T.R. Knight, who plays the lovable doctor, is breaking his silence about his departure.

“The decision to leave Grey’s Anatomy was not an easy one for me to make,” T.R. Knight said in a statement today. “I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to play this character and will miss my fellow cast and crew very much."

"I continue to wish them the very best, and wholeheartedly thank all of the Grey's Anatomy fans who have supported me and the show with such passion and enthusiasm.”

T.R. Knight was an integral Grey's Anatomy cast member for five seasons.

Producer Shonda Rhimes simultaneously released her own statement, saying:

“I think I speak for the entire Grey’s Anatomy family when I say we wish T.R. Knight the best in his future endeavors. He is an incredibly talented actor and a person whose strength of character is admired by all of us.”

While T.R. Knight may be happy to depart from the show following a season of sparse screen time for George, co-star James Pickens, Jr., says the actor will be missed.

“He’s a good man, and a great actor,” Pickens, who plays Chief Richard Webber, says. “We have lots of laughs. I’m going to miss his sense of humor.”

The official confirmation comes just hours after word leaked that Knight's co-star and real-life BFF Katherine Heigl will be sticking around next season.

Knight is currently in talks to headline a Broadway revival of Lend Me a Tenor.

All of us here at Grey's Anatomy Insider would like to say thank you to T.R. Knight for his contributions to our favorite show over five seasons and over a hundred episodes. Best of luck wherever the future takes you, T.R.!

Was that really Meredith and Derek's wedding last night? Is Arizona Robbins sticking around Seattle Grace? Will Izzie and/or "John Doe" a.k.a. George survive?

All these burning questions linger after last night's season finale (see our recaps of Part I and Part II). Fortunately, Shonda Rhimes is providing some answers.

Some answers.

The Grey's Anatomy creator and executive producer spoke to Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly about all these issues and much more, including the "ghost sex" controversy, Katherine Heigl's Emmy chances, and T.R. Knight's alleged unhappiness.

Here's the text of EW's interview with Shonda ...

EW: Rumors have been swirling all year that Katherine and TR wanted off the show. The season ends with both their characters' lives hanging in the balance. Purely coincidental?

Shonda Rhimes: I don't think there are any coincidences. I think Katherine's stated publicly that she's happy to stay. I think that there have been lots of rumors about T.R., but T.R.'s never said anything. Take from it what you will.

EW: This kind of cliffhanger almost seems tailor-made to capitalize on some of those headlines and generate buzz.

Shonda Rhimes: You have to remember, I have two shows. It's not as if I spend a lot of time reading the press. We talk about stuff in the writers' room that other people have read, but, mostly, we were really moving on character. Every year at the beginning of the season I pitch what the end of the season is going to be. And I literally sat down and pitched the last 10 minutes of this season at the beginning of the season, so we were headed towards the place that we knew we were going to go.

EW: Do you know which one of them lives and which one of them dies?

Shonda Rhimes: Yes. And I don't know that you should be saying "which one of them lives and which one of them dies." I know what happens to the characters.

Continue Reading...

Below is Shonda Rhimes' blog about "What a Difference a Day Makes," Thursday night's terrific episode of Grey's Anatomy. Here's what the show's creator and executive producer had to say about the events of that night and the 100th episode milestone ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay. So... 100. 100 episodes. Which means I was so tired last night that I forgot to blog. But I’m blogging now. I’m here now.

First, a warning: this is our last blog of the season. It’s also our last podcast and today will be my last tweets of the season.

We’re going dark, people.

Why? Because next week’s episodes (two in one night) are so explosive and cliff-hanger-y that we, the writers, have all agreed that we can’t even talk about them. For fear of giving anything away. We honestly can’t say a word. But know that we are proud.

Of the episodes. And of you.

For sticking with us. For 100 plus episodes. For going through the good and the bad. For having faith in us. And in our characters. We thank you and we appreciate it. There are not words to express how much we appreciate it.

So this is the last you will hear from us until next season.

What can I say about the 100th? Well, there was a wedding. Which made some of you cry and made some you mad. There was Denny. Which made some of you cry and some of you mad.

But mostly, there was a point. I had a point!

That happy woman you saw? Doing her solo surgery and smiling at the Chief?  The one giving her wedding away with warmth and joy? THAT WAS THE SAME WOMAN WHO TRIED TO DROWN HERSELF. That was our dark and twisty girl. All grown up. Whole. Healed. FOR REAL.

It was a day I never thought we’d see (well, I did think it but... hell, you know what I mean). For once, Mer is the calm one. The happy one. The one who is fine.

For once, Mer is whole and healed and happy.

She doesn’t have a problem ... well, other than the Chief peeking over her shoulder during her solo surgery. She is excited about her marriage. She is calm. She doesn’t need her eyebrows shaved off to be numbed into the submission of marriage. She is fine.

Continue Reading...

Despite ongoing reports that she wanted out of her Grey's Anatomy contract and that she was being killed off the show, Katherine Heigl said she wants to stay on the medical drama if her character, Izzie, survives brain surgery.

"I was assuming that [Izzie would die] at one point, and all I got were a lot of shrugged shoulders and shakes of the head, so I don't know if that's a yes or a no," she told the Associated Press Friday at a party celebrating the show's 100th episode.

"No one will tell me and I don't know how this is going to go."

Katherine Heigl noted that the decision rests solely with the show and series creator Shonda Rhimes, who is known to value plot secrecy.

"I don't know if I live or die," Heigl said. "I don't know how Izzie fares."

Dr. Izzie Stevens has metastatic melanoma - skin cancer - that spread to her brain, giving her only a five percent chance of survival, a story the show has built up for months courtesy of her visions of her late fiance, Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

On Thursday's episode, "Elevator Love Letter," she survived brain surgery.

Still, Heigl said, "I'm there" if Izzie remains part of Grey's Anatomy, for which she has starred since it debuted on ABC in March 2005. She called the set "one of my favorite places to be" and said her colleagues are also some of her best friends.

Rhimes, who is also an executive producer, declined to comment on what will happen to Heigl's character, but she did reveal a clue about the 100th episode, airing May 7.

"The only thing I'll tell you about the 100th is that it takes place on Meredith [Ellen Pompeo] and Derek's [Patrick Dempsey] wedding day," Rhimes said.

"That's big ... and that's all I'm going to say."

Well, guess we're no longer in the dark about that.

Katherine Heigl, who some thought was wanting to be released from the show to focus on her movie career (Knocked Up, 27 Dresses), said she's comfortable balancing film and TV work by taking on big-screen projects during the summer hiatus.

"I'm more than happy to make that compromise," Heigl said. "As my agent likes to say, 'High-class problems.' I don't know if I want to continue for five years working 12 months a year, but I can take at least another year or two."

Grey's Anatomy creator and executive producer Shonda Rhimes wants to set the record straight: T.R. Knight and Katherine Heigl are not leaving the show.

"That was a very interesting rumor," Rhimes said Thursday night at the 40th NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles. "And it's not true."

Rhimes was referring to a recent comment in the press attributed to Grey's Anatomy cast member James Pickens, Jr., in which the actor was said to be confirming the long-rumored departure of both Heigl and Knight, two of the series' original stars.

"That was absolutely taken out of context," said Rhimes.

"Things happen, and ... I think rumors become fact very easily. And you know I don't like to tell you what's going to happen on the show - but that is a rumor."

These two are the subject of many rumors.

For his part, Pickens says he meant to wish the pair well in general.

"We've been living with these rumors for a long time," he said. "When the question was posed to me, I was more trying to congratulate Katie and T.R. on whatever they were going to do."

"But, yeah, I don't have any special info about it either way."

ABC's Grey's Anatomy took home three awards, including Chandra Wilson's win for outstanding actress in a drama series. Wilson said she was looking forward to the show's upcoming 100th episode – and insisted things were all good on the set.

"We're laughing at the rumors, as we always do," Wilson said before the ceremony. "Stories come out, and [there are] these big quotes, and we go, 'But that's not exactly what I said.' So, we're busy doing our jobs, doing our work."

On upcoming Grey's Anatomy episodes more patients will be surviving.

Elsewhere in Hollywood, movie directors say they want to make positive thinking the newest trend. And a group of academics, sensing a pattern, has launched a study asking Americans how hopeful they've felt since the presidential election.

Some say that it's all part of a Barack Obama-fueled boom in optimism. And it's a trend that many think could continue in movies and television.

"I think optimism is going to be the new cool," said Rick Cleveland, a veteran television writer who has worked on The West Wing, Six Feet Under and Mad Men. Barack Obama, he said, "can be the torchbearer" for the new positivity.

Feeling good about the future? You're not alone. A New York Times poll conducted last week found that 79 percent of Americans are optimistic about the next four years under Obama. Could "The Audacity of Hope" become a new national motto?

Hollywood seems to think so.

Shonda Rhimes, executive producer of ABC's Grey's Anatomy and its spinoff, Private Practice, says she and the writers - all Obama supporters - are feeling so encouraged by the new president's victory that they're creating more hopeful story lines in which doctors are accomplishing more surgical victories and "more patients are living."

Continue reading this article in the Chicago Tribune ...

With speculation swirling that T.R. Knight wants out of Grey's Anatomy, people have all but written off his beloved character, George O'Malley - this fan site included.

But Eric Dane insists it's not official, and this recent news / spoiler item we came across indicates that maybe - just maybe - George's departure is not a done deal.

This from TV Guide's Matt Mitovich, in response to a reader inquiry ...

Q: Is there any indication that Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes is going to adjust her stories because of all of the recent negative feedback?

A: I doubt that Rhimes will alter any master plans, especially when it comes to the Izzie-Denny romance which, though polarizing, seems destined to serve some greater purpose. Now, speaking of "negative feedback," I've got at least one inside source telling me that T.R. Knight's apparent disenchantment with Grey's Anatomy might not necessarily result in him exiting the series early. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see cooler heads prevail?

Shonda Rhimes speaks! The Grey's Anatomy creator and executive producer posted some thoughts on last night's premiere on her official blog. But basically, she's content letting this terrific episode speak for itself - and telling us we ain't seen nothin' yet ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So Derek got dead, Mer and Cristina got old together, and Izzie showed Denny her prom dress.

Such is the stuff of dreams.  Which was kind of my theme. For this episode.  And this season. Dreams. And whether or not they come true.

This is Season Five, people.

We, the writers, we call it our all in, go for broke season. We’re like the Chief – the bar has been raised and we’re the ones raising it. For us, Grey's Anatomy is new again. Full of chances and possibilities. Our characters are new again, starting fresh. We’re hopeful again.

And we’re enjoying being hopeful. All the rules are changing.

I know you are wondering, “Okay, what does this mean?” And I could tell you. But I’d rather you watch and see for yourselves.

Continue Reading...

Kate Walsh has a big job ahead for fall. First and foremost, the actress has to help with the relaunch Private Practice, the much-touted but somewhat disappointing spinoff of Grey's Anatomy about a beach-based group of randy L.A. doctors.

But even though her character, Dr. Addison Montgomery, is starting to settle in at the Oceanside Wellness Center (David Sutcliffe guest stars as her boy toy!) she may take another trip back to Seattle Grace sometime this year.

The creator and executive producer of both shows, Shonda Rhimes, sort of hinted at this in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.

"I don't know if it's going to work with the story, and we don't want her to come back for a visit if it doesn't feel important, something only Addison can do," says Rhimes, wary of it being seen as a stunt. "But the idea is on the table."

This wouldn't be the first return of Addison; the redhead showed up in a Season Four episode of Grey's Anatomy last spring with Private Practice on hiatus.