The Stunning Transformation Of Ellen Pompeo

Ellen Pompeo always wanted to act, but, as she told Allure, she was much too shy to get started in such a career. "I was very sad and introverted as a child, and I would never, ever have had the confidence or the extroverted nature to be in a school play," she said. But one day when she was very young, an aunt and uncle In New York took her to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in New York City (via E! News), and she became inspired: "Afterward, I stood up and said, 'That's what I want to be. They're alive. That's what I want to do.'"

While she would, of course, later find success in the world of entertainment, it wasn't easy, and her early life didn't make it any easier. As she told People, "Where I come from, you don't just say, 'Oh, I'm going to become an actor.'"

Ellen Pompeo left her home in Massachusetts after high school and a short time at college and headed for Miami, working there tending bar. In an interview with Playboy (via E! News), she shared, "I wouldn't say I was a good drink maker, but I was a very good hustler." Pompeo said she would make customers wait for their drinks until they put enough money down on the bar. If customers "put money down on the bar and it wasn't enough," she said, "I'd go wait on someone else who was giving me enough money." She revealed she'd sometimes make guests wait for their drinks until she saw $20.

Soon enough, she moved to New York City, where opportunity and talent fortuitously collided. While working as a bartender at the Soho Kitchen in New York in 1995, according to the Los Angeles Times, a casting director spoke to her about being in commercials. She called the casting director the next day and was sent to audition for three commercials, getting each and every one, including L'Oreal. The L'Oreal ad, said Pompeo, "was actually really cute," noting, "They dyed my hair red." She added, "And then I booked like 20 more commercials after that because I had this great red hair."

Ellen Pompeo successfully auditioned for a role in the 2002 film Moonlight Mile, playing the part of Bertie, a postal clerk who eventually connects with Jake Gyllenhaal's character. Film critic Roger Ebert was very impressed by her in the film. Of her performance, he said in a review, "Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot be written, only felt. ...  She is so vulnerable in this movie..."

Pompeo, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, garnered serious interest from major filmmakers. She was cast in Catch Me if You Can, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, and played flight attendant Marci. More film roles followed, including a part in the 2003 film Daredevil and the comedy Old School. Notably she also appeared on an episode of Friends. 

But, according to THR, "by 2004, her movie career had stalled and she was perilously close to broke."

In 2006, Ellen Pompeo got engaged to record producer Chris Ivery. He proposed to Pompeo on her 37th birthday after having breakfast at their home, as reported by the Associated Press. He presented her with a beautiful engagement ring with a "3.5-carat emerald-cut diamond in a platinum setting," according to People. The two had been dating for three years at that point, after having first built a friendship for about six months. "We were friends for six months; then one night she just looked different to me," Ivery previously explained to the magazine.

Notably, the two had grown up in the Boston area a short distance apart from one another, though they didn't meet until later in life. "We were six degrees our whole lives, so I feel like we were sort of meant to be," Pompeo explained to People. "We'll get married eventually, secretly."  And, eventually, they did.

By 2011, Ellen Pompeo started her own production company, Calamity Jane, as reported by Deadline, and she became more involved as a producer. During a 2014 panel discussion hosted by BuzzFeed, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, she said, "I definitely don't have a strong desire to act after Grey's; I definitely feel myself transitioning." She continued that she simply didn't always want to work for others. And, as she told The Hollywood Reporter, she "enjoys" producing.

Still, Pompeo is grateful for all that acting has done for her. In BuzzFeed's panel discussion, she shared, "Maybe part of my personality is I feel like I have something to prove sometimes. And with acting, I don't feel like I have anything to prove anymore..." Noting Grey's success in other countries and the amount of fans it's secured, she noted that she wanted to "challenge [herself]."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Debbie Allen was behind Ellen Pompeo directing the 2017 episode "Be Still, My Soul," marking the actress' directorial debut, as noted by Variety. As THR reported, Pompeo wasn't at all keen on directing at first. "I have a new baby at home, two other adorable little kids, a husband, three dogs, four chickens and a fish," she said, "and I told Debbie that I couldn't possibly be here another minute than I already am." But Pompeo eventually came around to the idea, later directing another episode, "Old Scars, Future Hearts."

With her work on Grey's Anatomy, Pompeo is passing the feeling of empowerment onto her daughter, who can visit the show's set and "see fierce females in charge," she told in The Hollywood Reporter. Pompeo added, "She loves to sit in the director's chair with the headphones on yelling 'Action' and 'Cut.' She's growing up in an environment where she's completely comfortable with power. I don't know any other environment in Hollywood where I could provide that for her."

As she told Into the Gloss, Ellen Pompeo usually doesn't wear makeup when she is not working in character on the set of Grey's Anatomy. "I get my makeup done at work, but when I'm not working I never wear makeup, unless I have to go out," she said. "If I go out, I'll maybe do a pop of a lip, or I just do a smoky black eye and little Physicians Formula Mascara because it's organic." Who needs a lot of makeup when you have a natural glow!

She further noted that she tends to avoid using products like eyeshadow and blush, and people at work help her with "an organic spray tan sometimes." She also gets her eyelashes tinted darker, which is "a huge thing because that's less prep time for me in the morning at work," as she told Into the Gloss.

Given that Ellen Pompeo is the beating heart of Grey's Anatomy, you may be tempted to think that she's content to just show up for work, get it done, and leave. But that's not the case, as Pompeo is passionate about using the show as a teaching tool, working closely with showrunner Krista Vernoff to do so. "We were able to have a story line that dealt with a young, undocumented child not having health insurance," she explained in an interview with Variety in 2020, "[and that] was a story line that Krista and I felt really grateful to be able to tell."

Pompeo knows that making statements like that can be controversial, but that just doesn't concern her. "I know everybody's not so crazy about it sometimes — and whatever, they don't have to watch if they're not crazy about it," she continued. "But to touch on political issues like this is important." Way to use your powers for good, Ellen!