Switching it up! Ellen Pompeo‘s future plans will eventually include moving on from Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, but she is also considering pressing pause on her acting career in general.
“I’m not saying I’ll never act again; I very well may, but I’m not super excited about continuing my acting career,” Pompeo, 51, revealed during a recent episode of the “Ladies First With Laura Brown” podcast. “I’m more entrepreneurial at this stage. I’m excited about investing in businesses, and starting [a] business. That’s an area of growth that I’m excited about, using my brain in a different way.”
The actress, who has played Dr. Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy since 2005, admitted that she was getting tired of the same routine.
“Even though I haven’t done a million different roles, I feel like I’ve done it. Sitting around in trailers, traveling around, shooting this in Atlanta, shooting that in Vancouver,” she noted. “I have no desire to go sit in trailers at 11 o’clock at night and wait to shoot scenes and have ADs knock on my door and tell me when I can eat lunch. You know, it’s for the young at heart. It’s for the youth!”
Following the show’s season 18 renewal, the Golden Globe winner found herself looking to pursue something different after years of seeing herself as only an actress.
“When I was in my 30s, I absolutely saw myself as in a box. That’s why I stayed on the show, because I said, ‘Holy s–t. By the time I can negotiate my contract again and get out of this I’m going to be almost 40 years old,'” Pompeo said about staying on the ABC medical drama for so many years.
She continued: “I am super typecast in this role. I am 40, so I’m never going to work again. Even 15 years ago, the thought of being 40 was, like, you’re over as an actress.”
As the Massachusetts native explores the next chapter of her life, she is looking forward to other opportunities.
“Now that I’m 50, I don’t see myself that way at all. I think of myself that I can do whatever I want, or I can do nothing at all, quite honestly,” the Life of the Party star noted.
One of Pompeo’s upcoming projects is a podcast that she hopes will serve as “an example for other women” who may be going through the same journey in their lives.
“[I thought], ‘Let me go out there and do something I’ve never done before and try something completely different for absolutely no other reason than to try something different because I haven’t for so long,'” she added. “If it fails, it fails, but at least I’m trying something new.”
