Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty
Sarah Drewisn’t holding any grudges after her surprising departure fromGrey’s Anatomy.
The 37-year-old actress, who played Dr. April Kepner for nine seasons on the long-running ABC medical drama, sat down with theHollywood Reporterfor her first interview sinceshe was written off the show this past spring.
While Drew admitted that she cried after hearing the news, she said she’s ultimately at peace with the decision.
“I’m a believer in things happening for a reason and finding beauty in the midst of grief,” she told the outlet. “I don’t regret or begrudge anybody this season of my life. I’m embracing it.”
“I had a profound and incredible season of my life onGrey’s Anatomy,”Drew added. “I got to tell stories I believed in. I got to work with [producers] Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers and learn from the best. I got to work with an incredible community of people that I will have lifelong friendships with. I got to build a platform and have my children in an environment where I was cared for because of who Shonda is and how she takes care of her mamas and her women. It’s hard for me to come up with anything I could be angry about.”
RELATED VIDEO: Ellen Pompeo Slams Implication Her Pay Rise Led to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Staff Shakeup
Drew leftGrey’s Anatomyalong with fellow cast member Jessica Capshaw, who portrayed Dr. Arizona Robbins for 10 seasons.
Uproar on social media followed when their exits were announced, many speculating thatcuts were made to compensate for series lead Ellen Pompeo’s $20 million salary.Pompeovigorously denied that, with Rhimes and executive producer/showrunner Krista Vernoff both stressing thatthe actress’ exits were strictly creative decisions.
That’s how it was described to Drew too.
“I was told that the show had too many characters and that they needed to downsize because they couldn’t service all of the characters effectively,” she said to theHollywood Reporter. “They didn’t want any of us to be left in the background and not getting much of a story. Because there were so many series regulars, they needed to downsize and to find some characters that they felt like they could tie up their stories well.”
“Krista Vernoff said that she felt like April had been through so much and had come out the other side and that she didn’t know what she could put her through again,” Drew continued. “It was really hard to hear that. But Krista had a lot of very complimentary things to say about the work that I had done — especially this past season — and that April was going to have her happy ending.”
Jessica Capshaw/Instagram
April’s ending? Getting hitched to Matthew (Justin Bruening) and quitting her job — something Drew wasn’t exactly happy with at first.
“In the midst of it, I was devastated that Jackson (Jesse Williams) and April wasn’t an endgame,” she told the outlet. “I thought Jackson and April were meant to get back together and they were going to get married again and realize they’d been crazy and it was just going to be this long, slow burn.”
Looking back on it now, though, Drew has had a change of heart.
Greg Doherty/Getty
Since leavingGrey’s,Drew has actually received an Emmy nomination for the series‘short form offshootB-Team,which she directed. She says the experience of learning to direct — which she was actually doing the day she learned about her departure — and getting the Emmy nomination has given her career a “beautiful rebirth.”
“My confidence had gotten a bit shaken in the wake of being let go and the nomination after the fact made me go, ‘I don’t need to be worried about anything or have my confidence shaken,’ ” she said. “I’m not only pursuing my career as an actor but I’m now also walking into this world as a director and as a producer and the world is so wide open. … I don’t need to be sad and I don’t need to be mourning and I don’t need to be in grief over the end of something that was so beautiful. I can just rise from the ashes in a more brilliant way.”
In fact, Drew admitted that leavingGrey’sthe way she did was the right thing in the long run.
“[Being let go] was painful when it happened, but, in retrospect, I think it would have been hard for me to walk away from that job,” she told theHollywood Reporter. “I was on it for nine years. It feels right and it feels like a good time to move on to something else with all the great love in my heart that I have for everybody and respect and gratitude for what that experience was. Playing a character for nine years is a long haul.”
source: people.com
