Ellen Pompeo

 ( 1969 Births ) 

When the show began, Pompeo received positive feedback for her performance, with Newsday's Diane Werts writing, "star Ellen Pompeo's newly-minted Dr. Grey conveys such substance that you simply can't stop watching."

Pompeo signed a new contract for Grey's Anatomy in 2011 that increased her salary to US$200,000 per episode; she was subsequently named the eighth highest-paid TV actress in 2012, earning $9 million. The contract would have her involved with the show until its 12th season. Under her renewed deal of 2013, she earned $350,000 per episode, with additional payment from syndication. At that point, she was ranked fourth in the list of highest-paid television actresses again in 2015, in the Forbes list, with the earnings of $11.5 million. Pompeo's contract with the company expired again at the end of the 12th season along with the other original cast members, and she signed a new one with an increased paycheck. She held on the fourth spot in Forbes' list in 2016, bringing in $14 million, a 32% increase in the earnings from 2015.

With the increasing popularity of the show, Pompeo garnered worldwide reputation among television viewers. Her performance has garnered her five People's Choice Award nominations, with three wins. At the 37th People's Choice Awards, she was nominated against Dempsey and Oh in the Favorite TV Doctor category and the next year, she received a nomination in the Favorite TV Drama Actress category, an award that she has won thrice at the 39th, 41st, and the 42nd People's Choice Awards. Pompeo has been nominated for several other awards for her performances in the show. She and the Grey's Anatomy cast won Best Ensemble in a Television Series at the 2006 Satellite Awards. During the following year's ceremony, she was named Best Actress in a Television Drama Series. She was among the Grey's Anatomy cast members awarded the award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series at the 13th Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received nominations in the same category in 2006 and 2008. Pompeo received a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama Series at the 64th Golden Globe Awards – the program won Best Drama Series at the same ceremony. In 2007, Pompeo and the female cast and crew of Grey's Anatomy received the Women in Film Lucy Award, which honors those "whose work in television has positively influenced attitudes toward women." The same year, she starred in Life of the Party.

In 2007, Pompeo was honored by the National Italian American Foundation for her achievement in entertainment at a black-tie gala in Washington, D.C. NIAF 32nd Anniversary Convention and Gala In the same year, show-business awards reporter Tom O'Neil commented that Pompeo was overdue for an Emmy Award nomination for her role in Grey's Anatomy. The view was echoed by later critics, including Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times who suggested that Pompeo, "who has worked very hard and against all narrative odds to make Meredith Grey an interesting character at last" should have received a nomination at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards. During the twelfth season of the show, Western Gazette's Alex Hawnkings gave Pompeo credit for carrying the show and re-iterated it was time for her to finally win an Emmy Award. Readers of O'Neil's awards website, The Envelope, included Pompeo in their 2009 nominations for Best Drama Actress in the site's Gold Derby TV Awards.

In January 2018, she renewed her contract for Grey's Anatomy, agreeing for two more seasons; she became the highest-paid actress in a television drama series, earning more than $20 million a year with the new deal. She received a sum of $575,000 per episode under her new contract and was promoted to the rank of producer for the series, which was estimated to earn her a separate $6 million to $7 million annually. She was also listed as co-producer for the Grey's Anatomy spinoff titled Station 19 and received office space for Calamity Jane at Walt Disney Studios. She wrote a piece on the issue of the gender pay gap and her new contract with ABC, which was featured as the cover story for the January 2018 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Forbes ranked Pompeo as the third highest female and the fifth highest actor overall on its 2018 list of highest paid TV actors on television; she had estimated earnings of US$23.5 million.

In 2019, she appeared as a guest judge on the fourth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. More recently, her production company and ABC bought out the rights to the Paradise book trilogy.

After starring full time in the medical series drama Grey's Anatomy since the show's premiere in 2005, season 19 of the show marked the first time the star had a scaled back role on the television series. Pompeo was only scheduled to appear in eight episodes during that season. Pompeo will remain an executive producer on the show and continue her signature voiceovers for the show.

Pompeo criticized media reports suggesting that she suffered from an eating disorder, calling the media irresponsible for promoting such rumors. In Los Angeles Confidential Magazine in 2007, she said that she was worried about the young girls who look up to her: "I don't want them to think I starve myself or don't eat, and that to be like me that's what they have to do."

Pompeo, along with Shonda Rhimes and the leads of Rhimes' ABC Thursday line-up shows, Scandal Kerry Washington and How to Get Away With Murder Viola Davis, appeared in an ad campaign for the 2016 US election supporting Hillary Clinton, comparing her to the protagonists of those series. In the video, the actresses note that Olivia Pope, Annalise Keating, and Meredith Grey are "brilliant" and "complex" women who fight for justice and give voice to the voiceless. Rhimes, Davis, Pompeo, and Washington each take turns speaking as they praise the presidential candidate and conclude: "Our characters are on television; the real world has Hillary Clinton." Clinton responded to the video with a tweet, "Talk about a power lineup. Thank you for being on this team!"