Shonda Rhimes knew exactly who should play "Meredith Grey"!

'Grey’s Anatomy': Ellen Pompeo Owes Her Career To 'Moonlight Mile'

Today, it's nearly impossible to imagine Grey’s Anatomy without its star, Ellen Pompeo, who plays "Meredith Grey". It turns out, Ellen, who was not the famous actress she is now, didn't go to the casting... She was actually "summoned" by Shonda Rhimes, the brains behind Grey’s Anatomy.

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It is hard to imagine, what Grey's Anatomy would have been like without Ellen Pompeo (50) playing the lead character, "Meredith Grey". At the beginning of the casting process for the show, head writer and creator Shonda Rhimes, who has also created hits such as Scandal and How to get away with Murder, realized how difficult it would be to find an actress who was just right to play "Meredith."

Shonda Rhimes wanted Ellen Pompeo

There was one actress however, who she simply could not get out of her head, "I kept saying that we needed a girl like the one in Moonlight Mile".

And "the girl from Moonlight Mile" is none other than Ellen Pompeo, who was just thirty-three years old at the time. In the film, she played Bertie Knox, alongside Hollywood heavyweights and Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman (82), Susan Sarandon (73) and Holly Hunter (61). Her performance in the film wowed Shonda Rhimes.

"After a while, I was told that we might be able to book the girl from Moonlight Mile", Rhimes explained to the Chicago Tribune and, as we all know by now, it was the perfect fit for the hit show, which was renewed for two more seasons at ABC.