Behind The Scenes: The Drama Behind the Drama

[funnygirl]

Reading these articles and snippets on the book, it seems to me that it's mostly old interview soundbites/articles/tweets by major cast and crew spliced in with a handful of direct comments for the book from other random mostly former and smaller cast/crew members to build a story. Most of this stuff we - those of us who've kept up with Grey's in the press throughout the past 16 years - have already heard or seen.

Case in point, the E! article that posts the chapter on cast/character departures. There is no actual concrete information given on Eric Dane, Sara Ramirez, and Justin Chambers' exits. And they fly past Chyler's with "she wanted to leave to do other stuff". To a degree, maybe the stuff at face-value is somewhat true, but you can't tell me that there aren't other factors beneath the surface that contributed. Especially for the most abrupt departures. If Lynette (the author) had actual inside scoop with people privy to those exits, there would have been more information offered. 

I, personally, want something I know I'll never get: which is the down and dirty, legalities be damned, fly on the wall, play-by-play truth out of the horses mouths of what really went down. But Hollywood is full of skeletons and kept secrets and we will just never know. 

In any case, I'm definitely curious about what all the book contains for those who do intend on getting it. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by funnygirl

[Avabelle]

I agree, I listened to the interview with her on the Hollywood reporter podcast and doesn’t sound like there’s much new information. It sounds a bit like she just compiled all her old interviews over the years into a book. Her and Leslie Goldberg spoke about how nobody is ever willing to go on the record but they’ll still slate everyone off the record so I would think there’s a degree of truth to what she writes. I’d prefer a tell all interview with the previous cast members but agree with Lynette that it won’t likely happen. Maybe ten or twenty years down the line. 

[Bort]

Yeah, we only get anything juicy about behind the scenes drama for shows when it’s decades later. I know it technically IS decades later for some of it but the show is still on the air. We ain’t getting nothing while it still chugs on.

[AnotherCastle]

 

[Avabelle]

I always thought there was something not too friendly about how Jerrika departed but over Polaroids? That just sounds ridiculous.

[transitfan]

On 9/30/2021 at 12:08 PM, Avabelle said:

I always thought there was something not too friendly about how Jerrika departed but over Polaroids? That just sounds ridiculous.

And who takes Polaroids in 2017?  Smartphones, they are a thing 😂

[bonniejmac]

I found the book to be a really easy read - I started it around 8 pm and finished just after midnight (but I’m a fast reader). 
In all honesty, I didn’t really learn anything I didn’t already know, but it was a fun read and a nice recap of the show’s history. So much has changed in the tv landscape since 2005! The most fun for me was trying to guess who had talked to the author for the book within the last year and who was just old quotes pulled from press at the time. The author said many people wouldn’t talk to her for the book because of the influence, real or perceived, of Shonda Rhimes - one straight up told her, I don’t want to piss Shonda off. And another said, it’s a fascinating story - but the full story is never going to be told. (Except, I guess maybe many years from now, after both Shonda & Ellen are no longer of this world.)

The only major cast member that is confirmed as having spoken to Rice is Sarah Drew and it’s even more clear that she and JCap both were completely blindsided by their firing. Sarah also talked about how she really didn’t like the Matthew part of April’s exit but eventually found a way to accept it. It’s noted that her interview for the book was done well before she was asked back for Jesse/Jackson’s exit story but in all their press after that they both indicated that they saw April & Jackson getting back together one day. 
 

Anyway, it was an interesting read but it’s still gonna be a long time before we get the real tell all. This show and Glee are the ones I hope I see in my lifetime!