T.R. Knight is opening up about his return to Grey’s Anatomy as George, over a decade after his character was killed off the series.
George is the latest departed character to appear in one of Meredith Grey’s dreams on the beach while she battles COVID-19.
T.R. spoke with Deadline about getting the call from showrunner Krista Vernoff to return to the series and what it was like to be on set with Ellen Pompeo again.
“Ellen hinted at it first, but then Krista called, and we talked for an hour. Probably her ears were bleeding a little bit afterward, hopefully not too bad, but it was incredible. What was interesting is Krista, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this. Krista said at one point during our long conversation she thought that this might, if this might offer closure, and I was like oh, I think that’s already happened. What was interesting is something my husband, who is much smarter than me, and okay, granted that’s a low bar, said. We were talking about that idea of closure and he was saying that sometimes closure’s shutting a door, and sometimes it’s revisiting a familiar room, and finding what brought you joy. And it just hit me,” T.R. said in the interview.
He continued, “Going to the set that day, because we shot on the beach and it was an early call, so I’m driving in the dark because you want to be early. You don’t want to go back and be late. Driving up that windy road in the dark, and people are just starting to arrive, and to see Laura Petticord, she’s our second assistant director. She handles the base camp and corrals all of us, and does that momentous job, and she is someone who’s been with the show, I think, from the very beginning, or at least from that first season. She is like kindness in human form, so seeing her, and then all of a sudden seeing Shawn Hanley, who is now the first assistant director, and then Norman Leavitt, who came back out of semiretirement to try to make this (points to his face) look like something not hideous. It was just wave upon wave of happiness, of joy. Krista was there the entire day. Linda Klein, she was there all day too.”
T.R. added, “And then to have Ellen, and Chandra [Wilson], and Jim [Pickens Jr.], of course, and all the other familiar faces that were there, too, because there were quite a bit of crew that were there still. To have all of that, it was just unlike any other experience I’ve ever had in my entire life, in my 47 years.”
“To act with Ellen, it’s one of those things you wish it always happened but then it wouldn’t be special when it did, to act with someone who you just know that it’s like, okay, what are you going to give me there. Okay, now I’m going to try to match that, and then it’s this game. It’s this rollercoaster that you’re on together. To be able to experience that again with Ellen, and to know that every take is going to be different, there’s going to be a sense of play, a sense of challenge. It’s the best kind of acting, if that makes sense,” he concluded.
