Visiting the Set of Grey’s Anatomy

Disclosure: Disney provided me an all expense paid trip to Los Angeles to help promote Muppets Most Wanted, Captain America and other projects. All experiences and opinions are my own. Yours may differ.

Photo Credit: ABC Studios

Before my trip to Los Angeles I hadn’t ever seen an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I decided I would start watching so I would be better prepared for my set visit. I made it through several seasons before we visited so I was super excited to meet select cast members and see the sets!

Jessica Capshaw, who plays Dr. Arizona Robbins, took us on a tour of the set. It was so fun listening to her explain some things about the show. We were standing where the ambulances drive up to be taken into the ER or where you walk across the driveway to the clinic. It was amazing!

Our first stop after being in the alley way was to the “Dream House”. We visit Meredith and Derek’s “home”.

I love how detailed it was. It was just like our visit to “The Middle”. Every last detail was covered and it was amazing!

After touring parts of the hospital set that were put together we went to another room filled with some prominent costumes. Jessica spoke more about the show and the costumes that were on display. This was a chance for us to ask her questions about the show.

We first asked her to tell us the story of getting the part of Dr. Arizona Robbins. Because she is such a cute girl and told such a great story, I have included the audio so you can listen to her tell the story.

Jessica said that every week is a new work schedule. Episodes start with a “table read” where everyone gathers and they read through the script. From there she said she can tell if she will be in an episode a lot or a little and then she is able to arrange her schedule with her kids. Jessica said that she has her whole life set up to function without her for weeks when she is constantly in the episode and working, but then she is also able to take care of it all herself during the weeks when she isn’t so busy. She loves her schedule and that it really is pretty flexible because she gets to work and be an actor but she also gets to stay home at times and be a Mom.

We were treated to speak to some great special guests. First up we got to speak with Sarah Drew, who plays Dr. April Kepner, about her role and the show.

Angela Whiting, the props master showed us some very cool items. She had a pumping heart, the Anatomy Jane doll, the original “Alex Karev” ID card from Seattle Grace Hospital, fake blood and some bowels.

Angela told us the story of the leeches. In one of the episodes in season 2 called “Little Creatures” they work with leeches. They first had fake leeches made and used a puppeteer to control them but the leeches didn’t look life-like so they decided to use prosthetic parts and fill the ends of them with cows blood and use real leeches. The actor was fine to do it and they were glad because it turned out amazing.

We also learned about pumping hearts and other organs that need to move. Check out this video I took of Angela working the pumping heart.

Pretty cool, right? And to touch it was so gross. Along with the bowels that were on the cart. They were a little sticky and felt as you would imagine them feeling.

Then we had a surprise visit from Justin and Camilla!! That was fun!

The we had a visit from the Costume Designer, Mimi Melgaard. She talked about how when she is shopping for Meredith and Derek she makes sure the pieces are timeless. She doesn’t want viewers to look back to the beginning seasons and think their clothes looked different from what is in style now so she keeps them timeless and classic.

Mimi said that each piece is very individual to the character. She said they are altering scrubs all the time because she wants them to look good on each character. With the different sizes and shapes of each character each set of scrubs would need to be altered so they looked nice.

At the end of our visit we received scrubs sign by Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the show! It was amazing.

To see the other shows we visited and interviewed cast and creators such as The Middle, Trophy Wife, General Hospital, Resurrection and Shark Tank, check out the #ABCTVEvent Tag. You can also read about my Muppets Most Wanted experience and Captain America experience by clicking the #MuppetsMostWantedEvent tag.

Grey’s Anatomy is on Thursdays on ABC at 9/8c.