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This time last year the Grey's Anatomy cast were too busy to act like stars. They were the number one show in the United States, but you wouldn't have known it.
During the show's international press day they skulked around the dreary hospital set looking more like patients
than doctors.
Ellen Pompeo, who plays the show's central figure of Meredith Grey, looked wan, with wet hair and a tetchy demeanour.
"I'm so tired," she complained, not long after she was spotted in a terse conversation with her producer. Likewise, Patrick Dempsey was more McGrumpy than McDreamy, and a sourfaced Justin Chambers barely answered a single question.
Today though, the cast are suspiciously chirpy. They hug each other, slap backs, ask after families. Pompeo even touches my arm when we cross paths in the bathroom and says, "Thank you so much for coming," as though I've just donated a vital organ to the props department. It's hard to reconcile this display of camaraderie with their previous dark moods.
"I don't think any of us had employment that long in our entire lives," says Dempsey, leaning back in a director's chair. "So it was kind of strange to know that you were working from July until May, and usually it's just a couple months at a time. We're growing together and getting - oddly in the midst of all the craziness - closer. We're communicating better and depending on each other much more. I think that's why we are relaxing. We know at least when we come here that it's a safe environment for us."
That might seem odd coming from the star of show that has been tabloid fodder for the past four months. Then again, it could be just what you'd expect to hear from an actor in fire-fighting mode.
Or from someone who has become such a public figure that he knows the importance of remaining, well, McDreamy at all times. Cue self-deprecating jokes about all that hair product he used in the 80s.
There's no denying the show's huge success. Over two series, Grey's has eclipsed the hype surrounding Desperate Housewives, silenced the detractors who palmed it off as just another medical drama, continued its reign at the top of the TV heap, and won a Golden Globe for best TV drama and a Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.
Chandra Wilson also won a guild award for best actress, following Sandra Oh's win last year. And it has gone through the media wringer, thanks to loose-lipped star Isaiah Washington.
In October, Washington, (Dr Burke), reportedly referred to co-star T.R. Knight (Dr O'Malley) as a "faggot". Dempsey took offence, the incident turned violent, and word got out that there were tensions on set.
Bur Washington said at the Golden Globes last month: "No, I did not call T.R. a faggot".
Knight, who was forced to confirm publicly that he was gay, went on the record to say that Washington did use the derogatory term.
But we won't hear any of the stars discussing that today, a few weeks before the Globes. We've been delivered an ultimatum: ask about it and be thrown out. It's a bit like being told off by the school principal.
Naturally, when Washington arrives on set, the atmosphere becomes tense, publicists hover, presumably ready to clap their hands over his mouth should anything inappropriate come out of it.
Washington looks like an embattled, unpredictable actor should. He's dressed in a navy blue boiler-suit and a pair of dark aviators - his "homage to the working man," he explains, before being asked to remove the shades. It looks more like an homage to those who inspired Prison Break.
"I don't want you to write anything negative," he says. " 'He came in here with his shades on and didn't want to talk to anyone.' Whatever."
He talks about his family, how they occupy his time in the morning and make it hard for him to choose something to wear. How he then gets to work and changes straight into his scrubs anyway.
And how his character, Burke, is his hero.
"Men, we don't see ourselves, we don't mature as fast as women do ... We're not as on-the-ball in terms of our humanity, and that is something that I'm really understanding why these characters are serenely and so painfully engaging, beautifully engaging. It's because most of our writers are women."
And that's about it.
We were supposed to get 20 minutes with the actor - instead we get about six.
He is "due in production", says the publicist nervously, before Washington is whisked away.
Since then, after the embarrassment at the Globes, Washington checked into rehab to get to the bottom of his anti-gay remarks.
The show's creator, Shonda Rhimes, finally spoke up, applauding him for admitting he has a problem and thanking fans and viewers for sticking with the show.
But despite his public apology, his future on the show is uncertain. A petition calling for him to be fired is growing, with more than 17,000 signatures.
Another to keep Washington in his job has cropped up, too.
With awards season in full swing, the scandal is still a hot topic.
When Grey's star Chandra Wilson accepted her Screen Actors Guild award for best actress last week, she thanked "the 10 cast members sitting over there and the other one in rehab".
Co-stars Kate Walsh and Katherine Heigl also acknowledged that the situation became tense.
But the ratings haven't suffered. One episode that depicted several poignant scenes between Washington's Burke and Knight's O'Malley drew 22 million viewers in the US.
So back to the set where the tension is on hold, at least while reporters are around. Pompeo is freshly made-up and radiant, her hair curled just so, her skin glowing.
Could it be that becoming a bigger star affords you a better complexion?
"I worked until 11.30 last night with Patrick," she says. "We were doing brain surgery all night. So I actually am really tired, but thank you."
Having new cast members Eric Dane (McSteamy) and Sara Ramirez (Dr Callie Torres) join the cast this year has helped to ease the workload, as has Kate Walsh's bigger role as Addison.
"We are still really tired and I work a lot," she says. "But I do have a little bit more time than I did before."
Pompeo is also working to bulk-up her frame.
Being a natural waif has turned her into one of the world's most picked-on women.
She doesn't do cardio. She does do weights. And she does it because she worries that young girls might look up to her and think she's anorexic, because that's what all those magazine articles say.
"At first it was hurtful and I thought, what a terrible thing to say and I was sort of taking it personally. It's not really something new.
"I experienced it all through grade school and high school. I was always getting teased for how thin I was.
"On a much bigger scale, it's a little embarrassing, you know? Somehow if you're thin you're automatically throwing up."
Well, Grey's is a soap opera. Is it really any surprise that its stars have their own soap storylines? Whether it's weight (Pompeo's skinny issues), sexuality (Knight's coming out) or race (some bloggers reckon the only reason Washington is still employed is because he's black), you can find all of it on set.
To be honest, who cares? Perhaps their fellow actors are right - they're like a family, and families argue. What I really want to know is why, in a hospital where you can find a slew of script-worthy human issues, you can't find a damn painkiller. It would sure make all this chirpy behaviour easier to swallow.
* Grey's Anatomy, season three begins tonight, TV2, 8.30pm
Case history - series recap
Not much really happened at the end of season two. Unless you count Burke getting shot, Meredith and ex-boyfriend (and married) McDreamy sneaking out of the hospital prom to sleep together and Izzie's patient and fiance Denny kicking the bucket because she was too busy trying on ballgowns.
Oh no, did Meredith leave her McPanties behind? Will Addison find out? And what about Meredith's veterinarian boyfriend Finn, played by Chris O'Donnell? Nope, a happy ending it was not, with most of the cast left in a state of turmoil, with Snow Patrol playing poignantly in the background.
This season, Meredith and McDreamy continue their will-they-won't-they relationship and Meredith discovers more about her mother, and Izzie contemplates her future outside the hospital. And guess who might have a bun in the oven? We'll also get to know Dr Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) and see more of McDreamy's best friend, McSteamy (Eric Dane). Well, almost as much as Addison sees.
