The Untold Truth Of Grey's Anatomy

Patrick Dempsey, who played Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd from 2005 until his character was  — spoiler! — killed off in 2015, felt wildly intimidated by Grey's Anatomy Shonda Rhimes when they first met. As Dempsey recalled during a 2009 Q&A panel at the Paley Center for Media, he entered the meeting and exchanged pleasantries with the pilot's director Peter Horton, with whom he had worked before, and then saw Rhimes. "...Shonda Rhimes looks at me," he detailed. "No expression. Just looks at me. The entire meeting, just looking at me. No expression, no warmth, nothing."

After what he thought to be a disastrous meeting, Dempsey called his agent and explained, "It's not gonna work at all. Shonda Rhimes hates me!' ... I was completely terrified of her. I was like, 'Oh my god, she's scary.'"

What Dempsey was assuming, however, wasn't close to the truth. As Rhimes explained, her expression was actually due to the fact that she was "trying to figure out what dialogue [she] could write for him to say." She admitted at the panel: "Honestly, the entire time that he was in the room, I was like, 'Oh my god, he's so dreamy.'"