42 amazing facts about “Grey’s Anatomy”! (List)

Read them in the list below!

1. Grey’s Anatomy was going to be called Complications.

2. Sandra Oh originally auditioned for the part of Bailey. But Oh loved the character of Cristina Yang and asked if she could read for her.

3. Rhimes almost set Grey’s Anatomy in her hometown, Chicago, but decided not to in order to not have the show feel too similar to another medical drama, E.R., which is set in the same city.

4. Unlike her character Lexie Grey, who graduated from Harvard Medical School, Chyler Leigh dropped out of high school.

5. Arizona was originally just going to have a three-episode arc.

6. Shonda Rhimes was obsessed with watching surgical shows on the Discovery Channel. Her idea for Grey’s Anatomy really started to develop after a doctor told her how hard it is to shave her legs in a hospital shower.

7. Kate Walsh was initially hired for only a few episodes, but she had such great chemistry with the cast that she was brought on full time and eventually given her own spin-off, Private Practice.

8. Ellen Pompeo wanted to do a different ABC pilot, written by Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, called Secret Service. When that didn’t get picked up, she was asked to play Meredith Grey.

9. Miranda Bailey was the only role written with a character description: “tiny blonde with curls”. She was loosely based off Rhimes’ mother. But when Chandra Wilson auditioned, Rhimes was convinced she was perfect.

10. Like Izzie, Katherine Heigl likes to bake and knit.

11. Pompeo didn’t know that Derek was married until the Season 1 finale was being filmed. And Dempsey didn’t know his character was married until halfway through the first season.

12. Jessica Capshaw auditioned for three roles on the show: first, Derek’s love interest Nurse Rose (Lauren Stamile), then Meredith’s crazy friend Sadie (Melissa George), and finally, she won the part of Arizona Robbins.

13. When Patrick Dempsey first auditioned, he was terrified of Rhimes because of her stone-cold expression. But Rhimes was actually trying to figure out what she could write for the, in her words, “dreamy” actor.

14. Pompeo got pregnant while filming Season 6, but instead of making Meredith pregnant as well, the writers had the character give part of her liver to her estranged father, Thatcher (Jeff Perry), so that Pompeo could be confined to bed rest to hide her pregnant belly under sheets.

15. Though Washington didn’t win that part, he got a call that the actor who had signed on to play Dr. Preston Burke had to drop out and the writers wanted him for the part.

16. Rhimes started Meredith, Cristina, Alex, George, and Izzie as interns instead of established surgeons because she thought “there’s something really horrible about not knowing what you’re doing for a living.”

17. The character Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) was added to the script after the pilot had already been shot, so all of his scenes were digitally implanted into the episode.

18. James Pickens Jr. got the part of Dr. Richard Webber just minutes after he auditioned. After he read, they asked him to step into the hall, and when they brought him back in, he was offered the part.

19. It was Oh’s idea for Cristina to have an emotional breakdown, which led Rhimes to write the scene after Cristina loses her unborn baby and can’t stop crying in her hospital bed.

20. Isaiah Washington originally auditioned for the role of Dr. Derek Shepherd.

21. Washington would actually learn how to perform all of his fictional surgeries before shooting them.

22. All the medical storylines are found in medical journals that the writers read or from stories that viewers send in that they find interesting.

23. Rhimes enlisted the help of Chandra Wilson, Sara Ramirez, and Kevin McKidd to put on a concert for some ABC producers to convince them that infamous musical episode in Season 7 would be a great idea.

24. When cast members “perform” a specific medical procedure during an episode, they are given tons of material to understand how it would be done in real life.

25. When Arizona lost her leg, Capshaw “walked on a prosthetic with [her] own leg tied behind [her]” and editors digitally erased any overlap.

26. In the musical episode, when Callie was singing over her injured body, they used a double and then just digitally mapped Ramirez’s face onto the body.

27.  Jesse Williams (Dr. Jackson Avery) was a teacher before being cast on the show.

28. Though most of Grey’s Anatomy is shot on a sound stage in Los Angeles, Meredith’s childhood home is a real house located in Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.

29. On set real cow organs are used.

30. When Lexie was killed in the plane crash in Season 8, Leigh stayed under the actual wreckage for the better part of two straight days to film the scene.

31. During the course of the show, you should have noticed that all of the interns from the original season have had surgery at some point. Cristina had a tubal pregnancy; Meredith had an appendectomy and donated her liver to her father; George was hit by a bus and required emergency surgery; Izzie had cancer; and someone shot Alex.

32. You will have a hard time getting inside information about “Grey’s Anatomy.” The writers change the main characters’ names during auditions. This helps prevent leaks about what is going to happen in the episode, such as the plot and storyline of the main characters.

33. Sara Ramirez (aka Dr. Calliope Torres) was on Broadway before she hit Seattle Grace. Ramirez starred as The Lady Of The Lake in Spamalot — a role for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

34. You can’t help but know that Dr. Shepherd’s nickname is McDreamy. However, you may be surprised to find out that the first person to call him that onscreen was not Meredith. Surprisingly, it was Cristina. Once she said it, it stuck, both on-screen and off. Meredith would later call Derek’s best friend a similar name: McSteamy.

35. Kevin McKidd (Dr. Owen Hunt) is Scottish. He used his real accent in the 2008 film Made of Honor, which also featured his Grey’s co-star Dempsey.

36. A few months after it was revealed that April Kepner (Sarah Drew) was pregnant at the end of Season 10, Drew announced she was pregnant in real life.

37. Episode titles come from song titles. In Season 1, Sheryl Crow’s “The First Cut is the Deepest” was an episode title. Peaches and Herb’s “Shake Your Groove Thing” titled an episode in Season 6. In Season 8, Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” was an episode title. The titles are indicative of the theme of the episode, like Season 1’s “If Tomorrow Never Comes” by Garth Brooks, which focused on procrastination.

38. When Cristina finds out Owen cheated on her, she tosses a bowl of cereal in his face. But it took three takes to get the shot just right so McKidd was covered in milk.

39. The names on the OR board are actually names of Grey’s crew members.

40. Dempsey and Pompeo are the the only actors who’ve appeared on every single episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

41. If you are a fan of T.R. Knight who played George on the show, you will be happy to know he is an undemanding person. When he felt he didn’t receive enough on-screen time and that his storyline suffered, he didn’t make any demands. He asked the writers to write him off the show and blamed his departure on a communication breakdown.

42. Kate Burton plays Meredith’s mother. Kate is the daughter of the late, famous actor Richard Burton. She is also the stepdaughter of Elizabeth Taylor. She has guest starred on many television drama series, such as “Law and Order” and “Judging Amy.”