Caterina Scorsone Talks Complex Storytelling on Grey’s Anatomy and Constructing the Character of Amelia – INTERVIEW

Grey’s Anatomy star Caterina Scorsone opens up about her approach to embodying Amelia’s detailed history.

Caterina Scorsone portrays Dr. Amelia Shepherd on Grey’s Anatomy, which is TV’s longest-running primetime medical drama. The show is in its 22nd season and follows the doctors of Grey Sloan Memorial, who are faced with life-or-death decisions on a daily basis. I spoke with the actress about her arc after the explosive season 21 finale, why Amelia’s sabbatical was necessary, the larger cultural conversation, and much more.

On the key to storytelling

“I think one of the beautiful things about our show is that the human beings that kind of walk across our screen, whether over multiple seasons or one episode, are so filled out. There’s a kind of more complete humanity to everybody than we often get to encounter on television or in an action movie, you know what I mean? Like, we actually see the story of life in a way that feels more true to life than what we often see depicted on screen. And so, yeah, I think that’s one of the reasons that so many people around the world in every demographic, every age group, whatever your political affiliation, everybody relates to Grey’s Anatomy, and in part that’s because we show people, people.”

On what’s next in Amelia’s love life

“Now, this kind of out-of-nowhere surprise of this throwback person from med school, who knew her before many of these massive traumas had taken place, and so almost like a reminder of who she was before her environment had conditioned her to the degree that it has, and what the possibilities are there of like, ‘Well, what if life had gone this way? What if life had gone this way? What if life had gone this way?’ So yeah, just kind of opening up some possibility, and it seems fun. So far, we’re having a great time, and yeah, just some new, fun, light, joyful, sexy story, I think, is something we’re really hungry for for Amelia.

She added, “Amelia is a little gun-shy. I think the heartbreak with Kai and then the massive trauma with this surgery, she’s a little guarded. I think, at first, she’s a little guarded, and then it will be this kind of conversation with self about, like, how vulnerable is she willing and ready to be?”

On building out and honoring her character’s memories

“We say so many monologues on Grey’s Anatomy, so you actually do get a lot of really beautiful, detailed descriptions of events that have happened in the person’s life that we haven’t even seen on camera. But then, when I have a monologue like that, I try to make sure that there’s a sensory aspect. So if I’m talking about what happened in her dad’s store when she was five years old, I would try to have like, well, what was she looking at actually? What shelf products was she looking at, and what did it smell like in the store, and really, actually kind of embodying the memories, not just making them theoretical, but actually like, what did her body experience in time?”

Scorsone continued to explain, “There’s this constant interplay of the sensory experience and the somatic experience with the thoughts that we end up having, which create the feelings because they’re attached to the meaning that we’re interpreting. And so, always trying to have the whole person, body, mind, and emotion, never forgetting a part of it because they all make up the human experience.”

Watch my full interview below:

New episodes of Grey’s Anatomy air on Thursdays at 10 PM ET on ABC.

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