Press Tour, Day Six: Ohmygod, Grey's!

Today we visited the set of Grey’s Anatomy and I lived at least the initial part of the fantasy of many American women: I looked Patrick Dempsey in the eye and had a conversation with him. Obviously, I didn't get follow this encounter through to its preferred conclusion, but it was a good start. As my friend said, “if you tell me he’s a midget, I’m going to kill you.” This is because I had previously told her that David Krumholz (from CBS’s Numbers and the movie Serenity) is pretty much a midget and even if she puts platform shoes on him, she still probably wouldn’t want to sleep with him. I could be wrong about this, however, because Krummy had quite the hot young girlfriend, as did James Woods, who I find disgusting, so what do I know? Anyway, Patrick was quite doable, so no worries women of America.

I tried my very hardest to learn whether the delicious Eric Dane aka Mark “McSteamy” Sloan (link to http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0199312/for more info) would be coming back to the show, but I was shut down by Grey’s creator Shonda Rhimes’ absolutely no-leaks policy. Damn! But me and other fans were encouraged that the martinis at the ABC party were named McDreamy and the extra dirty ones were named McSteamy. To me, mainly because I am desperate and I have told the exec producers this several times, this was a very good sign. Or if nothing else, a very good drink.

Other than Patrick, I also met Sandra Oh, Ellen Pompeo (very briefly and she is no skinnier than any of the other anorexics that populate this town but absolutely adorable. See Old School for proof), Kate Walsh (she plays Addison Shepherd, wife of McDreamy) and Katherine Heigl, who is absolutely gorgeous and like Virginia Madsen, very skinny in real life, except with some boobs. I chatted with Peter Horton, who directs the show and we bonded over our mutual ownership of Keen shoes, and Betsy Beers, one of the exec producers. We then got to look around the set, which is vast and quite realistic. All in all, it was TV heaven, even though I am supposed to be a cynical reporter and all that. I don’t want to live in Hollywood but there are moments when I sure like visiting it, and this was one of those times. The scant hour we were granted was nowhere close to enough. I needed like an hour of solo time with each cast member. So much stalking, so little time.

I will say that touring a set makes you realize what people are talking about when they say that series TV is exhausting and difficult. It all seems wonderfully glamorous when you are watching it, but when you see the dark, cramped sets, and think about how actors are shooting takes over and over again for 12 hours a day, six days a week, you can see how it gets a little tedious. It's not all award ceremonies and red carpets, people. That said, it's not coal-mining or truck-driving either, so my sympathy for successful actors remains limited.

Anyway, after that wonderful hour came to a screeching halt, I was back on the eternal LA highway to return to the Ritz in Pasadena. There, I hung out with the stars of Fox’s My Network TV, which is basically going to be an English-language telenovela network for TV stations. The young stars of these shows are, like The CW pages, the hottest people I’ve ever seen. One of them is a supermodel on the side! Hanging with them makes me feel like there’s some other planet where they grow much more attractive people than they do on this planet where I live. Or vice versa. Either way, I don’t think we are members of the same species.

Also in attendance – Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek. I chatted a bit with Bo and while I’m sure she’s amply Botoxed, she is gorgeous and tiny. She may be the planetary mother of this other species about which I was just talking.

My night ended with dinner at the Ritz with the NBC PR corps, which was delightful and relaxing.