Katherine Heigl hilariously recalls when a kid mistakenly thought she was ‘Izzie Stevens’ mother’

Is there anything more riveting than two iconic women having a discussion about an iconic show and their iconic careers? Because if you’re looking to get sucked into something like that, this interview between Katherine Heigl and Ellen Pompeo is exactly that.

The two women sat down for a one-on-one discussion as part of “Variety’s Actors on Actors” series. The former “Grey’s Anatomy” co-stars (who played Dr. Meredity Grey and Dr. Izzie Stevens, respectively) open up about what they loved about the series, what they didn’t love so much, and how aging in Hollywood has helped them gain valuable perspective and confidence in who they are.

And while those parts of the conversation are indeed riveting, we’ll get to them in a minute. First, though, we need to just give a little chuckle to this story Katherine Heigl tells about being recognized out in public.

It’s important to preface this story by sharing that despite the fact that “Grey’s Anatomy” premiered in 2005, thanks to streaming platforms—and, like, 68 seasons being available to watch—the long-running medical drama has found a new audience to obsess over the show: Gen Z. And these new, young fans are eager to share their excitement over the show and the actors in it. Maybe a little too eager.

Heigl and Pompeo agree that they love it when fans come up to them and share their love for the show, but find it amusing that the show now resonates with a younger audience all these years later.

“What I find disconcerting is how young those people are that are coming up now,” Heigl notes. “Like, ‘I don’t think you were alive when we started it.'”

She then shares a story that occurred in 2016, right after she gave birth to her son Joshua. She was at the liquor store—as you do when you have an infant and you’re stressed and not sleeping.

“And this man comes up to me and goes, ‘Excuse me. I’m so sorry, but my daughter, she’s freaking out over here. Would you mind talking to her for a minute?’ And I was like, Sure. Come on over, honey,'” Hiegl recalls. “She goes, ‘Do you know ‘Grey’s Anatomy?’ And I was like, ‘I do. Yeah.’ She goes, ‘Do you know Izzie Stevens?’ And I go, ‘Yes, I do.’ She goes, ‘Are you her mother?'”

LOL. Well, gotta give the girl some credit for knowing the show began almost 20 years ago—she was just incorporating the math!

“Thankfully that hasn’t happened again,” Heigl jokes.

Heigl’s exit from the show back in 2010 was marred in controversy. During the 2008-09 season, Heigl publicly announced she wouldn’t be submitting herself for Emmy consideration that year, because she didn’t feel she was “given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination.”

That announcement—on top of her comments chiding the misogynistic plot of “Knocked Up,” where she had a lead role—led to Heigl being labeled as “difficult,” among other sexist derivatives. Heigl admits now that she was a little “naive” in how she handled her feelings back then.

“There was no part of me that imagined a bad reaction,” she admits. “I felt really justified in how I felt about it and where I was coming from. I’ve spent most of my life—I think most women do—being in that people-pleasing mode. It’s really disconcerting when you feel like you have really displeased everybody. It was not my intention to do so, but I had some things to say, and I didn’t think I was going to get such a strong reaction.”

Pompeo agrees, noting that “no one likes a super confident woman.” Heigl says it took her almost a decade to resolve her feelings about herself after the public backlash in 2008.

“It took me until probably my mid- to late-30s to really get back to tuning out all of the noise and going, ‘But who are you? Are you this bad person? Are you ungrateful? Are you unprofessional? Are you difficult?’ Because I was confused! I thought maybe I was,” she explains. “I literally believed that version, and felt such shame for such a long time, and then had to go, ‘Wait. Who am I listening to? I’m not even listening to myself. I know who I am.'”

A version of this story was originally published on June 7, 2023. It has been updated.