Did anyone catch Friday’s Oprah? I’m just now watching it on my TiVo (keep your jokes to yourself, assholes), and she’s interviewing the whole cast of Grey’s Anatomy. She asks Isaiah Washington about the Burkegate scandal last month, and here’s what the cast had to say:
Isaiah: I really honestly think that, for me, it was a combination of fatigue, pride, passion and — I’ve been working with these beautiful men for three years now, and we had an argument as brothers. It came about in a time and a place that was overwhelming for both of us.
Oprah: Was it an argument, or a fight?
Isaiah: No, it was not a brawl, fisticuffs and all that stuff, no, no, it was not, it was not.
TR Knight: And thing is, we’ve been together three years, and you form a — for lack of a better word — a kind of family and so we’re gonna argue. The hours are fifteen hour days, and now we’re working a lot of weekends, and, so, it’s gonna happen, but I think the strength of our cast is, like, how we handle it, so we don’t, like, deny it.
Oprah: (to Isaiah) I heard you did a public statement saying that your behavior was below your personal standards. So you still feel that way?
Isaiah: I feel that the actions that I’ve had an opportunity over the last four weeks to get some serious self-examination about my part in the argument.
Oprah: So you basically lost your temper, right?
Isaiah: Yeah, I lost my cool, but it wasn’t coming out of a place of “animice” (ed: I, um, think he means either “animosity” or “malice.” So he decided to just combine them. English is neat like that.) for Patrick or TR or anyone, it was coming out of a place of trying to stay focused about the work, and the one thing I understand about myself and my passion about everything I do is that the opposite of love is indifference.
Oprah: Elie Weisel says that all the time. (ed: uuuuuugh)
Isaiah: Absolutely. (ed: uuuuuuuuuuuuugh) And if I will ever become indifferent to this man (gestures to Dempsey), this man (gestures to Knight) or this show, anything, there wouldn’t be anything for me to argue about, there wouldn’t be anything for me to care about. And I really feel that, out of that caring, we got ourselves into a debate that had to happen, and it happened at that point, it happened at that time, and as a matter of fact, I realized I have more in common than this man (gestures to Dempsey) than I ever thought in terms of clothes, cars. I don’t have his hair.
Dempsey: I think we’ve all really learned a lot from this experience, and I think we’re all much tighter because of it, because I think what happens is we just needed to be open and to be able to communicate and not let things build up, and I think we’ve come to that point where we’re like “Okay, it’s much freer to communicate with each other” and we’re more relaxed with each other because of it. And I think the whole company’s tighter because of that. (goes on to talk about how James Pickens, Jr, aka Chief Webber, put them all in a room to talk about it.)
Pickens: I was like the hall monitor … We’re a family. We spend more time together than we do with our families, and, in families, you have a beef. (Goes onto talk about how the media built it up way too much. )
Isaiah: Apologies were made to each other … and we went back to work.
