Ellen Pompeo is taken aback by the reception to Good American Family. The Hulu limited series inspired by the true, viral story of Natalia Grace — the Ukrainian-born girl with severe dwarfism (played by Imogen Faith Reed) who was adopted as a child by the character Pompeo plays, Kristine Barnett, and her husband Michael (played by Mark Duplass) in 2010 and later accused by them of faking her age — has become a ratings hit for the streamer (the April 30 final episode was the biggest finale of 2025 across Hulu and Disney), a water-cooler series and an Emmys contender. Pompeo stepped back from her beloved role on Grey’s Anatomy after nearly two decades to pursue a project that she could disappear into when playing a role starkly different than her fan-favorite groundbreaking doctor.
“If my first thing after Grey’s was a total dump, it would have been pretty embarrassing. (Laughs.) But listen, it happens. It’s really hard to make a show. It’s really hard to make content,” says Pompeo in the video chat (above) for THR Presents‘ series. “This show is not perfect. If we had a drink over dinner, I’d tell you a million things that went wrong with it and shots I didn’t like. It’s hard to make a streaming show … [with the] same pace and schedule as a network show, but yet it’s meant to be much slower and more creative. You just don’t ever know in this business what you’re going to get, what the end result will be, how people will receive it. You can think it’s great. The timing might be off. You don’t know what’s going on in the world. So anytime you have something remotely successful in what we do is just a huge blessing and a win, and I was just so relieved.”
Pompeo says she thinks even Hulu was surprised with the viewership, which she credits to the fans of her and her co-stars, who include Duplass and Reed along with Christina Hendricks, Sarayu Blue and Dulé Hill. “I think they expected it to do well, I don’t think they expected it to do as well as it did,” she says with a laugh. “Just because people love me as Meredith Grey and love me on Grey’s, that doesn’t guarantee anything moving forward. That doesn’t guarantee that they’ll follow me, doesn’t guarantee that they’ll like me or believe me in any other character as anything else. And the fact that I was shown so much support is pretty meaningful.”
The series flipped its perspective midway through the eight episodes in order to deliver justice to Grace’s story. After exploring allegations taken from court proceedings and public reports to dramatize multiple conflicting points of view, the series ends by clarifying that Natalia was a 7-year-old child when the Barnetts adopted her, meaning she was 8 years old when they set her up to live on her own. Despite the series not letting Kristine or Michael off the hook, the pair never faced legal repercussions after they were charged with neglect of a dependent. Michael was found not guilty in 2022. The following year, the charges against Kristine were dismissed.
Pompeo feels that Good American Family has completely told Kristine’s story, but with the success of the series, Pompeo says conversations between her and creator/co-showrunner Katie Robbins with Hulu around how they could continue began right after the finale.
“Those conversations started happening weeks ago,” she says. “A couple days after episode eight dropped. I couldn’t actually believe how fast it happened. There are two ideas right now. Yes, Kristine Barnett’s story is over, or my version of Kristine Barnett’s story is over, and I think what we are trying to decipher is: Is there a good enough reason to continue on with this story or do we pivot and do an anthology and do another story next season? And I’m not going to tell you the story that we’re thinking about, but it’s awesome. That’s what I really want to do. I want to do an anthology because I think the story we have lined up is so good for specifically the way we do this show and switch perspectives.”
Pompeo says they have a few more meetings to decide the show’s future, “and ultimately it’s up to Hulu who pays the bills.” She says she wouldn’t play the lead in the new idea — “I don’t think I’m right for that character” — and would remain a producer. Pompeo produced Good American Family via her ABC Signature-based production company, Calamity Jane. She says that she and Robbins have a second idea they sold and are developing to Hulu as well.
After successfully now playing a villain — which was a risk for the beloved Grey’s star — Pompeo is excited to see what the future holds, whether that’s producing or returning on camera, and the latter will include another seven episodes on next season’s Grey’s Anatomy where she’s also an executive producer. Pompeo says the mega-hit ABC medical drama typically schedules her to appear in the beginning, middle and the end of the season so she’s never off-screen for too long, as she continues to narrate each episode.
As she continues to pivot beyond the famed hospital walls of Grey’s, Pompeo imagines what an Emmy nomination and recognition from her peers would mean at this stage in her career.
“On Grey’s, you really only get an opportunity to be nominated for things in your first few seasons, and so that time had clearly passed. I didn’t crave that kind of recognition. I craved the sort of financial and job security situation more that I did critical accolades — that’s why I stayed on the show,” she candidly explains. “Had I been [chasing] critical acclaim, I wouldn’t have stayed on Grey’s for so long. So it wasn’t always the most important thing to me but now that I’m doing something new, it would definitely, probably help me in this next chapter of my story — moving on from Grey’s, doing other roles.”
She continues, “I haven’t given anybody a reason to believe that I could do anything else, so if people did recognize that I did do something else and it was worthy of even just a[n Emmy] nomination, maybe I can give myself a compliment, because I’m not so good at that! After 500 episodes of TV, I think it’s OK to want a little trophy now.”
This edition of THR Presents is sponsored by Hulu.