It’s been over 17 years since Denny Duquette’s heart beat for the last time, nearly two decades since Izzie Stevens had to be carried away from the man she thought she was going to marry. Somehow, as Grey’s Anatomy approaches its 20th season, that performance by Katherine Heigl alongside Jeffrey Dean Morgan — two actors who have long since moved on from the ABC medical drama — remains one of the most affecting of the series. There’s a reason for that, as Heigl recalled tapping into a painful place for that performance, and she admitted what she wishes she’d done differently.
In the Season 2 finale “Losing My Religion,” Denny Duquette received a heart transplant (thanks to Izzie illegally cutting his LVAD wire) but died hours later, when a blood clot caused him to have a stroke. Meredith, Cristina, Alex and George found Izzie afterward, lying next to Denny’s body, refusing to move until Alex insisted that wasn’t Denny anymore and carried her away sobbing. Katherine Heigl recalled the scene for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, telling Ellen Pompeo:
I wanted so badly to nail that scene. I just wanted it to feel the way it was written on the page. I wanted it to be as heart-wrenching and all of the things. I don’t usually do this as an actor, I don't do that whole 'go into the dark place and listen to the music that's gonna tear my soul apart, and think about all the things in my life.’ And the worst was that I really went there and recalled, because I was 7 when my brother died, but we were in the hospital for a week, and I don't enjoy thinking about that much or that week in the hospital or him in that bed, but I chose to do that for that scene.
Izzie’s grief was palpable during that scene, and knowing that the actress drew upon the emotions of losing her brother when she was just 7 years old adds a whole new level of heartbreak. Katherine Heigl admitted that she wished she hadn’t recalled those horrible feelings, as she told her former co-star:
I don’t think I would put myself in that headspace again to achieve that. I think I would try harder to just act it.
Katherine Heigl wrote about her brother Jason on Instagram back in 2021, recalling his death in 1986 at age 15. Jason was in a car accident that left him in the ICU for a week before he was taken off of life support, the actress said.
It must have been unspeakably hard to allow that grief to come to the surface for that famous scene, but Ellen Pompeo pointed out that it was that performance and show of emotion that made Grey’s Anatomy as iconic as it is, and it’s true. There’s a reason we still talk about Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s guest spot on that show, a reason the actor said playing Denny Duquette changed his life. That performance is what makes “Losing My Religion” one of Grey’s Anatomy’s best episodes.
However, Ellen Pompeo has made similar admissions, recalling the scene in Season 6’s “Sanctuary/Death and all of His Friends” when Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) was shot. She said she and Sandra Oh had to “scream and cry and go crazy 30 fucking times,” and that wasn’t something she’d be willing to do again.
All 19 seasons of the medical drama are available to stream with a Netflix subscription, and if you don’t want to start from the beginning, there are plenty of jumping-off points for your Grey’s Anatomy rewatch, including the Denny Duquette era. We don’t yet know when Season 20 will premiere, but keep your eye on the 2023 TV schedule for that and all of the other shows that are starting in the meantime.
