Mark Duplass and Ellen Pompeo, photographed in Los Angeles this month, star in Hulu’s limited series “Good American Family,” based on the Natalia Grace case. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
Although she’s one of the most recognizable faces on television, Ellen Pompeo felt as if the team behind “Good American Family” took a chance on her.
For nearly two decades, Pompeo starred in “Grey’s Anatomy” as the show’s namesake character Meredith Grey. But in 2022, Pompeo announced that she would be scaling back her appearances on the show to work on a new project that would become her first major role outside of the long-running medical drama.
Pompeo said she felt pressure to prove she could branch out from the character she had become synonymous with and that, like her, the creatives of “Good American Family” took a risk.
“It took enormous courage and bravery on all their parts and taking a chance on me. It’s a real chance,” she said. “I haven’t done anything in 20 years — I could have effed this up majorly.”
That chance has come in the form of Hulu’s limited series premiering Wednesday that’s based on the real-life story of the Barnett family and Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian girl with a rare form of dwarfism. The Indiana family’s adoption of Natalia, subsequent abandonment of her and the charges that followed made headlines across the across country, later becoming the subject of the three-season Investigation Discovery docuseries “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace” and now “Good American Family.”
In the series, Pompeo stars alongside Mark Duplass, playing Kristine and Michael Barnett, the couple who adopted Natalia, played by Imogen Faith Reid. “Good American Family” is told from different points of view to illustrate the conflicting accounts of what happened between members of the family.
For Pompeo, stepping into her first post-”Grey’s” role was daunting, especially when it was a character as complicated as this one.
“I didn’t know if I could do it,” she said. “I’ve done the same thing for 20 years. I didn’t know if I could do anything else. Why would anybody believe that I could?”
Read more: Could ‘Grey’s’ continue without Ellen Pompeo? The show’s boss hopes it doesn’t come to that
But Duplass, who said she expressed those worries to him when they first met up to discuss the project over a sushi dinner, helped put her mind at ease. He recalled her asking, “Am I going to be able to do this?”
“I’m like, ‘Of course you’re gonna be able to f— do this, but I love that you think you might not, because that makes me feel safe,” Duplass said.
Mark Duplass said Ellen Pompeo shared her doubts about taking on a new role: “I’m like, ‘Of course you’re gonna be able to f— do this, but I love that you think you might not, because that makes me feel safe.” (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
The jitters over their roles were understandable considering the complexity of the story of the Barnetts and the daughter they adopted. Kristine was convinced that Natalia was an adult posing as a child, and she alleged that Natalia tried to kill members of the family and has called her a “sociopath.” The Barnetts had her age legally changed to 22, reflecting their assumption that she was an adult, and they left her to live alone in an apartment in 2013 before moving to Canada with their three biological children. Natalia denies the Barnetts’ allegations and has said in interviews that she was the one being abused. DNA tests taken by Natalia in 2023 point to her birth year being around 2003, making her about 10 years old when she was abandoned.
The parents were charged with neglect of a dependent in 2019, and both pleaded not guilty. Michael was acquitted of the charges in 2022, and the charges against Kristine were dropped in 2023. She maintains her innocence, but Michael has said in several interviews for the documentary that Kristine was a “monster,” abusing both him and Natalia. (Michael filed for divorce from Kristine in 2014.)
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Co-showrunners Katie Robbins and Sarah Sutherland said they never doubted Pompeo could deliver a strong performance while also providing meaningful contributions in her role as an executive producer.
“We never had to worry about whether or not she could do it because she was worried about it,” said Robbins, who created the series. “And that meant that every day she came, having thought about it, having done her homework, working really hard to make sure that she could play this part, and she did and was such a fantastic creative collaborator.”
Pompeo and Duplass both admitted they were hesitant to take on dramatized roles of Kristine and Michael, two people often vilified by the media. It smelled like “trouble, trouble, trouble,” Pompeo said. She worried the show could be exploitative — a fear Duplass shared. Both actors are parents too: Pompeo has two daughters and a son with her husband, record producer and writer Chris Ivery; and Duplass has two daughters with wife Katie Aselton, an actor and filmmaker.
“I really strongly believe, don’t put something out just because you can rip it from the headlines and make a buck. And I wasn’t saying I was judging it, but I’m just wary of those things,” Duplass said. “So I was just honestly asking myself, ‘Why are we making the show? What’s this about?’”
Both actors credited early conversations with Robbins and Sutherland in helping them decide to make the leap, as well as meeting Reid. Her turn as Natalia in the series marks the 27-year-old’s first major acting role (she’s also a devoted fan of “Grey’s Anatomy,” according to Duplass and Pompeo).
Robbins, who created the series, was insistent that the show would not be just another rehashing of the story that’s been told through documentaries, podcasts and other media. With “Good American Family,” Robbins wanted to pose larger questions about bias, loyalty and what she calls “the elusive nature of truth.”
Read more: How ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ sent off Meredith Grey (for now): 5 key takeaways
To explore those themes, the eight episodes of the series are split between Kristine, Michael and Natalia’s perspectives. Robbins said she and her colleagues hoped this structure would “give audiences an opportunity to grapple with their own biases.”
Duplass said he felt casting him and Pompeo lent itself to that conversation around questioning who we trust and who we don’t, since the two of them have long played dependable, well-liked characters.
Ellen Pompeo on taking on a new role: “I really needed to see if I could [do it] and if I would enjoy it, if I thought it was fun.” Jennifer McCord/For The Times
Mark Duplass: “There’s a reservoir of trust built up for Ellen and myself because of the years we’ve spent on screen, subconsciously convincing people that when we speak, we’re the voice of reason.” Jennifer McCord/For The Times
“There’s a reservoir of trust built up for Ellen and myself because of the years we’ve spent onscreen, subconsciously convincing people that when we speak, we’re the voice of reason,” he said. “We’re sort of banking on the history of us being the center of morality, and then that center starts to crumble.”
For Pompeo, her work on “Grey’s” gave her “the gift of knowing how to be present in an instant,” after having put in her “10,000 hours and then some,” she said. That gift proved quite useful when tackling the tough subject matter, all while managing her anxiety about what she called having to “start from scratch” with a new role for the first time in several years.
“I really needed to see if I could [do it] and if I would enjoy it, if I thought it was fun,” she said. “It was a big test for me. It was a big experiment, but one that was necessary.”
The co-stars — Pompeo said they had instant chemistry — have talked about collaborating again in the future.
“We really enjoyed working together and being together, and it’s definitely something that I would like to do,” said Duplass before Pompeo joked that she’d be appearing in the upcoming season of “The Morning Show” with him.
Pompeo said she doesn’t know what’s next in this stage of her career, but with good humor, she and Duplass agreed: “Let’s hope this goes well.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
