Ellen Pompeo reveals she and Denzel Washington 'went at it' on the set of 'Grey's Anatomy' when he directed a pivotal episode for Meredith Grey

• Ellen Pompeo revealed on her podcast that she once fought with Denzel Washington on set.
• Washington was directing an episode of "Grey's Anatomy," when the actress said, "'This is my show.'"
• After a spat, Pompeo told Washington's wife, "I'm not looking at him," when she visited set.

Ellen Pompeo recently revealed that when making great TV, sometimes it comes with a few disagreements. And one of those fights on the set of "Grey's Anatomy" was with iconic actor, Denzel Washington, who was directing an episode of the hit ABC medical drama.

While speaking with her former onscreen husband and "Grey's" costar, Patrick Dempsey, on her "Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo" podcast, the pair were reminiscing about memories on the set. Dempsey then asked Pompeo about her experience working with Washington, who directed a season 12 episode of "Grey's Anatomy" called "The Sound of Silence."

Pompeo remembered an intense fight she had with the "Training Day" star when she changed a line of dialogue in the script. It was during a scene after an epileptic patient broke the jaw of her character, fictional doctor Meredith Grey.

"I didn't really want to talk to this actor or see this actor before we did this scene, so I didn't have much interaction with him at all," Pompeo recalled.

"And then, he apologized to me, but he was doing it really softly. He made this choice to speak very softly. And I was pissed that I had to sit there and listen to this apology. And he wasn't looking at me in the eye. Again, we love actors who make choices. And I yelled at him, I was like, 'Look at me! When you apologize, look at me!' And that wasn't in the dialogue."

Pompeo said, "Denzel went ham on my ass. He was like, 'I'm the director. Don't you tell him what to do."

But the actress said she didn't back down, telling Washington: "And I was like, 'listen motherfucker, this is my show. This is my set. Who are you telling? You barely know where the bathroom is.'"

During the debut podcast episode released Wednesday, Pompeo noted that Washington was tapped to direct an episode by producer Debbie Allen as a "surprise" for Pompeo to keep her interested in the longrunning series.

"He came probably three weeks prior so he could get caught up because Denzel doesn't watch much TV, he's probably never seen the show," the actress said to Dempsey. "He did the show because his wife is a big fan. His wife is really who told him, 'That show's amazing, you should go do it.' I think he saw it as a good exercise to just come in and direct something quick."

Eventually, the pair smoothed over their creative differences, Pompeo assured Dempsey. The actress even described herself as a big fan of Washington's although she said, "he doesn't know shit about directing TV."

"Any set, unless it's a comedy...it's an emotional place and there's passion and there's fire there," she added.

Pompeo said that high intensity on set is "what it takes to get the good shit" onscreen for fans, and Washington understood that.

"So, we were fine after that. And he's just one of the best to ever do it," Pompeo said. "You know, I have the utmost respect for him as an actor, as a director, as everything."

Insider reached out to reps for Washington about the incident, but didn't hear back immediately.