via BuzzFeed

Kelly McCreary has shaken up Shonda Rhimes’ medical drama in its 11th season. Now, the actor behind Maggie Pierce reveals how she got the part, why she once quit acting, and why the show is so important.

Reuters

In its 11 seasons, Shonda Rhimes' Grey's Anatomy has delighted loyal viewers, and, simultaneously, pulled popular culture forward with its representations of people of color, working women, working parents, and LGBT characters. It has taken its audience through both gasp-inducing medical plots and the slow unfoldings of characters — all of whom revolve around Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) — that we have now known for longer than most of us know the real people in our lives.

The ABC drama, is not, however, known for dropping in stories that it planted seasons before — it's never been filled with twisty mythology. But there is one exception: the character of Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary), the child Meredith's mother, Ellis (Kate Burton), conceived with Richard "The Chief" Webber (James Pickens Jr.) during their affair and given up for adoption, which Meredith was too young to remember clearly. Though we didn't know who she was at the time, Maggie appeared at the end of Season 10 to work at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. And her real reason for taking the job as the head of cardiology was to get to know her biological sister. Her mother's name, she told Richard in the Season 10 finale, was all over the hospital. "Ellis Grey," she said. "Did you know her?"

And with that, Maggie suddenly became a crucial part of the Grey's Anatomy tapestry. "We've known the Maggie storyline since Season 4; basically, since the beginning of the show," Rhimes told The Hollywood Reporter two months after the episode aired. "I knew the Richard-Ellis love child was a storyline since I planned the pilot. I was like, 'At some point, we're going to have the Richard-Ellis love child.'"

Since she planned the pilot! It was fascinating for the Grey's faithful.

In her half-season on the show so far, Maggie has proven to be serious, kind, nerdy, stable (unlike her sister, perhaps), and an excellent, confident doctor. She's also the product of a loving home with parents who raised her right (unlike her sister, for sure).

Over lunch recently at a cafe in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, McCreary told BuzzFeed News many things you probably don't know about her, including how she got to Grey's Anatomy, what it means to master "Scandal pace," and why she quit acting and almost never returned to it.