Jeffrey Dean Morgan Admits He ‘Can’t Rewatch’ This ‘Incredibly Sad’ Grey’s Anatomy Scene, Nearly 20 Years Later

In a conversation with former costar Katherine Heigl, Morgan admitted which scene he can’t rewatch

Izzie wasn’t the only one crying along with the fans.

Reuniting virtually for the 20th anniversary of Grey’s Anatomy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan admitted to former costar Katherine Heigl that he can’t rewatch their scene together in which his character, Denny Duquette, dies.

“It makes me cry,” Morgan, 58, shared in a conversation for Entertainment Weekly. “One, because it was so awesome, and two, it was f—— incredibly sad to watch.”

Morgan talked about the 2006 season 2 finale, and the memorable scenes between Denny and Heigl’s Dr. Izzie Stevens.

“I don’t see myself in there, which I take is a good sign, if I can watch myself acting and not see myself,” The Walking Dead alumnus added. “And I never did, working with Heigl and having Shonda [Rhimes]’s words. That’s pretty special.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Heigl, 46, talked about the emotional place she had to get to in order to understand her character, and the personal experience that she pulled from.

“I remember that scene when Denny died, how stressed out I was to perform that and just wanting to give it my absolute best and really try not to chew the scenery and try not to make it overly melodramatic, but to really hit that grief honestly,” Heigl recalled. “I put all this pressure on myself to do that well. I was sitting alone a lot, listening to really sad music, thinking about my dead brother, which was fun.”

“I didn’t have to do anything, obviously. I was dead,” Morgan quipped. “But I remember having so much empathy for what you were going through because it was rough. And you had to sit there and cry, and they wanted to shoot it 900 different ways to Sunday. So you cried for a good 15 hours that day.”

While hard and stressful to film, Morgan confessed, “It’s one of my favorite scenes. You were so good.”

“You were so good. You made it very easy to do,” Heigl added, mirroring Morgan’s sentiment.

Both Morgan and Heigl lauded series creator Rhimes, 55, for how she could write a scene and more importantly, craft a doomed love story.  

“One of my favorite things about Shonda as a writer is how beautifully she does these tortured love stories. And I feel like that was Denny and Izzie, it was doomed from the start,” Heigl said. “And being able to do that, you have to have some camaraderie, some connection, some affection and respect for the person you’re working with. In this instance, it was magic. It just worked.”

Heigl talked more about the relationship between the two characters, which she knew fans wanted to work — making them feel all the more blindsided by the heartbreak. 

“Because it did happen so fast, we did meet on set, we did dive right into that storyline,” Heigl recalled. “It wasn’t like I had some big lead-up to, ‘This is coming for Izzie.’ It’s always secretive there and they don’t want to spill the beans too soon. So you’re finding out as it’s going.”

Grey’s Anatomy, now in season 21, started in 2005. It is American TV’s longest-running primetime medical drama.