Camilla Luddington revealed that she and she used to Grey’s Anatomy the actors were not allowed to read their script before the table read, which she found “terrifying”.

The actor joined the cast of the long-running ABC series as Dr. Josephine “Jo” Wilson in 2021. The show first aired in 2005 and is now in its 21st season.

Luddington shared her thoughts on the script’s unwritten rule during an episode of the series Let’s call it how it is a podcast she hosts with her boyfriend and ex Grey’s Anatomy Actor Jessica Capshaw. Capshaw played pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins until March 2018, appearing in 11 seasons.

The episode aired on December 9 featured former cast member Chyler Leigh, who played Lexie Grey, as a guest. During the interview, she explained that you won’t know if you’ve been killed until the chart is read.

“The scripts, you didn’t read them until you got to the table, so everything was cold, so we had no idea what was going on. And some people would be like killed and you’d find out [at the table read]Leigh said.

Luddington replied, “Now it’s changed, now we get them ahead of time, but when I started it was the same. It was scary; and when I started, I remember there was a rule where if you didn’t even like it, sit down with your script and quickly go through and look for your stuff. I was told it was a no-no, I couldn’t even leaf through it.”

The women joked that they wanted to read the script beforehand to see if they were killed off.

Capshaw added that if you’re raising young children, you wouldn’t mind appearing less in the episode.

“We were equally excited to have the job and maybe not have the job, right? When you were working, you loved your stories, you were so excited, but if you weren’t in the script, you were like, ‘This could be great, I could sleep and that would be good,” she explained.

Elsewhere in the episode, Luddington revealed that she and others Grey’s Anatomy cast members were “traumatized” by the plane crash storyline from Season 8 of the hit show, which took place in the final two episodes.

The plane was carrying six of the show’s doctors, who were helping operate on conjoined twins at a Boise hospital. In a dramatic turn of events, he crashed after suffering a mechanical failure. Both Lexie and Mark Sloane (Eric Dane) died as a result of the traumatic incident.

“When I started the show, I heard that, um, because you just left, right? We don’t like to talk about the plane crash episode because everybody’s traumatized,” Luddington Leigh said.

“But I came in afterwards and thought, ‘This is a crazy way to go on because we’re losing such iconic characters from the show, it’s kind of scary.’ And everyone was talking about how incredible you were as a cast member.

“And we talk about it like — the crew always knows, the crew on TV shows, your reputation really fits the crew because they see you every day. Not every actor sees you every day, but the cameraman, the makeup artist. Everyone could say don’t [….] they were just in love with you and so sad to see you go.”

The plane crash episodes and the episodes that showed the aftermath went down in television history.

In the first episode of Season 9, Mark died from his injuries and his life support was turned off. Cristina Yang, played by Sandra Oh, is haunted by the memory of hearing wolves fighting over Lexie’s dead body. Each survivor dealt with the aftermath differently, allowing the show to explore trauma in a way it hadn’t before.

While Leigh acknowledges how iconic those two episodes are, it had a lasting effect on her.

“I watched it when it aired and then I never saw it again,” Leigh said, and when asked if it was traumatic to watch, she added: “It was super traumatic to film it and then to go back to it . it was like, ‘OK, I’m fine.’