Once upon a time, Shonda Rhimes had a very different vision of Miranda Bailey.
Bailey, played by Chandra Wilson, has ruled over Grey’s Anatomy ever since the pilot, when Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and her fellow interns learned to be very afraid of the woman people called the “nazi.” In a new Black History Month interview with Good Morning America, Wilson and executive producer Zoanne Clack recalled the audition process and the fact that originally, Bailey was “a tiny blonde with curls who was underestimated.” She was actually the only character with a specified ethnicity in the script, but Wilson won the role
“I wasn’t ‘ingénue.’ I didn’t have whatever that look was, and casting always likes to give you a type,” she said. “I was always the thing that they called ‘non-traditional casting,’ so I would just go in for anything and just say, ‘I know that the role says this, but let me show you how I would do this,’ and see if that’s OK.”
Wilson added that she knew she never fit in, so she “never cared.”
“I was just like, ‘I know you’re looking for her, but here, how about this?'” she explained.