“I Am Just Starting My Career”: Jesse Williams on Life After 11 Years of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

Despite shooting to stardom after years on Grey’s Anatomy, Jesse Williams feels his career is just getting started. 

Well known for his role as Dr. Jackson Avery on the long-running ABC drama, Williams was eager to try something new and decided to take his chance on the revival of Richard Greenberg’s 2002 baseball play, Take Me Out. Upon signing on to his very first play, little did Williams know that the revival would be a smash hit, leading to multiple Tony nominations and a highly demanded second run.

Halfway through the second turn of the Broadway show, Williams reflected on the freeing nature of his onstage experience and how, prior to starring on Broadway, his tenure on the hit TV show was actually something of a roadblock from other opportunities.

“Honestly, I feel like a kid just starting his career, because I am just starting my career,” Williams told Vanity Fair. “As soon as I started acting, essentially, I was immediately on Grey’s Anatomy, and I did that for 11 years straight, 10 months a year. Unavailable for anything else. So it’s all I did and knew.”

The actor went on to compare working on the TV drama to studying at “an amazing school” but being unable to leave the school and go outside to join the rest of the students on the playground. “I was in school…an amazing school, looking out the window, watching everybody else play and try things and fall and hurt themselves and try again and win—and I didn’t really do that. I was in an amazing castle, but I still couldn’t really leave. And so now, to leave, I feel like a kid.”

Unlike child actors, or those who were born into the business, former schoolteacher Williams scored his big break on what is now the longest-running medical prime-time drama when he was approaching 30. And while grateful for his time on Grey’s Anatomy, the Tony-nominated actor credits his Take Me Out experience with helping him to further perfect his craft in a new medium and open up a world of new acting opportunities.