“For me, I’m just worried about playing Andrew DeLuca, and Andrew DeLuca doesn’t know Derek, and doesn’t know that character,” Grey’s Anatomy star Giacomo Gianniotti, 29, told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY when we asked him if he’s worried about hurting Meredith (Ellen Pompeo, 49) and Derek’s (Patrick Dempsey, 53) legacy, as DeLuca embarks on a hot new romance with Meredith. “[DeLuca’s] not thinking about [Derek]. [DeLuca] knows [Derek] in the context that [Meredith] had a partner, who she lost, who was the great love of hers, but me — Giacomo the actor — those aren’t things that I’m considering. I’m just trying to do what’s best for right now and just being in the present and making this present relationship between my character and Ellen’s as real and as genuine and as romantic and beautiful and love-injected as it possibly can be.”
To be clear, Giacomo didn’t join Grey’s until after Derek’s death. His first appearance was in the Season 11 episode “Time Stops” — two episodes after Derek died in “How To Save A Life” — so Andrew and Derek never even met. As an actor, we could see why Giacomo wouldn’t want to think about all the history Derek and Meredith had together since his character never truly saw that first-hand. Giacomo is focusing his attention on what’s in front of him, and as huge fans of the series, we can certainly appreciate that. And as much as we loved Meredith and Derek together, we also love what’s blossoming between DeLuca and Meredith (You, too, can love both relationships).
When the show returned on Jan. 17, we found Meredith and DeLuca trapped in an elevator together after he had just confessed his feelings for her, so that complicated their ongoing love triangle with Link (Chris Carmack) — not only did they nearly kiss a few times, but DeLuca and Link were seen fighting over one-on-one time with Meredith in one of the episode’s final moments. And at this time, it’s still unclear what will happen moving forward. As Giacomo previously told us, “We’re [currently filming episode 15 and] continuing to explore both [relationships], you know? Both Link and DeLuca’s relationships with Meredith, and like I said before, I think it’s kind of a little bit like a chess game of one moving forward and the other one moving forward in this slight lead, and then another person catches up and then the other person’s in the lead for a bit and we’re sort of riding this fine line of a race.” But even so, we’re crossing our fingers for DeLuca and Meredith! And that’s coming from huge MerDer fans here at HollywoodLife.
New episodes of Grey’s Anatomy air on ABC every Thursday at 8pm ET.