Dr. Owen Hunt Scrubs Out: Kevin McKidd on Nearly 20 Years of Playing a ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Antihero

Any “jumping the shark” moments that were more lighthearted or farfetched like the musical episode in season 7 that you remember?

That was such a trip. It was wild that we even got away with doing that episode. Tony Phelan directed the hell out of it and it was really one of Sara Ramirez’s huge moments on the show. When I had my song, I had to hit this note. Kate Walsh and Eric Dane and Patrick [Dempsey] were in the room and I had to sing the song, stop them arguing. They turned around, looked at me, couldn’t stop laughing. I had to sell this song while they’re all just cracking up. And I’m like, “You guys are killing me.”

Dr. Mark Sloan, played by the overdue Eric Dane, is one of the characters featured as part of Owen’s montage of show moments. Do you have any favorite memories of working with him?

Eric was just so brilliant in that character. He had such a deadpan charm to him that I just loved whenever I got to work with him because he always found a way to make the scene play really uniquely. So it was a huge loss to the Grey’s family. I just send his family all our love and blessings. It really felt vital in that final montage of the finale to see him because Owen spent quite a lot of time with him and Derek, hitting golf balls off the roof and building uneven decks for the dream house. We had a lot of great stuff together, so it was nice to honor him.

As someone from Scotland, did spending almost 20 years on an American medical drama make you feel differently about our healthcare system?

That’s a very complicated question. We probably need a whole other interview. The National Health Service in the UK is not perfect by any means. I have some personal feelings about that. My father passed away recently. He was undiagnosed with a certain type of disease until after he passed because there’s so many waiting times and wait lists to get scans. So it has its issues, but it is a free service, what they call the cradle-to-grave health service. Everybody who’s born in the UK has a birthright to that. So that’s what I was born into.

Grey’s is like the idealized version of what medicine should be and I know that that isn’t fully the case in this country. There’s the haves and the have-nots when it comes to medical care. It’s a huge nut to crack. But I believe, because I’m European, that everybody should have a right to decent healthcare throughout their life without it breaking their family’s banks.