Ellen Pompeo is thinking about putting acting behind her after wrapping up her stint on Grey’s Anatomy as titular character Dr. Meredith Grey.

Ellen Pompeo On Acting

For Pompeo, 44, ending her acting career with the end of Grey’s Anatomy is something to seriously consider. Acting since the late 90s and being a regular on Grey’s since 2005, the married mother of one thinks that it might be time for her to pursue other avenues in the entertainment industry.

“I definitely don’t have a strong desire to act after Grey’s,” Pompeo, who has starting working as a producer, told Buzzfeed. “I feel myself transitioning. I don’t find acting terribly empowering. For the place I am in my life … I don’t necessarily want to work for other people.”

Pompeo explained, “With acting, I don’t feel I have anything to prove anymore. Grey’s is in 97 countries or something, and we’ve had this blessing of all these wonderful fans who still love us 10 years later; I feel like we did it. And I don’t have anything else to prove.”

“I’d like to try and challenge myself. I feel like I got the acting thing. I would like to try and see if I could do something different, and be successful at something different. I feel like I’m very successful at acting, at my definition of success,” the actress went on to say. “Some other people want films or Oscars or whatever, and that’s their journey. For my journey, I kind of feel like I did the absolute top of what I could do with television, and I would like to try a new sport and see if I’m any good at something else.”

While many celebrities – from actors to singers and athletes – declare their retirement only to come back into the field they left, Pompeo won’t say anything definitively. “Never say never,” Pompeo laughed. “I’m not going to come out there and make one of those statements like, ‘I’m retiring.’ […] I try to keep an open heart and open mind and open soul and spirit to whatever comes my way, and whatever is meant to be for me will be.”

Grey’s Anatomy is going into its 11th season this fall and Pompeo has already signed to continue in the role of Meredith for a 12th season on the Shonda Rhimes show. Should Grey’s get picked up for more seasons, Pompeo wouldn’t say for certain whether or not she’d be onboard.

In between filming the show, Pompeo works at her production company Calamity Jane, which she formed in 2011.