Everett native Ellen Pompeo to star in Hulu’s Chicks

Ellen Pompeo, an Everett native known for “Grey’s Anatomy,” is set to star in Hulu’s upcoming Boston-set crime dramedy “Chicks.” The streamer has ordered a pilot, with Pompeo executive producing alongside writer Katie Robbins, who created the series idea and p

Ellen Pompeo’s next role brings her back to Boston—at least in spirit. The Everett native, best known for playing Dr. Meredith Grey on “Grey’s Anatomy,” is set to star in Hulu’s upcoming Boston-set crime dramedy “Chicks,” a project that has received a pilot order.

Pompeo will take the lead role and serve as an executive producer. She’s teaming up with Katie Robbins, who wrote the series and will also executive produce.

In “Chicks,” Pompeo plays Chickie. The story centers on Chickie and Doreen. two estranged half-sisters who inherit their wise guy dad’s crime legacy after he “unexpectedly kicks the bucket.” From there. the series follows them as they’re inspired to run increasingly audacious frauds—an effort that forges an “odd-couple bond.”.

The show’s setting is rooted in the “rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of old Boston,” according to Deadline. Even with Boston as the backdrop, production is slated to start in New York in September, and no filming in Boston has been announced yet.

Pompeo and Robbins previously collaborated on the Hulu limited series “Good American Family,” a dramatization of the life of Natalia Grace. “Chicks” was inspired by conversations the actress and writer had on set, and Robbins developed the idea specifically for Pompeo.

The personal connection is there, too. In an interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast last year. Pompeo described a “pretty intense” upbringing in the Boston area. saying she saw early on that “people with money had power.” She recalled being surrounded by mafia figures—“mafia guys and really bad people”—who were. as she put it. “great to all of us. ” while still retaining a kind of control that made it seem like “the sea parted when they walked through.” Pompeo added that she understands more now about who those men were and what they were really like.

For a performer whose career has been defined by playing a doctor inside a long-running TV institution, “Chicks” turns the spotlight to something else: family, inheritance, and the complicated pull of a neighborhood’s influence—set in Boston, even as the cameras prepare to roll elsewhere.

Ellen Pompeo Everett native Hulu Chicks Boston-set crime dramedy Katie Robbins pilot order Grey's Anatomy