Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo made headlines when she signed a $20 million-plus annual deal to keep her through season 16. But it didn’t come easy. Even though she had a tremendous amount of support from women, she still says it was hard getting others to support it. 

“Women approached me on the street in tears — crying — and it is really interesting how as women we are really not used to, or accustomed to being forceful and asking for what we want, or asking for what we deserve, or speaking up, or speaking our mind,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s been a very interesting ride, the whole topic of standing up for yourself and what it takes to get yourself emotionally to the place where you’re comfortable doing that. Of course, it was a challenging thing to do right, because I’m in a very specific situation. Like I had said in the past, I had very quantifiable numbers that I could derive my number from.” 

Of course, she adds, “Not everybody has the blessing to be able to do that.” 

“You don’t know how your work impacts your workplace. It’s hard to quantify what you do in your workplace and how does that result in numbers. In my instance, I’m very fortunate where I actually do get to see how my presence directly impacts the money that the show makes. So I was in a pretty unique position to be able to speak on it. I’m glad I did and I’m really glad that it was received in the way that it was received, but we still have a really long way to go with respect to women supporting women. I think it’s still more rare to have women support women when you’re on top. I think it’s very easy for women to support women when there’s a victim situation. In my experience, I see that women are really quick to rush to other women’s aid when they’re down, when they’re a victim.”

Learn more at EW.