‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Jake Borelli on Levi Schmitt’s Exit and Almost Refusing His Coming Out Storyline: ‘I Wasn’t Ready to Talk About’ It on a ‘Global Level’

variety.com:

Max Gao SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for “If You Leave,” the Nov. 14 episode of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” After eight seasons and more than 130 episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” Dr.

Levi Schmitt (Jake Borelli) has wrapped up his residency at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. In Thursday’s episode of the venerable ABC medical drama, the affable doctor officially bids farewell to his colleagues in Seattle to take a lucrative medical research position in San Antonio, Texas, where he intends to gain some much-needed experience before applying for competitive pediatric surgery fellowships.

But not wanting to sacrifice his personal life in pursuit of his professional ambitions, Schmitt asks his boyfriend, new hospital chaplain James (Michael Thomas Grant), to move across the country with him, declaring that he has fallen madly in love with him.

By the end of the hour, James, who assures Schmitt the feeling is mutual, quits his job, and the two lovers walk off into the sunset together. “Levi’s coming right up to the end of his residency, so I think a decision needed to be made at some point about whether he actually moves into an attending [position] at Grey Sloan or if he has more to learn,” Borelli tells Variety. “I don’t know much about the inner workings behind the scenes and what people had to shuffle around to make everything work.