Skimm Her Life: How 'Grey's Anatomy's' Sarah Drew Spends Her Downtime

Skimm Her Life is a series in our weekly newsletter, Skimm Your Life, where awesome women share how they spend their downtime. Sign up here to get more celebrity recs, as well as our favorite products, books, life hacks and more.

This week: Sarah Drew. You know her and love her as April Kepner on “Grey’s Anatomy.” And soon you’ll know her and love her from “Cruel Summer,” the new thriller series on Freeform. Take it away, Sarah...

Smartest purchase I made recently...My hubby got me an air fryer for Christmas and I have been loving it. We use it all the time. (Pssst...Skimm HQ recs this one.)

Best book I’ve read recently..."Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah. It was so funny and deeply moving. He’s an incredible storyteller. I felt like I was sitting with a dear friend hearing stories about his life — laughing and crying and being profoundly educated. 

Last podcast series I binged...Nadia Bolz-Weber’s “The Confessional.” She gives people a platform to talk about the moments in their lives that they’ve failed others, and offers a blessing at the end to those who’ve been wounded and to those who’ve done the wounding. It’s deeply human and incredibly healing to listen to these stories. 

Movie I’ve revisited a million times...“While You Were Sleeping.” It’s my comfort movie. My mom and I share that. Whenever she’s feeling down she puts it on.

Product I keep adding to my cart...IT Cosmetics foundation. I bring it with me to every job I work on. It stays on super well and has an SPF 50 that doesn’t make my skin look greasy.

Hobby that helped me get through quarantine...I started making little movies with my son. Last summer we put together an abridged production of “The Greatest Showman” with the neighborhood kids.

Favorite on-screen “Grey’s Anatomy” moment...I have a few.. One of [them] was when I faced off with the shooter in Season 6 and told him all about myself to get him to see me as human and let me go. That was super intense and a really defining moment for my character. This was the first time I’d been given a lot to do on the show as an actress and I wanted it to be great. It was exciting and challenging. 

I also loved the flash mob proposal. I loved the rehearsals. I loved the fact that the whole cast was there. I loved that it was a huge production to shoot the thing. It was so beautiful and so much fun. I loved the moment when Jackson interrupted my wedding. It was so romantic…and I loved that my actual dad got to walk me down the aisle over and over again on that day.  

Proudest on-screen moment...I think it’s the scene with the rabbi in Season 14. Saul Rubinek was an incredible acting partner, and Kevin McKidd directed it so brilliantly. He positioned three cameras super far away so that we didn’t even feel them, and he let us just play this 15-minute scene over and over again in total privacy. It felt like we were doing a play. The journey through that scene was so emotional and so healing. I had people from every walk of life reach out to me to tell me that something had shifted and released in them while watching that episode. I got to move people deeply, and I will always always be so grateful for that.

Pssst: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.