Here's What Sarah Drew Had To Say About April Possibly Returning To 'Grey's Anatomy'

If you love April Kepner on Grey's Anatomy and you've been holding your breath waiting for your favorite character to return to your favorite show, it might be time to let it out. Because Sarah Drew says there are no plans to bring April back to Grey's Anatomy anytime soon.

Fans will remember that April was written off the show alongside Jessica Capshaw's Arizona Robbins this year, after nine seasons on the program. Both the character and the actor who player her were as beloved at the end of their run as they were when they joined the show, so there was some hope that April might find her way back to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (or back to her on-again-off-again love, Jesse Williams' Jackson Avery.)

But according to an Aug. 21 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Drew has "closed the door" on April. Although she did hint that she might consider allowing someone to pry it open, assuming that the time was right. When asked whether she might consider a return to the series, the actor hedged a bit, telling the outlet that there are no plans to bring April back, but if there were, she wouldn't say no:

"Those conversations are not in the works, but I'm always going to say maybe for that. I really do feel like I said goodbye to her, and it was an epic farewell, a beautiful farewell, and I did feel like I closed the door on my life as April Kepner. But those people are my family, that community is my family, so I'm certainly not saying, 'No.'"

She's not saying no, but she's also definitely not saying yes. It's an incredibly soft "maybe," seemingly based on the fact that Drew can't imagine a more fitting farewell than the one she received after her final episode on May 17.

The 37-year-old has been vocal about how difficult it was to leave her Grey's family after all that time, but she worked through it and processed it, and she doesn't seem eager to undo all that emotional labor anytime soon. Drew continued:

"I'm someone that can't really sit in pain or hardship for too long without processing it into something beautiful and good, and what was wonderful about the aftermath of being let go from the show was that the outpouring of love was so extraordinary, the love was almost tangible. You could reach out and touch it, from the cast to the crew to the fans, to everybody."

That sounds overwhelmingly, heart-wrenchingly sweet, so it's understandable that Drew might not be ready to imagine getting her heart wrenched again so soon.

In fact, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in the wake of her Emmy nomination for her directorial debut on the webseries Grey's Anatomy: B-Team, Drew went so far as to describe her time post-show as a rebirth, saying:

"My confidence had gotten a bit shaken in the wake of being let go and the nomination after the fact made me go, 'I don't need to be worried about anything or have my confidence shaken.' I'm not only pursuing my career as an actor but I'm now also walking into this world as a director and as a producer and the world is so wide open. More than anything else, the last few weeks after my final episodes have been a really beautiful rebirth and a really exciting time."

After a rebirth, there's only one direction to move, and that's forward. In order to focus on her newly-minted triple threat status as an actor, director, and producer, she has to let go of something. And it sounds — at least for the moment — that that thing is April Kepner. But before you shed too many tears about that, just know that Drew has no hard feelings about the way things went down. As she summarized for ET:

"I actually wouldn't have it any other way, you know? It was a kind of gorgeous and beautiful experience. And now I'm feeling so excited about the future, so yeah, I mean, yes. It was devastating in the moment, but I'm able to process that stuff and find the good in it, because I don't know how else to look at the world. I have to look at the world that way."

When it comes to April, no news is good news, so even if she never shows that beloved, familiar face on Grey's again, it can only signal good things for the actor who portrays her.