The more Japril, the better? It seems both Grey’s Anatomy fans and Jackson (Jesse Williams) and April (Sarah Drew) are on board for more content from the onscreen couple after the actors’ respective exits from the long-running medical drama.
Williams and Drew both joined the cast of Grey’s Anatomy during season 6 and their characters took their friendship to the next level during season 8.
“I remember you showed up with a whole marked-up script with script ideas,” Drew recalled to Insider in 2022 about Williams’ excitement about their characters getting together.
He added, “I got in trouble for that.”
Jackson and April’s relationship had several ups and downs over the years, with April leaving Matthew (Justin Bruening) on their wedding day to run off with Jackson, the spouses losing a child and ultimately ending their marriage in divorce after welcoming daughter Harriet. When Drew exited Grey’s in 2018, her character was reunited with Matthew. When it was time for Williams to leave the show in 2021, however, Drew returned and fans learned April and Matthew were on the rocks.
“The pitch that was given to me was April was super pregnant with Matthew’s baby and Matthew wasn’t home when Jackson came to the house to pitch April on the idea of going to Boston with him,” Drew told Insider in 2021. “There was a storm outside and Jackson had to deliver April’s baby at the house, and through this whole experience, April decided to bring her whole family to Boston with Jackson.”
The actors, however, fought for a different story line to give fans hope that Japril could reunite off screen.
“Jesse and I talked about it and thought it would be more satisfying to the audience if they were left with some hope for Japril reuniting,” she continued. “Jesse pitched that to the writers and the writers agreed — and then the story shifted.”
One year later, Grey’s Anatomy enlisted the pair to return to Seattle again for the 400th episode in May 2022 and fans indeed learned — via a sweet kiss in the elevator — that the couple was back on. Drew subsequently told Deadline that she hopes the story isn’t over yet.
“It definitely leaves open the possibility that you might be checking in with them,” the Cruel Summer alum said in May 2022. “After the script was released, I had texts flying in from cast and crew asking if I was coming back next year because of how the episode ends. But as of now, that is not on the table. It’s not something that anyone has discussed with me in any kind of official capacity. But there’s a lot of open-ended questions at the end of this episode. I think you’ll leave this episode with giant question marks: Where do we go from here? How is the hospital going to recover? What is going to happen? What is the next year gonna look like? So I think there are a million questions and a million possibilities.”
Scroll through for more from Drew and Williams about a potential Japril-focused series:
