MALIBU, Calif. — Patrick Dempsey sounds like a man
coming off a transforming experience. Last week, while driving to the
first table read for the upcoming season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” the
45-year-old actor was far more interested in talking about the prognosis
of his film career.
“It was such a great experience,” Dempsey said of his
work as a conniving villain in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” the
Michael Bay film that is now north of $763 million in worldwide grosses.
“There’s nothing like being on something where you can feel the wave
building the whole time and then just see it explode in the end.”
Dempsey is clearly ready for more explosions. Even as
“Grey’s” ramps up toward its eighth season, the man who portrays Dr.
Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd said any series that makes it this far runs
the risk of “cannibalizing” its past instead of taking risks or
delivering moments of true closure.
“After 150 episodes, it’s very easy to repeat
oneself, and I hope we can move forward with these characters so we’re
not playing the same beat over and over,” Dempsey said. “That is my
concern. It’s really important that you move forward with the
relationships and the fans realize what’s happening and where (the
relationships) need to go, and they are very smart. The loyal fans who
have been with us since Day 1 want to see these characters grow up and
not stuck in an adolescent dynamic.”
If Dempsey is ready for the surgeons and nurses of
Seattle’s Grace Mercy West Hospital to grow up, he’s also open to the
idea of getting in touch with the inner teenager of the American
moviegoer. Not only did Dempsey seek out director Bay to get the role of
the manipulative Dylan Gould, but the actor has also lobbied openly to
play Doctor Strange, a comic-book character that is on the Marvel
Studios list of in-development properties.
“It’s something that’s kind of out there, and, you
know, I’ve been looking at that,” Dempsey said in an earlier, sit-down
interview in Malibu. “It would be a fun one to do. Hopefully, doing
something like ‘Transformers’ (shows) I’m not mister-weepy-doctor guy,
you know, not McDreamy. You have to change that in people’s view. I’m
still hungry for other things.”
It’s an appetite that Dempsey is having a hard time
hiding at this point. The Maine native is clearly grateful for “Grey’s”
and the career windfall that came with it back in 2005, but the man who
has an off-screen passion for race-car driving (he drove a Ferrari F430
GT in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished ninth in the GT2 class)
is weary of being in touch with his feminine side.
“I’ve been known for this one role and for making
these light movies,” said Dempsey, referring to films such as “Made of
Honor,” “Enchanted” and “Valentine’s Day.” “Those were the opportunities
I had and the movies I had to make. But now I just got back from a race
this past weekend, and all the guys in the paddock were like, ‘Hey, I
went to “Transformers” — it was good to see you in a movie like that.’
It was nice to see them excited.”
Dempsey always has shown a flair for velocity and
reflex — during his high school years in Maine, he finished second in a
national juggling competition and was state champion in skiing — and the
man-of-action approach was a refuge too from the dyslexia that made
classrooms such a challenge.
He started on the stage, and craft and charisma led
to a Hollywood success as the star of the teen comedy “Can’t Buy Me
Love” in 1987. His credits include the 1991 movie “Mobsters” and a
memorable role on “Will & Grace,” but it was the part of Dr.
Shepherd that took him to a new level of pop-culture prominence.
The ABC medical drama created by Shonda Rhimes
averaged more than 18 million viewers per week in each of its first
three seasons, but last season, that number was at a franchise low of
11.4 million. Still, the season finale pulled in 15 million viewers,
beating CBS’ hits “The Mentalist” and “CSI” and Fox’s “Bones.” Rhimes
recently tweeted that — despite rumors to the contrary — she expects a
ninth season: “Just for the record: This is not the last season of GA.
Definitely. Not.”
Last week, Dempsey was more guarded when asked
whether the patient would pull through. “Our contracts are up at the end
of this year. That’s another thing that’s up in the air. If there is
renegotiation, what will that look like? Will people leave or continue
on?”
The Italian edition of Vanity Fair quoted Dempsey
this year as saying that this season would be his last, but the actor
released a follow-up statement that tempered those comments. He may be
playing a leverage game or waiting for a big-screen better offer. In any
case, his transition to working strictly on the silver screen has not
been as fast as the actor would like.
Two years ago, Universal Pictures acquired screen
rights to the 2008 novel “The Art of Racing in the Rain” as a starring
vehicle for Dempsey, but there remains no director on board. Dempsey
also produced and starred in “Flypaper,” a black-comedy heist movie that
he took to the Sundance Film Festival in January, but the experience
only underlined the difficulty of transitioning to a different medium
and tone.
“It worked on some levels,” he said, “and didn’t work on others, but it prepared me to go into ‘Transformers.'”
In “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” Dempsey plays a
slippery investment banker and car collector with a bright smile and
dark secrets. The character plays a key part in a shadowy conspiracy
that adds new facets to the franchise’s ongoing tale of giant alien
robots and their war against each other here on Earth and beyond.
Asked how the bad guy Gould would describe McDreamy,
Dempsey laughed. “I could get in a lot of trouble with that. ‘Slightly
emasculated,’ perhaps — it’s a role written by a woman, and he’s how a
woman would want a man to be.”
Bay, who has a passion for fast cars, met Dempsey at a
Ferrari event, and the actor pitched himself as the natural choice for
the role. The filmmaker says Dempsey and costars Frances McDormand and
John Malkovich represent “our effort to take the ensemble up a notch in
acting talent.”
Dempsey had never seen a 3-D movie before the
premiere and was dazed a bit by the film’s bombast. He sounded like a
doctor sizing up a clinical trial when asked about his work in the
movie: “It did what it needed to do in order to help move that
perception of me around a little bit.”
If the role had been bigger, it might have been the
beginning of the end for McDreamy. But Dempsey is too savvy to leave
“Grey’s” without a place to go.
“The success I’ve had has allowed me to do something
like ‘Transformers’ and bring all those people over to watch something
like ‘Transformers,'” the actor said.
“One helps the other. You can’t forget that or not be
grateful. … You have to take a look in the mirror and appreciate
where you are,” Dempsey said. “It can all go away very quickly.”
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