Interview: Patrick Dempsey
Keeping the Ladies Happy

Patrick Dempsey brings his McDreaminess to the big screen for Made of Honor, a movie he proudly calls an “old-fashioned romantic comedy”

Patrick Dempsey is on his second honeymoon with Hollywood.

After spending much of the 1990s relegated to supporting roles and forgettable parts, the 1980s teen dreamboat is enjoying rekindled fame thanks to his Grey’s Anatomy role dubbed Dr. McDreamy. More importantly, he’s enjoying the clout that’s arrived with it.

He admits, for example, that he initially turned down the chance to star in the new romantic comedy Made of Honor.

“I thought, ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to do this movie right now,’” admits the 42-year-old actor during a recent interview at a Beverly Hills hotel.

“But they kept coming back to me and we started having these discussions, ‘What do you want to do with it?’ I said, ‘I think this needs to happen. And, tonally, it’s got to change,’ and suddenly I was given a lot more power. Then you want to see what  you can do with it, and even though it’s a romantic comedy maybe we can make something out of it. So what was a very broad dark comedy turned into this old-fashioned romantic comedy.”
 

The result stars Dempsey as Tom, a bachelor who is rich, desirable and the envy of his married, middle-aged pals. His seemingly ideal life is upended, though, when he realizes he’s in love with his gorgeous best friend Hannah (Michelle Monaghan of Mission: Impossible III and The Heartbreak Kid). But before he can tell her about his feelings she returns from a business trip to Scotland, tells Tom she met a man there and is getting married.

Already facing the prospect of Hannah walking down the aisle with another man, matters get worse when she asks Tom to be her maid of honour — hence the pun of the title and the inevitable comparisons to My Best Friend’s Wedding, albeit with Dempsey in the Julia Roberts role.

Honor marks Dempsey’s first film since last fall’s hit Disney musical Enchanted, which assured Amy Adams’ status as one of Hollywood’s It girls.

Dempsey believes Monaghan has the same potential.

“Michelle has a great quality on screen. With Michelle, there’s something really accessible about her. She is the girl next door and that really worked for the dynamic of Made of Honor. It’s been fun; it’s been a lot of work though.”

Indeed, it’s been a breathless few years for Dempsey in general. In addition to acting, he is also an avid auto racer and co-owner of the IndyCar Series team Vision Racing. And there is, of course, the medical soap opera he has to thank for his career resurgence in the first place.

“At the end of Made of Honor I was exhausted because I had to jump right back into Grey’s Anatomy. I had that, and there was the birth of the boys and my racing. I thought, ‘Wow, this is something else.’”

The “boys” to whom Dempsey refers are the twins he and his wife had in February 2007. They also have a five-year-old girl.

“My family keeps me in line…. I got home last night to projectile vomiting and everything smelled like vomit. That will take you back to reality,” says Dempsey, but adds, “I enjoy [fatherhood] more and more. There’s something really comforting about a houseful of people and kids. It surprises me. I usually like being alone, but I’m loving it.”

He’s also loving the second act of his career, one which appeared unlikely after his initial bout of fame — in such comedies as 1987’s Can’t Buy Me Love, 1988’s Some Girls and 1989’s Loverboy — fizzled.

Now, he says, “I know who I want to work with. I know who the good people are and who aren’t. You just want to be with good people. Life’s too short. I don’t want the drama.”
 

Kevin Williamson lives in Calgary where he’s a movie columnist for Sun Media.