Patrick Dempsey: ‘Dyslexia was a lesson in humility that saved me from the temptation to believe I was better than anyone else’

Patrick Dempsey, born in Maine 59 years ago, has been retiring from acting for more than a decade. His is a reluctant and delayed defection. He made it public in 2013, the year in which he participated for the second time in his favorite motor race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, feeling ready to dedicate himself body and soul to his parallel career as a professional driver. Since then, he has accumulated a dozen appearances in Grand Prix — with his own team, Dempsey Racing-Proton — but also seven film roles and five more on television, including three seasons of the series that launched him into orbit, Grey’s Anatomy.

At his meeting with this newspaper in Barcelona, in a luxury boutique hotel on the upper part of Passeig de Gràcia, Dempsey admits with a frank smile that, despite his persistent attempts to retire, he is still primarily an actor rather than a pilot, businessman or philanthropist. “In fact, I now think that my best role is yet to come. If I ever lost my professional ambition, I have now regained it.” What is the point, after all, of resisting the successful pursuit of one of the most glamorous and best-paid professions on the planet?

For years, Dempsey felt like a bystander, an intruder in a strange land. While still underage and a less-than-stellar student at Buckfield High School (in the town of just 2,000 souls where he grew up), he found himself “accidentally” cast in Torch Song Trilogy, Harvey Fierstein’s groundbreaking play. He was offered a role and gladly accepted, aware that it was the opportunity to spend four months in Philadelphia doing something “different, exciting” and which he soon found he was really good at.

That stage debut was followed by four more roles and an early foray into film alongside Donald Sutherland, Andrew McCarthy and Mary Stuart Masterson in Heaven Help Us. At the age of 21, in 1987, he found himself in Hollywood starring in the teen comedy You Can’t Buy Me Love, in the role of a chronic loser willing to pay the captain of the cheerleading squad (Amanda Peterson) a thousand dollars to pretend to be his girlfriend. It was a success, the beginning of a fruitful journey in the audiovisual industry that would end up leading him to participate in Enchanted, Outbreak, Sweet Home Alabama, the Transformers saga and, finally, the role of neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd in one of the most impactful series in contemporary television, Grey’s Anatomy.

Paulo Coelho said that when you want something with all your enthusiasm and energy, the entire universe conspires to help you achieve it. It can also conspire in your favor even if you are not quite sure you want it. At that point, young Dempsey’s life interests were more in the world of juggling (“I came in second in an international competition whose champion was Anthony Gatto, one of the best jugglers in history,” he says) and amateur motor racing. His idols were not actors like Brando, Hoffman or Pacino, “but skiers like the Mahre brothers and the real hero of my childhood, the Swede Ingemar Stenmark, always focused, always ambitious. His 86 victories in 15 years still seem to me one of the most amazing sporting feats I have ever witnessed.”

—You weren’t thrilled with acting, but you persevered anyway.

—Let’s say that I wasn’t as excited about it as I was about competitive sport. But being part of a company of professional actors that was going on tour in the United States at the age of just 17 was an extraordinary experience. And what came next, in those four or five years in which I made rapid progress and became known, was even better. It exceeded my expectations. Remember that I was a very poor student, with serious learning problems caused by the acute dyslexia that I was diagnosed with at the age of 12. I grew up without great ambitions, and I even thought that I was condemned to lead a mediocre life, because most of my classmates were progressing faster than me.

These days, Dempsey talks about dyslexia, the silent burden he carried in his formative years, as a paradoxical ally: “It taught me not to give up. In fact, I attribute some of my best qualities to it, such as ambition and mental strength. At some point in my life, I decided that I was not going to let adversity diminish me, and I think that is where my perseverance and competitive nature come from.” Dyslexia is defeated with “practical thinking, learning that is more visual than based on the written word, and resources such as the Linkword method, which was a real revolution in its day.” Once defeated (or parked in a corner, where it does not bother him), there remains “curiosity and the spirit of improvement: dyslexia has made me take life as a continuous learning process. And it was also a permanent dose of humility that has saved me from the temptation of believing myself to be better than anyone else.”

“I once approached a Hollywood star, whose name I will not mention, and he treated me with such arrogance, such contempt, that I promised myself that I would never act that way”

Dempsey has come to Barcelona to celebrate the opening of a new TAG Hauer store. He has been working as a brand ambassador for the Swiss watchmaker for ten years: “They came to me with a generous offer of sponsorship for my professional team, at a time when racing had become my main priority and I was looking for strategic alliances to make my dream of competing at the highest level come true. Since then, we have maintained a very intense relationship, based on a common love of motor sports.” The actor is wearing a TAG Heuer Carrera on his wrist, part of a personal watch collection consisting, as he explains, of “around 45 pieces.” Of course, this homemade anthology includes a limited edition of the Monaco Calibre 11, the legendary watch that Steve McQueen turned into a fashion accessory in the 1971 Lee H. Katzin-directed Le Mans, the classic action-packed car. “Yes, of course I admire McQueen,” Dempsey admits, “but I feel a bit embarrassed about comparing myself to him, even though we have in common that we both alternated between acting and racing. Let’s just say that the Carrera looked much better on his wrist than on mine.”

The actor says that he has always felt more comfortable “on the track and behind the wheel than on the set of a film.” Hollywood seems to him to be an artificial environment, with a certain toxicity, but “capable of concentrating a lot of talent and producing at least a handful of great films.” Above all, he respects his colleagues who have kept “their sanity and humility” in an environment that encourages, “perhaps without intending to do so at all,” disconnection from reality and egotism: “Keanu Reeves seems to me to be a great example. As well as being one of the best actors of my generation, he is one of the most approachable, sensible and empathetic people I have ever met in the business. I like how he has managed his career and how he behaves with everyone. With him it is not a question of image, but of coherence with his values, something deep and genuine. The same could be said of Ben Kingsley. I was lucky enough to work alongside Ben on a television movie, Crime and Punishment, and it gave me one of the most intense life and professional learning experiences of my career.”

That kind of human quality, Dempsey says, based on his experience, “is much more common in sports stars than in Hollywood actors.” This is the case of Leo Messi: “I was lucky enough to meet him a few years ago in Barcelona and I will never forget the kindness and affection with which he treated my children. I could say something similar about Fernando Alonso. We met at Le Mans and I loved the naturalness and joy he conveys. He seemed to me to be a man who loves his profession and feels lucky to practice it, but who does not behave as if being an exceptional driver puts him above other human beings. Lewis Hamilton is another champion with impeccable behavior and who always tries to set a good example. Not long ago I met his father and I realized immediately that he shares Lewis’s simplicity and good manners.”

Dempsey himself discovered that meeting people you admire need not be a disappointing experience: “Once, when I was still a young debut actor whom nobody knew, I ran into Gene Wilder and had the audacity to introduce myself, ask for his autograph and tell him how much I had enjoyed his role as Willy Wonka in A World of Fantasy. He gave me his full attention and was so kind that I felt very lucky. However, shortly afterward I approached another Hollywood star, whose name I will not mention, and he treated me with such arrogance, such contempt, that I promised myself that I would never act that way.”

Of course, a reluctant star like Dempsey, the man who dreamed of retiring early and who is so concerned about keeping his sanity, cannot take seriously the fact that in 2023 People magazine named him the most attractive man on the planet: “My children are still laughing. Even my wife [the makeup artist Jill Fink, with whom he has been for 25 years and who accompanied him on his trip to Barcelona] couldn’t suppress a sarcastic comment. I don’t think anyone in their right mind really thinks that the most attractive man in the world is a Hollywood actor. These lists, as funny as they are, don’t make the slightest sense. But it was a great opportunity, because I appeared on the cover of People and they did a long interview focusing on my philanthropic activities. In particular, on my foundation to fight cancer, the disease that took my mother, the most important person in my life. If fame has one positive thing, it is that it gives you a formidable speaker that you can use however you prefer.”

His year at the (theoretical) pinnacle of male beauty ended in mid-November 2024, with the election of John Krasinski, another middle-aged American actor, as the new planetary Adonis: “It’s a relief to have passed the baton,” jokes Dempsey. “In a way, I’m glad I won. I had been among the top vote-getters for a few years now and I didn’t know what to answer when people asked me what Matt Damon or George Clooney have that I don’t. Well, it seems like nothing,” he concludes enthusiastically.

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