After his career slumped and he didn't get decent roles for a decade, Patrick Dempsey says he was wracked with insecurity before landing the plumb role of Dr. Derek Shepherd in the hit show "Grey's Anatomy."
"I'm ugly, I'm untalented, I'm no good, I'm a has-been," Patrick said describing his thoughts at the time. "It's like (bleep), what happened to me? I used to be me."
The very sexy actor even stopped going to movies because he was too upset about not being able to land a role in any films. He adds, "I'd come in to movies with this bitter attitude. It's not an escape, because I feel this disappointment, this jealousy."
Even more revealing about Dr. McDreamy's alter-ego is his interview with Barbara Walters tonight in her pre-Academy Award special where Patrick discusses his dyslexia, which wasn't diagnosed until he was 12, and how it affects him today. "He doesn't do cold readings," Barbara says. "He tries to get the script in advance so that he can memorize it."
Dempsey, 40, reveals that he still struggles to read scripts and memorize his lines. "I think that's when I get the most insecure. ... it's very hard for me to read it off the page. I need to memorize it, in order to go on."
"I think it's made me who I am today," he added, finding a silver lining in the reading disorder that made his childhood miserable. "It's given me a perspective of - you have to keep working. I have never given up."
Comments
you are the best man I never seen.
Posted by: annika bengtsson | May 19, 2006 2:44 PM
OMG Patrick Dempsey is so McDreamy I dream bout him EVERY night, he is my ubsession!!
Posted by: Jackie Burns | August 24, 2006 10:37 PM