Anatomy of a Champion: Patrick Dempsey
Patrick Dempsey is back on our screens in Fox’s Memory of a Killer. But one suspects his return to motorsport has been at least as thrilling for the Grey’s Anatomy star. ‘There is a part of me that is alive again,’ he says.
Patrick Dempsey may have spent the past decade on a hiatus from motorsport, but it doesn’t feel like he’s been away at all. The award-winning actor, race-car driver and philanthropist is full-throttle back on the international racing circuit, and The Rake caught up with him at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where he joined Tag Heuer, the event’s new official timekeeper. Dempsey last competed in the challenging 1.6-mile Goodwood Hillclimb in 2017, driving a Porsche Panamera prototype. He describes the pre-eminent British motorsport event as “beautiful, a great estate and quintessential... Goodwood is different because of the heritage and history. The classic nature of it. You have the past, the present and the future, all in one. I met so many people there — everybody shows up.” Among the figures Dempsey has met over the years include a young, up-and-coming Lewis Hamilton, who had just started driving for Mercedes; the late car collector Peter Mullin; and the late Stirling Moss, who invited Dempsey over for dinner at his house. “All his memorabilia and trophies were there,” Dempsey recalls. “We had the best time. It was wonderful.”
Dressed in a Brunello Cucinelli suit and light-grey polo accessorised with vintage aviator-style Tag Heuer sunglasses, not to mention the Carrera on his wrist, Dempsey is a vision of relaxed sporting chic, but with bona fide action cred: an avid cyclist and runner as well, Dempsey’s first love was in fact skiing, and, as a member of the junior U.S. ski team, he aspired to compete in slalom for the Olympics.
Prior to Goodwood, The Rake was also with Dempsey in Monaco for the F1 grand prix, a pitstop to the principality that culminated in a career highlight: waving the chequered flag at the iconic race. After Monaco he went to Imola, where he got behind the wheel of a Porsche GT3 for two days at the Porsche Sprint Challenge Suisse. It’s all part of Dempsey’s return to professional racing, which was kickstarted last year with a full race season in the Porsche Endurance Challenge North America, and which Fox Sports Films captured in a four-part documentary, Destined to Drive: Patrick Dempsey’s Return to Racing.
From being an ambassador for the sport to working with the best drivers and coaches in the industry, Dempsey knows about putting in the hours, and he seems most fired up when behind the wheel. “It’s important for me to stay active in the racing world,” he says. “It’s just hard to get the time to be able to race. Because the more you do it, the more you want to do it. And the better you get, the more you do it. And the more consistent you are, the more relaxed you are, the faster you become.”
Dempsey took a break from racing in 2015 to focus on his family, as the demands took their toll. “I wanted to be home. I was juggling the show, travelling every weekend. It was just too much of a sacrifice on my family,” he says. “But I’m glad I did because it’s much harder today raising children in the teen years than it was when they were younger. You need to be around. They don’t really want you around, but they want you there — it’s your presence that’s important. They need to know that if they’re in trouble, you’re there for them, but they need their independence.”
Just after Monaco, his twin boys graduated from high school, and it’s clear that Dempsey’s passion for racing never went away — even his sons noticed how much he missed the sport and encouraged him to get back behind the wheel. The urge to compete came rushing back while he was training for the Porsche Endurance Challenge. As he told the American race car driver and Nascar commentator Kevin Harvick when promoting the documentary: “By the second day, it all came back. I thought, This is what I want to do—I want to get back in the car. There is a part of me that is alive again that was dormant. I just didn’t feel the same.”
Dempsey is known as one of the nicest and most professional people in the industry — The Rake’s Nick Foulkes has described him as “gracious as ever, good company, and a genuine enthusiast: he is the best kind of brand ambassador.” Antoine Pin, Tag Heuer’s chief executive, echoes the sentiment, noting that Dempsey, as both a talented actor and exceptional driver, embodies the Tag Heuer tagline, ‘Designed to win’. “‘Designed to win’ does not mean you’re going to win — it means you’re creating, you’re making something,” Pin says. “There is a potential in you. How are you going to turn it into a reality? This mix of finding your talents, your capabilities, and exploiting them — that’s the philosophy. That’s also what we think turns us into better watchmakers.”
When examining what Dempsey has planned, his approach channels that Tag Heuer philosophy, as he creates ways to balance his two passions. Dempsey has certainly ticked the big boxes on both fronts. In motorsport, he’s won at Le Mans, competed in the Baja 1000 (the annual, Mad Max-esque off-road race in Mexico), and even owned — and then stopped owning — a racing team. (“I got tired of chasing the money,” he says. “You’re always on the phone, hustling to try to put your budget together.”) In acting, he’s got one of the most successful T.V. shows under his belt in Grey’s Anatomy, is immortalised as McDreamy, and next he’ll be starring in the drama series Memory of a Killer, in which he plays an assassin who has Alzheimer’s. “It’s his journey through dealing with the disease and his occupation,” Dempsey says. “It crosses over into his two lives, his personal and professional life, and how that gets confused.”
Leading a triple life as a hitman, photocopier salesman and father? Sounds like a multifaceted assignment that only someone as versatile and talented as Dempsey could take on — and one that will see him winning, of course, as in so many aspects of his life.
By the second day, it all came back. I thought, I want to get back in the car. I just didn’t feel the same.
