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‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Book Details “HR Issues” Behind Patrick Dempsey’s Exit (Exclusive) - Hollywood Reporter
Sep 16, 2021 6 mins, 57 secs

“He’s Very Dreamy, but He’s Not the Sun,” Or, How Grey’s Anatomy Loved — Then Learned to Live Without — Patrick Dempsey.

Ellen Pompeo may have played the titular role, but for many fans over many years, Patrick Dempsey was the real draw to Grey’s Anatomy.

Stacy McKee Shonda was protective of McDreamy, but it was really with an eye toward being protective of Meredith.

At its core, there was something really substantial that she wanted to say.

Shonda said, “Because the woman in Iowa who’s watching this show wants to believe that Patrick is talking to her, and if you cut back to Meredith, it pushes them out of it.” In those special moments, we would just lock into Derek and let him do his thing.

Patrick Dempsey He’s the ideal man, and that’s what Shonda constructed.

Dempsey is one of those people—it’s almost like there’s a light shining around his body, and you feel like you’re the only person in the room.

It’s like this “it” factor.

I think it was very obvious how nervous I was, and he went out of his way to make sure he introduced me to everybody and made sure I felt comfortable, which he certainly didn’t have to do.

We had a really great time working together.

I think he’s such a great actor and he really made me laugh a lot.

Chandra Wilson Patrick Dempsey will forever be known as Grey’s Anatomy’s McDreamy.

But I guess someone didn’t like that.

Patrick Dempsey [That] was the first year that I haven’t been in every episode.

I [was] in every episode since the pilot— close to 250 episodes.

I think he was just done with the show.

He didn’t like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working.

She just didn’t like that Patrick would complain that “I’m here too late” or “I’ve been here too long” when she had twice as many scenes in the episode as he did.

It’s just that actors tend to see things from their own perspective.

Patrick Dempsey It’s ten months, fifteen hours a day.

Patrick Dempsey It [was] hard to say no to that kind of money.

It’s very heady.

We had three different scenarios that we actually had to break because we didn’t know until I think about three days before he came back to set which one we were going to go with.

We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it.

We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it!

It was ultimately decided that just bringing him back was going to be too hard on the other actors.

The studio just said it was going to be more trouble than it was worth and decided to move on.

Patrick Dempsey I don’t remember the date [I got the news].

We were like, “Oh, this is where it’s going to go.”.

So that was that: McDreamy would die in episode twenty-one of season eleven, even though Dempsey was in year one of his recently signed two-year contract extension.

To help keep the episode a secret, the scenes were shot in an abandoned hospital in Hawthorne, California, about twenty-two miles from the show’s home studio in Los Feliz.

Mimi Melgaard It was really hard on all of us because it was so secretive and we had so many different locations.

It was really weird.

His whole last episode was really tough.

Patrick Dempsey It was like any other day.

I assumed they were just dummy sides so people wouldn’t ruin the story line or anything like that.

I just figured I was going to be a guest doctor and that whoever this person was who was injured, was going to be just a character on the show.

I was reading it in my house, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I didn’t tell anyone, including my agents.

I just said, “This is a really great booking.

It’s a great role on Grey’s.” And they didn’t know anything until it aired.

Even though I never watched the show, I recognized the value of the episode I was in and just really took it to heart.

I think when we first started, he was very calm and cool … the same Patrick that I remembered when I worked on the show a year or so before.

You’ve become a global icon on this show and then in five, four, three, two, a day … it’s over.

I just introduced myself, shook his hand, and was like, “Man, I cannot tell you what an honor it is to be the guy to take you down.” He loved it.

I remember him being really kind, but it was clearly intense for him.

I knew this event was going to be a really sad, horrible event for Meredith, but I also knew it was going to be the beginning of such an incredible chapter for Meredith.

Caterina Scorsone (Dr. Amelia Shepherd) I didn’t get to say goodbye to Patrick when he left.

Rob Hardy I didn’t see other actors showing up and saying, “Hey, it’s the last day.

Patrick Dempsey I very quietly left.

It was raining, which was really touching.

No reporter worth their salt wants to sit on a scoop—least of all one as huge as this—but Ausiello and Goldberg didn’t want to spoil the outcome for fans, so they agreed to hold the story until after the episode aired.

But I did use the information to successfully negotiate the one and only exit interview with Dempsey.

We would like to apologize to fans of the show that learned the news ahead of time.” Dempsey’s final episode was watched by 8.83 million viewers—the show’s largest audience since the premiere that season!

Variety even pontificated whether the ratings boost was due to my exclusive with Dempsey.

Ultimately, I still published early because EW subscribers received the issue with Lynette’s Dempsey interview before the episode aired.

I posted it well after the episode aired, and I [captioned it] “McDeadly.” This writer said something like, “Kill McDeadly.” Maybe that’s why the producer didn’t choose a big-name actor to be the one who killed our beloved McDreamy.

It’s just, I’m an actor, and I recognize it for what it is.

Is everybody clear on the fact that this is just pretend and Patrick knew he was going to be leaving the show.

It was just like, “God!

I don’t think any of us really worried about that going away because by then you were so invested in it.

Patrick Dempsey Lots of people [miss him].

I’m like, “Yes, I’m very much alive in reruns.” People were really invested in that relationship.

They sustained it for the duration of their relationship on the show, and it’s just, I think, a testament to what those two created.

Patrick Dempsey’s performance shaped Derek in a way that I know we both hope became a meaningful example— happy, sad, romantic, painful, and always true—of what young women should demand from modern love

Talk about the mother (father?) of all postscripts: In November of 2020 Dempsey reprised his role as McDreamy in the season opener—but only in Meredith’s dreams

After talking exclusively to Deadline and saying how it was “really a very healing process, and really rewarding,” Dempsey would return for more beach-based episodes that would ultimately stand out as the best moments of season seventeen

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