WARNING: Salivation can be an involuntary response.
Noted car enthusiast (and Grey's Anatomy star) Patrick Dempsey certainly looked dashing as he prepared to take his new toy - a 1954 classic Jaguar XK - for a spin around Hollywood yesterday. Wow...
He may not be getting much sleep these days, but Patrick Dempsey is having a ton of fun with fatherhood - and filming Season Four of Grey's Anatomy.
The actor tells Extra that his 6-month-old twin sons, Darby and Sullivan, "are developing beautifully ... It's a lot of fun."
It's a sentiment he echoes when asked about filming the latest installment of his hit TV show: "It's a lot lighter, people are having more fun."
"The energy and the adjustments make a big difference," he says.
Last year, on-set turmoil that finally led to the departure of Isaiah Washington cast a pall over much of the season.
Regardless of how people feel about that incident, fans will surely echo Dempsey's sentiment about moving on and getting back to business.
Definitely pumped to be back at Seattle Grace, Patrick declared to Extra, "I'm just excited to go save some lives again!"
Patrick Dempsey, 41, who races cars on the Hyper Sport racing team, plans to have the twins (and daughter Talula, 5) driving "soon enough."
"You can get those little go carts," he says, smiling, but adds that there'll be "no pressure" for them to race like dad.
Grey's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey is set to compete in three different racing events at Miller Sports Park, reports the The Grand Rapids Press.
Patrick will reportedly be racing for Marc Miller, who has served as his coach in some of his previous races, on September 14 and 15.
The 41-year-old actor, who plays Dr. Derek Shepherd in Grey's Anatomy, has been passionate about racing since his father began taking him to the Indianapolis 500 as a child.
He started his professional racing career in 2005, and is now the co-owner of Vision Racing, which competes in the IndyCar series. He began racing in the KONI Challenge series in 2006, and has been seen occasionally in the SIRIUS Satellite Radio Mazda MX-5 Cup series.
"I do it as a hobby and escape from my daily job," Dempsey said. "I wish I could be a professional, but I think I missed the boat on that. But it's nice to come here and relax and hang out with my friends and fellow drivers. It's a good challenge."
On Friday, September 14, the Grey's Anatomy leading man will be driving his usual No. 54 Supercuts Ford Mustang GT. For the two-and-half-hour-long race, he will be co-driving with Rick Skelton of Atlanta.
We were sent this, and by popular demand, here's another Ellen Pompeo photo from the set of Grey's Anatomy. That looks to be McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey, posing with Ellen and some fans - although the lighting obscures his trademark hair somewhat. Always nice to see a pic of these two.
He is, without a doubt, at the peak of his career as the leading man of Grey's Anatomy, but TV heart-throb Patrick Dempsey is not immune from pondering his life beyond Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd.
In a mid-morning interview on the Los Angeles set of Grey's Anatomy, a relaxed Dempsey imagines the future, when he will have had enough of the demands of the medical drama and can live quietly with his wife and kids.
His feelings have been shaped in large part by his wife, Jillian, giving birth in February to twin boys, Sullivan and Darby. He also has a five-year-old daughter, Talula.
"It's (the arrival of twins) daunting and overwhelming. I think it's going to be really fun," Dempsey says. "Eventually, at the end of this run of Grey's, it will be nice to retreat to the country and raise them in an environment that is much better than Los Angeles."
"I love family. I think it's the one thing that keeps me sane in all the craziness of what's going on with this show."
Patrick Dempsey, who works up to 16 hours a day on Grey's Anatomy, says it's nearly impossible to find an escape from the hype generated by the global success of the show.
Though he credits Grey's Anatomy with resurrecting his career, he has found it a challenge dealing with intense media scrutiny, particularly about cast unrest on the show.
Patrick Dempsey's auto racing passion has been well documented, but the leading man is also a fan of a different kind of racing - cycling! The Grey's Anatomy star was spotted last month at the sport's famous Tour de France and gave an interview we thought you'd enjoy. You can watch it here.
Addison Sewell's friends jokingly call her "the future Mrs. McDreamy."
This past weekend, the teenage Addison got to meet the real McDreamy - or at least the actor who plays him on Grey's Anatomy.
Patrick Dempsey - who stars as the hunky Dr. Derek Shepherd, or "McDreamy," as he is more affectionately known to many female fans - took a half-hour out of his Saturday afternoon to visit Addison at Birmingham's Children's Hospital, where she has been undergoing treatments for leukemia.
"How's it going?" Patrick Dempsey said as he entered Addison's room bearing a plastic bag filled with t-shirts, a handbag and other souvenirs from the Barber Motorsports Park, where the actor raced in Sunday's KONI Challenge Series GS event.
"Can I sit on your bed, is that all right?" Dempsey then asked a giggling and nearly speechless Addison, who fittingly happens to have the same name as Patrick's one-time on-screen wife (played by Kate Walsh).
"You're talkative, aren't you," he later teased.
In April, three days after her 14th birthday, Addison - or "Addie," as friends and family call her - was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
Dempsey's visit came about with the help of Randy Stephens, Addison's track coach at Mountain Brook Junior High School, and "team mom" Julia Holt, who stayed after the staff at Zoom Motorsports.
Once Patrick Dempsey found out about Addison and how much she loved Grey's Anatomy, he took the time to see her in spite of all of his other racing-related events.
Real life and the land of fairy tales collide in Disney's new movie, Enchanted. A key role in the film belongs to none other than Patrick Dempsey, who said he chose the project in large part because of his five-year-old daughter, Talula, and wanting to be in something she could relate to. Looks like fun:
The world of Grey's Anatomy continues to turn in peculiar ways, but Patrick Dempsey is too busy to worry about drama at Seattle Grace.
Between shooting his upcoming film, Made of Honor, and adjusting to life with newborn twins (and his 5-year-old daughter, Talula) at home, this Grey's Anatomy leading man barely has time to change a diaper!
In an interview scheduled to air this evening on Entertainment Tonight, the man we know as McDreamy talks about his hectic family life.
Excerpts from the interview...
On the twins, Darby Galen and Sullivan Patrick:
"They change. I leave in the morning and come back in the evening and they've grown. They're starting to talk and now there's some reaction there. They use their faces and hold their heads up a bit."
On raising his three children:
"The first year is really hard. Come to think of it, the first 18 years are extremely difficult."
On whether he'd let his kids get into show business:
"I think with your kids, whatever their passion is, you give your support. You give them the opportunity to try what they want to try."
On his wedding to Jillian Dempsey:
"It was fun. It was just 30 people back in Maine. We had a great time. We put it together in a week and a half or two weeks, it was really fast... The photographers got really drunk and gave us one picture from the whole experience. But we gave everyone those instamatic cameras, and those were some of the best shots."
Grey's Anatomy star Eric Dane and his wife, Rebecca Gayheart, welcomed his fellow cast members and other celebrities to the Chrysalis Butterfly Ball over the weekend.
An L.A.-based non-profit organization, Chrysalis is dedicated to helping economically disadvantaged and homeless individuals become self-sufficient through employment opportunities.
In attendance was the former Grey's Anatomy and current Private Practice star, Kate Walsh, and her new fiance, Alex Young.
Rounding out the Grey's Anatomy-related attendees were the handsome Justin Chambers and his wife Keisha, Patrick Dempsey and wife Jillian, Ellen Pompeo, Sara Ramirez and T.R. Knight.
Gayheart has been organizing the event for months. As a result, she and Dane are going on a month-long, around-the-world vacation before he returns to the set of Grey's Anatomy to begin filming Season 4.
Follow the jump for pictures of Eric Dane, Rebecca Gayheart and their fellow Greys Anatomy cast members from the event.
"All By Myself"
Thursday, December 4, 9 p.m. (NEW, 5.10)
"Wish You Were Here"
Thursday, January 8, 9 p.m. (NEW, 5.11)
"Sympathy for the Devil"
Thursday, January 15, 9 p.m. (NEW, 5.12)
