Patrick Dempsey opens up about loss of “wonderful” Grey’s Anatomy co-star Eric Dane
“I always loved working with Eric.”
Patrick Dempsey has paid tribute to his Grey’s Anatomy co-star Eric Dane, remembering him as a “handsome, intelligent man”.
Dane, who starred in the long-running medical drama as Dr Mark Sloan, passed away last Friday (20 February), 10 months after he was diagnosed with the condition ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Dempsey appeared alongside Dane in Shonda Rhimes’s hit series as Dr Derek Shepherd, and the duo were affectionately dubbed McDreamy (Dempsey) and McSteamy (Dane) by viewers for their charming good looks.
“I always loved working with Eric,” Dempsey told Radio Times. “He had a great sense of humour. He was always very professional, always very well-prepared, handsome, intelligent, he was funny and warm.”
“I think he was a beloved character [on Grey’s Anatomy]. He was a wonderful man. He will be greatly missed and I feel deeply for his family, his children.”
Dempsey went on to share his condolences to Dane’s family, including his two teenage daughters, Billie and Georgia, as he reflected on the pain of losing a parent at a young age.
“I lost my father when I was very young, and it’s a devastating loss that takes years to overcome,” Dempsey continued.
“And not only was [Eric] such a young man, but this disease affects so many people, and he worked very hard at bringing awareness to it. So maybe in his passing, more people will get a better understanding and work harder to cure this disease.”
Dempsey is one of several long-running cast members who was with Grey’s Anatomy since its inception in 2005, before he left the show back in 2015 in season 11.
“I think that the first three seasons are my favourite because it’s part of the discovery process of the show,” he explained. “Then my second favourite memory and the thing that I’m the proudest of is when young people have come away watching the show and now are in the medical profession.
“I meet so many people who come up to me who say they were inspired by the show that are now in the medical profession or going into medical school. That’s a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
In his latest role for Memory of a Killer, Dempsey plays an assassin, Angelo, who is coming to terms with Alzheimer’s that threatens to unravel his double life as a doting father and covert hitman.
The script initially made Dempsey feel “very uneasy” and self-reflective about his own mortality and memory, and the stage of life he’s in when losing friends and family.
“When I first started reading, it gave me a lot of anxiety, and it made me very nervous,” he shares. “I’m at this point in my life where people around me are passing. Young people are dying of diseases that you don’t expect, so, you’re looking at your mortality and how much time you have left on this planet differently.
“The type of disease, either cancer or Alzheimer’s or other diseases, that hit home because when you’re younger, it happens rarely. It might be an accident, a motorcycle accident or a car accident, OD, something – but now it’s a disease, it’s a cancer, something like that and you go, ‘How much time do I have left? And what am I going to do with that time? And how do I spend that time and make sure I don’t waste it?’
“So, I thought that when I read the script, it made me very uneasy. Then I kept worrying about my own memory.”
