Man maid

THESE underpants could seriously dent Dr McDreamy's reputation as a ladies' man. The unflattering white Y-fronts actor Patrick Dempsey flashes in his new movie, Made Of Honour, won't win any awards for style.

It's inevitable that cinema audiences will get a glimpse of his underwear, as he's wearing a minikilt where the thigh's the limit. He's more usually seen in a doctor's coat as Dr Derek Shepherd in the award-winning US TV medical series, Grey's Anatomy - or Dr McDreamy as the dishy doc is known.

During the course of Made Of Honour, his character, playboy Tom, visits Scotland for a wedding and dons a mini-kilt during the Highland games that precede the ceremony.

So who chose the Y-fronts? "A lot of decisions were made on the fly," says Dempsey. "We were just like let's try this and see if it works'. Sometimes it would and sometimes it wouldn't. We only had a day to shoot that scene, so we got as much as we could get. But everyone's now talking about it."

What exactly are they saying about it? "Some people are pleased by it and some are repulsed. It's been amazing what people are picking up on," he says.

Dempsey's not about to complain about the exposure.

He's been making movies for 20 years. Teen comedies made his name, but there were lean years and now, thanks to Grey's Anatomy hitting the mark with audiences and critics, he's now a bona fide star.

Movies, including romantic comedy, Made Of Honour, have to be fitted around filming the TV series which takes up most of the year. He was seen in the Disney movie Enchanted.

He's appreciative of how his career is going. "Oh, it's unbelievable. Every day I wake up and I can't believe it because it's been too much fun and I'm having such a blast," he says.

"But it's been a long road to get to this point and I do really appreciate it. I just wanted to be a working actor. That said, I always made a living, I just hadn't got to this level. Hopefully, it'll continue because there's a lot more I'd like to do."

He's better prepared to deal with things, having gone through highs and lows in the past. If he was 18 and going through what he's going through, he reckons he'd be sabotaging himself left and right.

"It's too much to process. You don't have any reference points.

You haven't earned the right to get to that. So, I went through my apprenticeship and now I feel I can handle what's going on. I see it for what it is and want to make the most of it.

"There's a real lack of apprenticeship in the world anyway.

There was a time you'd go in and learn your craft and whatever it is you're working at, and then you'd step out. Now there's a lot of money at stake, there's a lot of exposure and you're seeing a lot of young Hollywood just crashing and burning because of it.

"There's no one there keeping them in check and there's no life experience to go hey, you know what? This is a moment in time and it's going to go away, so you've got to make the most of it, keep it and be constructive because otherwise it will destroy you'."

He has a family - a wife and three children - that keeps him grounded and there are other things outside acting, like racing, he likes to do. "I appreciate and respect the fact that it's very special what's going on with the show and these movies. I'm very fortunate, so I try not to lose perspective," he adds.

As for the McDreamy tag, Dempsey accepts there's not a lot he can do about it, apart from making smart choices from here on in. "That will follow me to my grave, there's no question about that,"

he says.

"I don't think it's a bad thing. It's something that people perceive it to be - your label. It's given me a tremendous opportunity, it's allowed me to get this movie greenlit and, hopefully, other things in the future."

He has another couple of years left on his Grey's Anatomy contract, after that who knows if he'll want to stay. He just hopes the stories stay fresh.

"You want to have something to get up for every day and feel like you haven't re-hashed the same stories.

That's the key. But it's the thing for everybody - the viewers, the writers and the actors. You have to keep the stories fresh and keep the characters growing.

But it's nice having a job like that because I know what I'm doing."

He wants to produce and act in the future, not direct "because it's too much work and I don't have the attention span to stay with it that long". He likes getting everyone together on a project that appeals to him and being in front of the camera.

Dempsey had a great time making Made Of Honour, including shooting on location in Scotland.

It was fun, he says. "What was interesting was that we were surrounded by all these world champions who were there to teach us what to do. They were laughing, especially when I walked out in the mini-kilt."

One thing he couldn't do was ride a horse badly as the script called for. "I had to ride it properly because my dad was a jockey and my mum was a big horse person,"

he explains.

The girl with whom Tom eventually realises he's in love is someone he's known since college.

Dempsey was never a student, having run way to join the circus. He was in a vaudeville troupe where he juggled - a skill he shows off by juggling plates in Made Of Honour - and played comedy routines.

One of his worst audiences was in a retirement home. "Nobody could hear, so they couldn't hear the punchline and everything just fell flat. But they could see the visual stuff fine, so the slapstick worked. But whenever I said something it never worked," he recalls.

His first acting break was in the play, Torch Song Trilogy in New York. From that came roles in movies such as Can't Buy Me Love and Loverboy.

The opening college scene of Made Of Honour took him back to his early films. "There's a lot of people who love Can't Buy Me Love and those movies. It was nice to go back to a romantic comedy like this, that had that kind of physicality to it and then, hopefully, move it up a bit.

"We wanted to make an old-fashioned romantic comedy because a lot of things that are coming out right now are very crass and missing the romance."

* Made Of Honour (12A) is now showing in cinemas. Grey's Anatomy continues on five on Thursday at 10pm.