Patrick Dempsey in Barcelona with TAG Heuer

Patrick Dempsey: [What he likes about Barcelona/Spain] The people are very warm, the food and the architecture and the racetrack is very close to here. (laughs)
[How many times he has been to Spain] About five times, yeah, many times. My daughter studied here at university for a little bit in a summer programme. And my family is with me so they’re out exploring the city. Yeah, I’ve always had an incredible time here.
[On his relationship with TAG Heuer] Almost eleven [years] now so it’s incredible. I’m very grateful, it means a lot to me. I’m very honoured to have been with the brand for such a long time. And it came about in a way that was very special because it was a sponsorship for my race team. So, that meant a lot to me. And to be able to announce that on the grid at Le Mans was very, very exciting. And to continue after so many years and to see the growth and the changes and the evolution of the style, the watches, and also the technology; the innovation is still there now that they’re focusing a lot on their own movements that are in-house. It’s very exciting, very humbling and great, very grateful because I’ve had so many great adventures.
[About luxury and TAG Heuer] Luxury is easy, right. When something is luxurious it’s easy, it’s effortless, it’s comfortable, it’s wonderful. You know, I think with the new watch that we have in the campaign, it’s so light. It’s so beautiful and very light for a 44mm watch, I find the bigger watches are very hard to wear sometimes but this one in particular it’s luxurious because it’s light. And also I think the colour combination is sublime, it’s really elegant, it’s an everyday watch and it’s one extreme sport watch so you can see it’s really quite special. Luxury is good quality, handmade, craftsmanship, that is luxury to me. And I think this is very important now more than ever. (To a journalist giving him back his watch) Don’t you love the weight of it? It’s gorgeous. (Back to what he was saying before) And I love the brand, you know, because I had the fortune to spend time with Jack Heuer and they keep him involved is very important. He’s in his eighties now and he’s done so much as a young man and then when you would see Frédéric Arnault [former CEO of TAG Heuer] come in, it follows that tradition right? The next generation moves the brand forward and I think that’s the beautiful thing about Europe, is that the families continue on with the company. And there’s a value of craftsmanship, and I think, to get back to luxury, is we’re losing that, right, with all of the innovation and technology, you can tell if something is put together by hand, the emotion, the love, the respect, that to me, if it’s a pair of shoes, or if it’s a suit made to measure, bespoke, I love that.

Journalist: It’s like the cars.

Patrick: It’s like the cars too, like back in the day and still now. And then when something is handmade you feel that energy, all that emotion, it’s like good food, right. Good food is prepared because of the love behind it and how proud someone is and the work that they do.
[About the watches he wears] It depends on the event. I think it depends on the event. I bring everything with me, I have four watches with me. I have my…the really light, you know, the new titanium Monaco watch which is very light, it’s beautiful. It’s, I think, a 39mm, it’s a small…42 I think 42… (looking down at the watch he’s wearing) this is 44. (back to the Monaco watch) Very lightweight which is really comfortable to wear. And the Carrera with the glass box is really lovely, really elegant for the night and then the carbon fibre Monza watch is really nice as well. When I’m racing and training I like those. And certainly the vintage collections too, I’m starting to develop the vintage stuff as well with Nicholas [Biebuyck, Heritage Director at TAG Heuer]. Nicholas is fantastic so we’re always searching for things together and then I buy those to build my antique collection.
[About the focus of his watch collection] Well, it’s certainly very focused on TAG Heuer you know (smiling) so…but that’s why I think it’s important to have the contemporary watches mixed in and working with Nicholas on the heritage, depending on the event you know. I was doing an event the other day, it was the Luft event, which is Luftgekühlt which is “air cooled” in German, and one of the journalists came in with a Silverstone in burgundy. Oh it was beautiful and immediately I started talking to him because it said so much that he understood the watch and he had the watch. So it’s like having a nice car or an antique car, it allows you to connect with someone immediately. And usually people are very open and welcoming and it takes the barriers down and I think that’s the great thing about it, you take your watch off, you show it, you hold it, you go “ooh ah” you know, “it’s gorgeous” and “what’s the story behind it? How did you find it?” you know, “What’s the history?”, all that stuff. It is a form of…and each one says something, it’s like it depends on what car you drive, you know. If you’re driving a specific type of car it says a lot about you, good or bad depending on how you’re associating it, you know, and the same for watches too and what your collection is. It’s really quite something.
[About meeting your heroes] I met Ingemar Stenmark [Swedish former World Cup alpine ski racer], who was my hero, at Le Mans last year. He was going down the stairs and I was going up and I burst into tears, I was so happy to see him. And he had known about me because I talked about him and he gave me a big hug and it was a beautiful moment. So your heroes sometimes live up to your expectations. [Addition from Men’s Health: At 70 years old, he [Ingemar Stenmark] is still driving a Porsche 911 Carrera and is in top shape]
[About his favourite watch] You know, each one has a different memory. Like this watch I wore over the weekend which is the new one that we have and it’s in the rose gold with titanium, very lightweight, 44mm. I think it’s…The movement is the new 20.0 and so I raced with that at the 6-hour race, we got on the podium, we finished second in the championship. My Monaco watch from Le Mans reminds me of being on the podium there. The Carrera watch when I did the Carrera Panamericana, which was what the watch was named after. So each one has a memory or an experience. My first vintage Monza watch, (correcting himself) Monaco watch was when I went to Spa [Spa-Francorchamps is a Belgian racetrack] for the first time, I bought it from a dealer in Brussels and I wore that during my first Spa race. So every one has a different experience and a different memory for me.
[On which watch he wears depending on the occasion] It depends on what I’m doing, what activity I’m doing. (about the one he’s wearing at the moment) This is sort of part of the campaign and I really love the colour, the gold and the black so it fits because I had a photoshoot earlier. (confirming the colour) It’s a rose gold yes. So it’s part of this, the extreme sport and I have a number of watches I travel with depending on what I’m going to wear.
[About his watch collection] Total collection now? I counted the other day because someone always asks me and I never knew and I have 45 watches now. I’m very fortunate because I get a lot allocated but the best part is I can give watches away and that, to me, is the best part. So, people who wouldn’t necessarily have the ability that I come in contact with I can give them a watch and that’s the best feeling in the world. So, to me, that’s very good and you know this is something that I’ll hand down to my children, you know, and each one is usually part of a new campaign or something that I’ve bought, especially the vintage watches through Nicholas and things like that so I’ve developed my collection that way. And it’s the one thing that I collect outside of cars. It’s a nice…It’s a piece of jewellery for a man, for me it’s an accessory, it’s a talking point, it’s a way to engage with another person so that’s…and I’m very fortunate to be an ambassador with TAG Heuer for 11 years which is remarkable, it’s a tremendous honour to me and I want to make sure I represent the brand correctly.
[About Ferrari and movies about racing] Well Penelope Cruz is, you know, a fantastic actress and she was amazing in it. Fantastic, right? So it was an interesting movie because it showed what happened behind the scenes, the dynamic and the racing was secondary which I think was good because it’s the humanity that’s the most compelling, right, and what was driving him, so that’s what I liked about the movie. [Addition from Men’s Health: he enjoyed being in the Italian countryside and eating at Casa Maria Luigia] And Portago you know, Portago as well, it was very good to show that, especially here, to be here in Spain. And the racing was really the emotional through line to what was driving him. I think one of the best movies, to answer the other part of the question, was Grand Prix, I think Grand Prix was a great movie. Le Mans was a flawed movie but I think really tells the story of Le Mans and the atmosphere in a beautiful way. And Drive To Survive, I think, has really shown the world, outside of the hardcore fans, the drama and the dynamic and the humanity behind racing which is why you’re seeing such growth worldwide.
[Favourite/Most iconic figure(s) and era in motorsports] Depends on the decade, right? You know, you have to go back to the very beginning. Fangio. I think the Fangio story is the most interesting. Because he won so many championships in so many different cars. To me he’s the greatest driver of all time. I’m not sure we’ve seen that yet in modern drivers, I mean we’ve got some incredible drivers but it’s a different time, the romance of that. Portago is another great story, you know, incredible wild life that he had, you know that would be quite something. I’ve always preferred that era of motorsports from the 1950s which is why I loved the Ferrari movie because of the Mille Miglia and all those endurance races so I think a lot of people of this generation don’t know who they are and they should. And to be driving those cars at that time. When we were shooting the movie I did all the driving and it’s very scary, I have much more respect for their ability. Now, the technology that we have is really protecting the drivers, you’ve seen the evolution and the speeds are incredible but that period was quite something.
[On if he’s most nervous before filming or racing] Both because it’s very similar. I’ll tell you, okay I’ll get more specific. I think it’s always before you get ready to get in the car, you’re very nervous because you have so many scenarios in your head. When you’re working, you’re not sure you can do it so there’s always that fear which is good because it makes you care. So it’s always that first day of shooting and getting used to, “Can I do this? Do I understand what’s going on? What’s the crew like? How’s the director? What’s the cast?”, that never goes away. You learn to manage it a lot more. I found a great book called The Champion’s Mind for sports psychology which has been very helpful and, we talked about this earlier, the Calm app for meditation to remember to breathe, right, if you remember to breathe then you start to calm down. But you know the fear never goes away, you just try to manage it in a way, you know. And then if you get too scared you star to get tight, that’s when mistakes happen or you’re not open and you’re not present and I think those are the things we need to work on. And it’s not really taught enough unfortunately in schools and with our kids you know. It’s hard to get my kids to listen to me but they’ll listen to other people (laughs). But I tell them, I’m like “Remember to breathe, you know, that’s the important thing”. And one more thing, the most important thing for all of it, either the racing or the acting is preparation, if you’re prepared then you feel confident. And if you’re training properly, if you’re working out, you’re doing all that then you’re preparing yourself and you’re prepped, if you’re doing your homework you know what’s going on then you have confidence. And then you also have the confidence to adapt to whatever happens in that moment.
[About when his love for cars, racing and sports started] I started when I was a small boy. I always loved cars, my father loved racing. I wanted to be a ski racer as a child so I was the state of Maine champion in slalom ski. Ingemar Stenmark was my hero which is interesting…You know Mikaela Shiffrin is racing this weekend in New England and she could win 100 World Cup races, beating Ingemar Stenmark as the greatest racer of all time so that’s really quite something. But he was my hero.
[What he likes about sports] The mental aspect, the mental strength, I think has been the most important thing. Team work. Making sure you find the right chemistry with that, practice, preparation. You’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with.
[His kids asking him for help with choosing a watch] (smiling) And I love it when my kids come in and they ask me “Can you help me find a watch for tonight’s event?”

Journalist: How old are they?

Patrick: They will be 18 and I make sure they have the right watch for the right event [Addition from Men’s Health: he gave the TAG Heuer Aquaracer to the twins because they surf and Talula wears the small TAG Heuer Carerra]. So I appreciate the fact that they…It’s interesting because kids now they all tell time on their phone, they don’t know how to tell time. So it’s nice that they have a connection to the brand and to watches as well.
[On why he took a break from racing] No it was more spending too much time away from my family. Because the commitment at that level, you have to sacrifice, you have to be in the car every day. Even with the AM drivers, they’re travelling around the world and with the WEC, it’s top form of endurance racing, the World Endurance Championship. And my kids were…2015 was my last full year now I got back into it this year because my kids are older, they’re gone, they’re off doing their things so it became…To be good at anything you’re gonna have to sacrifice something and it took too much toll on my family because I was focused 100% on achieving my goals which was to get on the podium at Le Mans, to be able to race at the top level and I remember when we won in Japan I could feel an internal shift where the hunger was gone and I was like “Now it’s time for me to go back home and to be present” and I’ve enjoyed sitting on the side lines watching my son play soccer, my daughter doing her things and my other son doing the theatre. I could be home and be present because I had no regrets, I had done what I wanted to do, I had proven to them hopefully in time if they want something bad enough, they work hard enough, and they sacrifice, they can achieve their goals. And then I was happy to be with my wife at home, you know, be there. But now I want to go racing again (laughs) because they’re getting older so I want to find a balance where I can continue the racing but not at the same level, plus I’m getting too old.
[If he would change anything in his life] I would like to go through my twenties again very fast, I didn’t like my twenties. But I think I’m really enjoying my fifties. I think now the small things don’t worry me as much. I realise I don’t have as much time therefore what I do spend my time on has much more meaning. So if I could slow my fifties down that would be great. I think just you know, you’re always looking outside yourself for validation or you don’t believe in yourself enough. And it was a very…you know, you’re building your career, you’re struggling, you’re just…you’re not thinking correctly. Yeah I think it’s a very hard time and even more so now for young kids today. You know, I think it’s a very troubling time. You’re an adult but you don’t really have the maturity, you’re starting your career, you haven’t really had the mastery so if I were to look back I would tell myself in my twenties to be an apprentice, to learn, be with the best people and learn from them and you start to become a master later in life. I think that’s the important thing, we have to remember to tell our children is to find a good mentor and to be an apprentice. Now, because of technology, everything, everybody wants to be the boss right away but they don’t have the skill set or the understanding. You have to learn the craft, you have to learn. And you look around this beautiful hotel and you look at the craftsmanship, that took time, it was apprenticeship. Now we’re losing those values and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring the children over here, Europe still has those values you know. America, no one wants to be a beginner, everybody wants to be the boss and it takes time because it’s a tremendous responsibility, you have to remain, some sort of sense of humility to lead and you have to make mistakes in order to understand what not to do. So that’s, I think, why the twenties were so hard, I wish I had had that understanding and I had surrounded myself with people with greater mastery.
[About time and the state of the world] I mean the time is so fast now right. There’s too much information all the time and we’re seeing so much upheaval in the world right now. You know, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Environmentally we don’t know what going to happen, politically around the world there’s this rise of authoritarian nature, there’s just so much misinformation that kids don’t have an opportunity to be kids anymore and it’s scary.
[About the Dempsey Center] Thank you for bringing that up. It’s probably the most important thing that I do and certainly to be of service is what life is really about. What we do is we don’t treat the disease, we treat the person holistically with wraparound care through counselling, acupuncture, reiki, nutrition, yoga. We simply ask them “What can we do to help manage your life?” We also take care of the caregivers, the children, we have a children’s programme as well and whatever they may possibly need and these services are at no cost to the family or to the patients. We have come a long way with the treatment of the disease but we have a long way to go with healing the person after the treatment. Also, we work with survivorship because more and more people are getting diagnosed earlier and living if properly treated. One in three women will have a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime and one in two men will have one. So there are a lot of contributing factors to that: environment, food, lifestyle, all of these things. Certainly in America because of the industrial food complex, the amount of preservers that are put into the food are causing the obesity which is then causing a number of problems. So we try to focus on all of that. We have a much better relationship with the local hospitals and doctors and we want to be able to bring more awareness not only in the state of Maine but also nationally and internationally. We’re reaching 32 states now through our counselling. We’ve seen a big uptick because not everyone has been getting screenings that they should be getting; men should be getting their colonoscopies in their 40s now not in their fifties, you should have a good understanding of your family history so that you can tell your doctor and make sure you get your screenings.
[About what he’s doing next] I just finished Dexter: Original Sin which comes out December 13th or 14th. So just, I finished last week, so I finished on Tuesday and then I went to Texas, I had a race, an endurance race over the weekend, flew home and came here. And I’m on the road for the next three weeks, I go from here to Portugal and then I go to Brazil and then New York and then we’ll be Christmas so. I have a couple of other projects I’m waiting for scripts and probably start something in the first quarter or spring of next year but it’s nice to have something coming out this year and completely different character.