Kyle MacLachlan auditioned to play “Grey’s Anatomy’”s Dr. Derek Shepherd before landing “Desperate Housewives” role

Shania RussellMon, October 12, 2026 at 12:30 PM UTC

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Kyle MacLachlan; Patrick Dempsey as Derek Shepherd on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’Credit: Kelsey McNeal/Disney;Roy Rochlin/Getty“We can’t all be the dreamy type,” the “Twin Peaks” alum wrote in his “Fictional Selves” memoir.Key Points -

Kyle MacLachlan detailed his failed attempt to land the role of McDreamy in his new memoir, Fictional Selves.

The actor wrote that he auditioned for Grey’s Anatomy just a few years before he landed a role on Desperate Housewives.

“I’d like to be the romantic lead, the heart-throb, but I don’t quite know how to do that,” the Twin Peaks alum admitted.

From Special Agent Dale Cooper to… McDreamy?

Kyle MacLachlan is offering a candid look back on a role that he didn’t land — and now realizes wasn’t a good match to begin with. In his newly published memoir Fictional Selves, MacLachlan shares that before he landed the gig on Desperate Housewives, he auditioned to stride through the halls of Seattle Grace Hospital as a certain charismatic neurosurgeon.

But in the end, the idea of playing a romantic lead just didn’t feel right.

“It is 2004, and I am back in L.A., auditioning for a new ABC hospital show, this one set in the Seattle area,” the 67-year-old recounted in his book. “The part I’m reading for, Dr. Derek Shepherd, is in my general wheelhouse. I know this kind of guy. I can be this kind of guy.”

Patrick Dempsey as McDreamy on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’Credit: Kelsey McNeal/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

But, MacLachlan went on to note that the “McDreamy” of it all took him way out of his comfort zone.

“I don’t know if I have the requisite smolder appeal to get cast as this kind of guy,” the Twin Peaks alum recalled thinking. Adding to his apprehension was the fact that, from his very first appearance, Grey’s Anatomy‘s Dr. Shepherd is made out to be a romantic lead.

The pilot episode opens with him waking up on the floor after a one night stand with Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey. They flirt through an awkward morning interaction only to head into the hospital and discover that they’ll be working together… with Dr. Shepherd as her new boss.

MacLachlan wrote that though the audition went “pretty well,” he knew that it wasn’t a perfect fit.

“I sense they want something more for this guy,” he wrote. “Something dreamier. And that’s just never been in my comfort zone.”

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He continued, “I’d like to be the romantic lead, the heart-throb, but I don’t quite know how to do that. That thing. I believe it’s a quality a person is born with; it might not be written in the character, but when the actor or actress has it, they become an object of desire for the audience.”

In the end, the role went to Patrick Dempsey, who spent 11 seasons as the charming (and arrogant) Dr. Derek Shepherd. As for MacLachlan, he would land a meaty TV role of his own just two years later as the emotionally manipulative Orson Hodge on Desperate Housewives. Entering the story as a mysterious and eccentric figure, Orson had his own kind of charm. No one would describe him as “dreamy,” and in fact, he had a malicious streak as one of the story’s major antagonists. But there’s no denying that he became a subject of fascination for viewers of the soap.

Marcia Cross and Kyle MacLachlan on ‘Desperate Housewives’Credit: Danny Feld/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

And if you ask MacLachlan, he was much better suited to play the sometimes frightening, sometimes charming Hodge rather than the dreamy doctor.

“I always feel that if I were to try to project that, I’d get laughed out of the room,” MacLachlan wrote of McDreamy’s particular allure. “I’ve got no problem believing I’m a malicious character, even a cartoonish one, but something about the smoldering type is beyond me. A certain kind of confidence is required to be that person, and I just don’t have it.”

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He then acknowledged that Dempsey was the one to snag the role on Grey’s Anatomy, which remains “on the air an astonishing twenty years later.”

MacLachlan concluded, “Look, I tried. We can’t all be the dreamy type. But the friendly new neighbor who maybe murdered his wife? Yep, that’s me.”

Fictional Selves is out now.

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”