Patrick "Amoeba" Dempsey on House?

The USA Weekend magazine ran a wonderful article on Patrick Dempsey which contains some very interesting tidbits about our McDreamy.

Did you know that Patrick Dempsey’s nickname was “Amoeba?”

Long before Patrick Dempsey acquired the moniker ascribed to the sexy neurosurgeon he plays on ABC’s hit dramedy “Grey’s Anatomy” (Sundays, 10 p.m. ET), the handsome, hazel-eyed Maine native answered to that much more, um, humble nickname.

“My friends called me ‘Amoeba’ until junior high,” he says with an affable shrug. “I didn’t really start growing until I left high school. Until I turned 35.”

And did you know he auditioned to star in House?

Dempsey had to overcome more than just the stigma of being a washed-up teen star: He also had to contend with dyslexia, a learning disability he was first diagnosed with back in middle school.

“It really hurt me during auditions. There was a 10-year period where I had to memorize pages of dialogue and invest so much of my time and energy into every audition, going in knowing that I wouldn’t get it anyway,” he says with a trace of bitterness. (Among the roles for which he auditioned was the lead on that other doctor show, Fox’s House; the part went to Hugh Laurie.) “When ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ came up, I was really at the breaking point. I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep auditioning.’ ”

Thankfully for us he did audition, and the glorious Shonda Rhimes stepped in. Could you imagine any other McDreamy?