Patrick Dempsey on the tone of Enchanted:

"Yes, that was the real challenge, was trying to find the right tone. How much humor can you bring with that as much as how much reality you will bring to it, and where does it get in the way? Sometimes that was a lot of fun and sometimes it wasn’t because everyone is having a blast around you and you couldn’t get caught up in their style of acting, which was too bad. And then you’re driving the plane but at the same time the reactions my character had is how the audience is going to react, and that was really important."

Dempsey on the being jaded as compared to how he views fantasy:

"Well, it depends on one’s age. I’m middle-aged now and there is a lot of me that’s really jaded, and I think I have to fight hard at remembering there is magic in the world. That’s the real balance. There are great things, certainly, with the way things are in the world right now. It’s so tragic in the news with what’s going on, it’s like it’s hard to believe that something good is going to come out of this society. So that’s something you have to fight through and hope that we’ll have a future for our children."

How Enchanted helps to ease the tension of the real world:

"I think, for me personally, I don’t want to do anything violent. I don’t want to do anything that’s dark right now. I want to do stuff that is light and that is complete escapism. I think this movie does that in a way that is smart. I think that it’s a great role model for young women, sort of, what the new princess represents. I think that’s really important. It’s very positive. I think that it really talks about being negative and being positive, and that debate is interesting but at the same time it’s entertaining. And that’s far more difficult to do; something that’s entertaining and smart and funny at the same time as opposed to just coming in and saying, "Okay, this is a serious drama with serious people." I have no interest in that at the moment. That could change and I could go through this period and the world we live in needs some levity."

Dempsey on why Indina Menzel doesn't sing in the movie:

"... I’m not sure we fleshed that out completely and it’s a shame she didn’t get a chance to sing, quite honestly, that was a big waste. There was a moment when we were doing a dance number that the band spontaneously broke into playing a song and she got up and started singing. And all the dancers started dancing, it was like an episode of Fame, remember Fame? And it was a real magical moment, and she got up and sang for half an hour. I don’t know if they were shooting it or not. They should have, but it was a real magical moment. She’s got an incredible voice."

On seeing the dailies for the film while shooting:

"Yeah, Kevin [Lima] would bring in a computer and say, "Here’s what we’re working on. Here’s how far we’ve come with Pip. This is what he’s going to be looking like. Here’s the first part of the animation sequence, we’ll show you that." That generated some excitement, certainly."

On movies about the Iraq war dominating the box office and where Enchanted fits in:

"I think there’s no question you have to have a lot of choices. Certainly, my particular choice is not to see that. I find it - satirically, I think it would be much more interesting because you can get your message out there. If you attack it head on, we’re too close to the wounds we’re facing. I don’t want to see a movie about Iraq right now. I don’t. And if I want to see it, I’ll watch the news. We’re not going to be talking about how many people are going to be coming back without limbs. The government doesn’t want to talk about that. You’re not going to go see that in a theater. You could see that as a dark comedy, however, it would be much more powerful and you would get your message across that way. I think Hollywood has a right, and it deserves what it needs to say. It’s part of the modern mythology. There’s a lot of good filmmakers that are making movies that have a point of view. I don’t think they’re going to be recognized for a number of years, though. I think we’re way too close to it, the wound is too raw to see."

Patrick Dempsey Interview Page 2