Patrick Dempsey Lands Lead Role in Fox TV Show

Patrick Dempsey is returning to network TV.

The Grey’s Anatomy alum has been cast to lead Fox’s dramatic thriller Memory of a Killer, which has been greenlit for the 2025–26 TV season, the network announced last week.

Dempsey will portray Angelo Ledda, a hitman leading a dangerous double life, while hiding an even deadlier personal secret. Jan Decleir portrayed the character in the 2003 award-winning Belgian film De Zaak Alzheimer (La Memoire Du Tueur), on which the show is based, while Liam Neeson led the Martin Campbell’s 2022 feature adaptation Memory.

“Memory of a Killer is a propulsive series with a noisy, unrelenting character hook that immediately grabbed our attention,” Michael Thorn, President of FOX Television Network, said of the show. “In the spirit of 24 and House, we’re introducing a daring new signature FOX lead, a complicated antihero facing unimaginable danger. We’re excited to bring this gripping new thriller to life alongside our long-standing partners at Warner Bros.”

Memory of a Killer centers around Dempsey’s Angelo, a “fearsome NYC hitman and sleepy upstate Cooperstown photocopier salesman and father. Having built and maintained a brick wall between his two worlds, Angelo has seamlessly juggled and compartmentalized for years. But now that’s all about to change. Because Alzheimer’s is a foe he can’t outrun, and he knows too well how this ends, as his older brother is already lost to the condition.”

Described as “exceptionally resourceful and talented, the best of the best,” Angelo is “about to be tested like never before — and now every minute counts. This is only made more difficult when he discovers that his wife’s recent death may not have been an accident. So, when someone comes after his daughter — who is pregnant — it’s clear the wall between his lives has been breached. Angelo must stop whoever’s coming for his family by searching his past hits for clues, and the list is very long. Now Angelo must hunt down his mortal enemy while continuing to carry out hits without giving away his diagnosis and still making it home in time to cook dinner for his daughter.”

The upcoming show will mark Dempsey’s first network TV role since Grey’s Anatomy. The actor starred on the hit ABC medical drama as Derek Shepherd for 11 seasons from 2005 until 2014, though he briefly returned in a dream sequence in Season 17 in 2020. He most recently starred in Showtime’s Dexter: Original Sin.

Memory of a Killer is produced by Warner Bros. Television and Fox Entertainment. Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malone developed the series for television and executive produce alongside Cathy Schulman of Welle Entertainment, Arthur Sarkissian, Martin Campbell, and Peter Bouckaert of Eyeworks.