Dermot Mulroney, who acted with Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, and Rupert Everett in the hit 1997 romantic comedy “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” recently shared that he struggled to find more acting gigs for a year after the movie came out, despite its success.
“My Best Friend’s Wedding,” directed by P.J. Hogan, is about a woman who realizes she’s in love with her longtime friend when he gets engaged, and she tries to win him back just before his wedding.
“I was sitting there ready for the gift with purchase that was supposed to come along with being in a popular movie, and instead, I probably didn’t work for a year,” Mulroney explained. “I chalked it up to me being so tiny on the poster, the little guy on the cake. I thought, gosh, you guys, if you’d made me a little bigger, maybe I could have gotten a job.”
Despite the slow year after this popular film, Mulroney continued his career in Hollywood and appeared in many more projects. He recently returned to the romantic comedy scene with the movie “Anyone But You,” where he plays the father of Bea, portrayed by Sydney Sweeney.
As an experienced rom-com actor, he also gave some advice to Glen Powell, his co-star in the new movie, about the lasting appeal of romantic comedies.
“I didn’t want him to do what I did, which was minimize how important something is that might feel a little light or a little fluff when you’re doing it,” Mulroney said. “‘What these movies mean to people,’ I told Glen, ‘will last for decades.’ It will last until after you’re gone in a way that maybe the other cool stuff he’s doing won’t. It has a different kind of absorption.”
