Size matters to Dermot Mulroney.
At least that’s his explanation for not landing a major acting job in the year following his leading role in the 1997 romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Mulroney, 60, starred as Michael O’Neal alongside Julia Roberts’ Julianne Potter in the rom-com hit that grossed nearly $300 million in the box office. In the film, Julianne tries to win over Michael, her best friend, after Michael gets engaged to Kimberly Wallace (Cameron Diaz).
On the official movie poster, however, Roberts’ face takes up the most real estate while Mulroney is portrayed as a small figure on top of a wedding cake.
“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 told The New York Times in a story published on April 23. “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.”
While Mulroney’s career did slow immediately after My Best Friend’s Wedding, he’s done just fine for himself in the years since. His next film, Goodbye Lover, was a box office flop, but Mulroney found his footing again in 2002’s comedy-drama About Schmidt, and then in 2003 when he played Gavin Mitchell on Friends.
And it’s not like his appearance on the movie poster meant he was forgettable in his role. Mulroney also told the Times that he’s still approached daily by fans of the film who tell him they grew up watching it with their grandmothers.
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Mulroney’s most recent rom-com, Anyone But You, was another box office hit, grossing $219 million on a $25 million budget. While working on the film, he was able to share his expertise in the genre with Glen Powell, the male lead starring alongside Sydney Sweeney.
“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,” he 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.”
And if you haven’t checked, Powell does, in fact, appear normal-sized on the movie’s poster.
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