Dermot Mulroney Biography

Dermot Mulroney (born October 31, 1963 in Alexandria, Virginia, USA), is an American actor of Irish descent.

A strapping, strikingly handsome actor whose wholesome looks quickly landed him TV-movie leads as boy-next-door types, Dermot Mulroney tended to get the girl but with complicated results. In his TV debut, "Sin of Innocence" (CBS, 1986), as the son of newly married widower Bill Bixby, he fell in love with his new stepsister. His troubles continued in "Daddy" (ABC, 1987), a cautionary drama about teen fatherhood, in which he co-starred with Patricia Arquette. In between he gave an emotionally charged portrayal as a high school student with a drug problem in "The Drug Knot" (also 1986), a CBS special inspired by David Toma's work as an anti-drug crusader.
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Segueing to features with a small role as the son of baddie Malcolm McDowell in Blake Edwards' "Sunset", he then downgraded his looks for a major role in the popular "Young Guns" (both 1988), joining the "brat-pack" likes of Emilio Estevez (Billy the Kid), Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland as 'Dirty Steve' Stephens. In a much different vein, he played John, the first casualty in Norman Rene's landmark AIDS drama "Longtime Companion" (1989), scripted by Craig Lucas from his play.

Mulroney met wife-to-be Catherine Keener while filming "Survival Quest" (1989), literally jumping in and saving her life while a hundred crew guys watched the river sweep her away. He subsequently portrayed King, the leader of a ragtag group of runaways, in the urban drama "Where the Day Takes You" (1992). After appearing as the clueless love interest of assassin Bridget Fonda in "Point of No Return", he played a Connecticut-born would-be cowboy trying to make it as a songwriter in Peter Bogdanovich's "The Thing Called Love" (both 1993). Having met Steve Buscemi shooting HBO's "The Last Outlaw" (also 1993), he found himself acting as cinematographer to Buscemi's harried director in writer-director Tom DiCillo's short "Scene Six, Take One" (1994), which also reteamed Keener with her "Johnny Suede" (1991) director. Later, as associate producer, Mulroney was instrumental in financing the expansion of this labor of love to the feature-length "Living in Oblivion" (1995). He would play Winona Ryder's fiance in "How to Make an American Quilt" and a cop tracking a serial killer in "Copycat" (both also 1995) before reuniting with DiCillo and Keener for "Box of Moonlight" (1996).

Mulroney joined Elisabeth Shue and Kyle MacLachlan to ride out a night of post modern dread in "The Trigger Effect", played a major role as an upstart mobster in Robert Altman's atmospheric "Kansas City" and appeared briefly as Jennifer Jason Leigh's sweet-tempered husband in Showtime's "Bastard Out of Carolina" (all 1996). He enjoyed his highest profile yet, caught between Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, in "My Best Friend's Wedding" (1997), though his thankless role as object of desire paled compared to Rupert Everett's juicy supporting turn as Roberts' gay editor. More than a decade after their first pairing, Mulroney appeared as the ultra-vampy Arquette's staid husband in the hopelessly labyrinthine neo noir "Goodbye Lover" (1998) then teamed with another sexpot, Linda Fiorentino, and film legend Paul Newman for the caper movie "Where the Money Is". (2000). That year also saw his first collaboration with writer-director Alan Rudolph as a raffish ladies' man in "Trixie" (both 2000), starring Nick Nolte and Emily Watson (in the title role), and he was back quickly with Rudolph and Nolte for "Investigating Sex" (2001) before seguing into Nicole Holofcener's indie hit "Lovely & Amazing," where he worked with his wife, actress Catherine Keener. His next role raised his profile, playing Jack Nicholson's mustachioed prospective son-in-law in "About Schmidt," He was widely praised for his portrayal of Randall, the charmless waterbed salesman with a fondness for mullets and unusual facial hair. After a turn in the low-profile Southern Gothic drama "Undertow" (2004), Mulroney played Debra Messing's paid escort-posing-as-boyfriend in the romantic comedy "The Wedding Date" (2005), effortlessly charming everyone at the family wedding and provoking romantic complications with his "employer.

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