Caffeinated Clint
Dermot Mulroney may have made his name in anything-but romantic comedies, but seems roles in "My Best Friend’s Wedding", "The Wedding Date" and now, "Must Love Dogs", has changed all that. He’s not complaining either.
So what do you think this film will do for the stigma of online dating?
I don’t know. It works out pretty well for [Diane in the film] I think. I haven’t ever really pondered the status of online dating.
How do the people you know meet people?
I don’t know. The good thing about what I do is it’s a project oriented business, so it’s not like you’re working in the same office and you only have access to those people, like new cast and crew and director so that’s usually how people come across people to date.
That’s how you met your wife right?
Yes. “Survival Quest”. I think they printed up about two hundred video tapes at the time. I know there’s two copies in my extended family but it’s nearly impossible to find. I mean it was the dawn of home video.
What movie did you most enjoy doing?
I mean, I like all my movies but if I say a certain movie and a director hears it it’ll hurt his feelings. I don’t watch them. Most of the movies I’ve already seen two or three times and at a certain point you get numb to it and it does get weird that you’re sitting there, fast forwarding to your part. I did watch “Young Guns” not too long ago with some of the cast members because we did a voiceover, like a commentary for the DVD release. It was fun watching it, but I usually change the channel.
Which do you like playing better: the guy we hope gets the girl or the guy we hope doesn’t get the girl?
This is a nice change and I think that with the script it kept the true nature of my character at bay for a while. It’s not like it’s a great big mystery that unfold about Bob, but it’s a nice change for me slight… I still get to kiss her so what can I say.
What was it like working with Diane?
She was really sweet and kind. I can’t believe how hard she worked on it. She’s in every single scene of this movie, just with great humor, as you’ll see she’s just very sweet. We were comparing notes on schools and dropping kids off before coming to work so it was really great to get to know her.
You’re filming “Family Stone” right now. What’s your role in this film?
I play the oldest of the Stone adult children who come home for Christmas and I bring my fiancé Sarah Jessica Parker and everybody just can’t stand her right from the start. She gets off on the wrong foot and then just makes it worse. And she’s hilarious in this movie because she basically gets emotionally abused by Diane Keaton and Luke Wilson and Rachel McAdams who’s one of the sisters. It’s pretty brutal, but really funny. And there’s some real strong dramatic elements as well, so it was great fun working on that movie. Hopefully, it’ll reflect the great experience I had.
Then you have another one coming up?
That will be starting to shoot in September so I have a while to catch you up on that, but it’s called “Griffin and Phoenix”.
It’s a remake?
Yeah, I think the director just always remembered that story and loosely based it on that idea.
So what do you think of these remakes coming out now?
Well this one’s a little different. It’s a remake of a movie of the week from 1978 or something than doing an episode of “Bewitched”. But I haven’t seen any of those. I want to see “Fantastic Four” though.
What do you think of all these comic book spin-off films that are out now?
Well, they make it so believable. It’s like the perfect time to be making “Spiderman”. I saw one last summer, “Spiderman 2”, where he stops the train. It’s classic you know. But visually the technology exists you can make it make sense. So it’s no wonder. Until recently it was still too fake looking. But you know how it goes, that’ll phase out and there’ll be something next.
Would you take a superhero role?
Never been offered. I’ll take all offers but it doesn’t seem to be my path.
When you’re setting out your upcoming film roles, how conscious are you of your selection of studio vs. independent work?
It’s almost a non-issue for me. It’s really whatever opportunities come my way which one’s appeal to me. It’s not quite as scientific. Some people say, “I’ll do one studio movie so I can afford to do the 3 or 4 little one’s.” You know, I wish I had that much say in the matter but I don’t. So it’s more or less happenstance to be able to do those types of movies.
Can you talk about what it was like working with Gary Goldberg?
I have to admit, I know this is loosely based on a novel, but no one actually told me there was source material that I could go to until near the end of the film. So I don’t know how it fares to the original novel. But, his script is obviously that’s what he does, he makes really tight scripts from his own professional experience. But it was in place from the start, some things were done on the set, some things were thrown at us last minute. The sing-a-long wasn’t in the script all along. Everyone was really open to collaboration. I think most of what I have in the movie was in the script, but he was really great to work with.
MUST LOVE DOGS is now showing
