Dermot Mulroney, who played the role of sports reporter Michael O’Neal in the 1997 romantic comedy ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding,’ has attributed his lack of career success following the film to its poster, which featured him as a diminutive figure perched atop a wedding cake. Despite the movie’s popularity, Mulroney found himself without work for a year, which he believes was due to his insignificant size on the poster. ‘I chalked it up to me being so tiny on the poster, the little guy on the cake,’ Mulroney told the New York Times. ‘I thought, gosh, you guys, if you’d made me a little bigger, maybe I could have gotten a job.’
However, the ‘curse of the cake’ did not last indefinitely. Mulroney has since gone on to find success and has even returned to romantic comedies with his role as Sydney Sweeney’s father in 2023’s ‘Anyone But You.’ He shared some ‘fatherly’ advice with that movie’s male lead, Glen Powell, after they gathered with the cast to watch ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’ Mulroney wanted to impress upon Powell the importance of appreciating the significance of romantic comedies, despite their perceived lightness or fluffiness. ‘What these movies mean to people,’ Mulroney told Powell, ‘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.’
