Biography, Filmography, Pictures And Video:

An actor of gentle magnetism, raspy voice and tough good looks, Dermot Mulroney is the perfect example of a block-buster movie star. After spending much of his early career on television, he was welcomed into the Hollywood limelight as Holly Hunter’s partner in the serial murder movie “Copycat” (1995), also starring Sigourney Weaver. He then portrayed the romantic lead to Julia Roberts in the Hollywood smash hit “My Best Friend’s Wedding” (1997) with Cameron Diaz, the story about when a woman's long-time friend says he's engaged, she realizes she loves him herself,. and sets out to get him only days before the wedding.

Born on October 31, 1963 in Iowa and raised in the Rosemont section of Alexandria, Virginia, Mulroney was the middle child of five. His mother, Ellen, was an actress and homemaker and his father, Michael, was an attorney. The family was very musical, with all the kids playing a wide assortment of instruments, but for Dermot, both acting and music became his fascination. He attended Maury Elementary School and George Washington Junior High, and then T.C. Williams High School, doing well in academics, athletics and art. He also was lucky enough to attend the famous Interlochen Summer Arts Camp in Michigan during the summer of 1979, where he realized that while he enjoyed music, he wanted to focus on a career of acting and performing.

He graduated high school in 1981, and moved to Chicago to study at the Television, Radio and Film department at Northwestern University, where he studied all areas of production. Before he graduated in 1985 with a BA degree in Music and Film, a talent agent from Hollywood’s William Morris Agency asked him to audition for a role, and after impressing the agent he was signed to the agency. That summer, he relocated to Hollywood California and started his acting career.

He soon appeared in a string of television shows and TV movies including "Shattered If Your Kid's on Drugs" with Burt Reynolds, "Sin of Innocence", "Fame", "CBS Schoolbreak Special", and a starring role as Bobby in the TV Drama  "Daddy", where two high school students are unprepared for the reality of parenthood when the girl becomes pregnant. His first big-screen role was a small part in the action thriller "Sunset" (1988), with Bruce Willis and Mariel Hemingway, where Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp team up to solve a murder at the Academy Awards in 1929 Hollywood.

He got a big break in 1998 co-starring as Dirty Steve Stephens alongside Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips and Charlie Sheen in the western thriller "Young Guns" (1988), about a group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid (Estevez), who become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. He then took a supporting role in the adventure thriller "Survival Quest" (1988), where a bunch of city slickers from different backgrounds go into the wild mountains to be one with nature. The actor wrapped the year in the comedy "Staying Together" (1988).  In his personal life, he had also fallen in love with his “Survival Quest” (1989) co-star Catherine Keener during the 1987 production, and the two lived together for almost three years, before getting married in 1990.

The actor then took a risky role as a dying AIDS patient in the independent film “Longtime Companion” (1990), a drama dealing with the media’s treatment of homosexuality and the AIDS crisis. In 1991, he was hired and cast as the lead character in the western coming of age drama “Bright Angel” (1991), where his character plays a gullible, innocent young man who helps a clever girl on her long quest to get her brother out of jail. 

He then starred with Laura San Giacomo in the dramatic "Where The Day Takes You" (1992), about a group of young teenage runaways who try to survive in the streets of Los Angeles amidst drugs, prostitution and violence. He was singled our for a Seattle International Film Festival Award for Best Actor. His Hollywood star was on the rise, and critics and audiences had started taking notice of the talented actor.

That same year he starred with Martha Plimpton in the comedy "Samantha" (1992), before being cast with Bridgett Fonda in the crime thriller "Point Of No Return" (1993), about a gang of armed drug-addicts who break into a chemist shop to try and steal drugs to fuel their habit. His role as J.P. showed critics he had the ability to carry a movie on his own, and soon found the job offers flooding his mailbox. He ended the year working with the late River Phoenix in the dark comedy "The Thing Called Love" (1993), where a group of young newcomers to the country music business seek love and stardom in a world of drugs and music. He then appeared in the independent western "Bad Girl's" (1994) with Drew Barrymore, about four prostitutes who join together to travel the Old West. 

Mulroney was a certified Hollywood movie star and sexy celebrity, and next returned to television for the starring role of Eustis, opposite Mickey Rourke and Steve Buscemi, where after a bloodbath of a robbery, and then being betrayed by his gang, Graff (Mickey Rourke) joins the side of the law to hunt his enemies and kill them one by one. He was then cast in his first full-blown starring lead role alongside Rick Schroder in the comedy "There Goes My Baby" (1994), before taking a co-starring role with his old friends Steve Buscemi and wife, Catherine Keener, in the comedy "Living In Oblivion" (1995), a clever movie about film making that takes place during one day on the set of a low-budget movie. The film was not seen by many, but was hailed as the ultimate tribute to independent film makers around the world and was nominated for several awards. Also that year, in an effort to stay close to his passion for music, he played cello and mandolin on Melissa Etheridge’s "Never Enough" album.

He then took a role in an odd dramatic piece titled "How To Make An American Quilt" (1995), starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, the film struggled to find an audience and the critics panned the project as boring and less then satisfying. But his co-starring role as Reuben Goetz in the horror thriller "Copycat" (1995) shot the actor directly into the spotlight of Hollywood critics and move audiences. "Copycat" tells the story of an agoraphobic psychologist and a female detective (Holly Hunter), who must work together to take down a serial killer who copies serial killers from the past. 

He was then cast in Robert Altman's crime thriller "Kansas City" (1996) starring with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Harry Belafonte, a jazz-scored film that explores themes of love, crime, race, and politics in 1930's Kansas City.  

The actor then appeared in a period film working with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lyle Lovett and Christina Ricci, in a sad tale of a poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter who each face painful choices with their own resolve and pride. The movie won a Primetime Emmy Award, and another five industry wins and eight nominations. In 2000, he appeared with Paul Newman in the crime comedy "Where The Money Is" (2000), and then as Dex Lang in the mystery "Trixie" (2000), with Emily Watson, Nathan Lane and Brittany Murphy, about an eccentric woman whose desires to rise from her job as a security guard to full-fledged private eye lead her into a tangled mess. Another starring role followed in the comedy "Investigating Sex" (2001) with Neve Campbell, about a group of men and two female stenographers who decide to scientifically study sex. 

He was on a role, and the big-budget starring jobs continued with his role as Jim Train opposite Glenn Close in "The Safety Of Objects" (2001), a series of overlapping stories about four suburban families dealing with different maladies. More comedy followed in "About Schmidt" (2002) starring alongside Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates, in the story of Warren Schmidt, who is forced to deal with an uncertain future as he enters retirement. Soon after, his wife passes away and he must come to terms with his daughter's marriage to a man he does not care for and the failure that his life has become. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards and walked away with 19 various wins and 28 industry nominations. 

The following year, he starred with Debra Messing and Amy Adams in the romantic comedy "The Wedding Date" (2005), where a bad case of single-girl anxiety causes Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) to hire a male escort to pose as her boyfriend at her sister's wedding. Her plan, an attempt to trick her ex-fiancé who dumped her a couple years prior, proves to be her undoing. 

More comedy followed working with Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Sarah Jessica Parker in "The Family Stone" (2005), where an uptight, conservative, businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and earned a GLADD Media Award and Teen Choice Award nomination.

He then lent his voice to the character of Dante in Sean Meredith's comedy "Dante's Inferno" (2007), a darkly comedic vision of the underworld, set against an urban backdrop of used car lots, gated communities, strip malls, and the United States Capitol, and populated with a cast of rabble-rousers, including famous politicians, presidents, popes, pimps and the devil himself. He was next cast as Dr. Simon Ward in the dramatic comedy "Georgia Rules" (2007), starring troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan and uber celebrity Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman, where the rebel, reckless and spoiled teenager Rachel Wilcox (Lindsay Lohan), travels from San Francisco to the conservative Mormon Hull, Idaho, with her alcoholic mother Lily (Felicity Huffman), to spend the summer with her grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda). For their effort, the ensemble cast walked away with a Teen Choice Award, Prism Award and Young Artist Award.

The summer blockbuster crime drama "Burn After Reading" followed, in a small role supporting Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton, followed by a role in the drama "Flash Of Genius" (2008) with Greg Kinnear, about the man who took on the Detroit automakers who he claims stole his idea for the intermittent windshield wiper. He then returned to the action genre in "Six Bullets From Now" (2008) with Tim Roth, a story based on the planning and heist of New York's Pierre Hotel safe on New Year's Eve by a gang of professional thieves. Next, the actor starred with Diane Kruger, Rosanna Arquette and his pal Sam Shepard in the drama "Run For Her Life" (2009), about a couple (Mulroney and Kruger) who go to dangerous lengths to find a heart donor for their daughter.

Dermot appeared in two films during the 2009 season, first with a starring role in the comedy drama "Driving Lessons" (2009), where a mother and wife stricken with memory loss allows a dysfunctional family a second chance at harmony and happiness. He wrapped his year working with Robin Williams in "The Prince Of Providence" (2009), where for twenty-one years, and two non-consecutive terms, Buddy Cianci was the definitive rock star of politics, presiding over the longest running lounge act in the American circuit. A brilliant legal and political mind, Buddy was a cultural outsider who conquered thirty-four years of democratic rule and took Providence by force.

Watch Dermot Mulroney In "Flash Of Genius" Movie Trailer

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