Dermot Mulroney

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

 

  1. William Baldwin, Backdraft, 1990.     Tested for firefighter Brian McCaffrey. So did Robert Downey Jr, Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves. But director Ron Howard felt Baldwin looked more like Kurt Russell’s brother. Mulroney’s test was among 54 such tapes blocked from auction in Beverly Hills by the actors’ union in April 2013. “Auditions are not public performances,” said the SAG-AFTRA General Counsel Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “Performers are entitled to expect them to remain private.” Yet not a word when Paramount’s Real TV tabloid show starting running such audition tapes… in 1995!
  2. Gary Oldman, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992.      Director Francis Coppola decided to make the old legend “younger, very erotic, very romantic and very horrific.” Losing his favourites – Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis – Francey looked at everyone else, mainly during auditions at his Napa Valley estate… Mulroney, Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, Nick Cassavetes, Nicolas Cage, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Andy Garcia, Hugh Grant, Ray Liotta, Kyle MacLachlan, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Nouri (a long way from Flashdance), Adrian Pasdar, Jason Patric, Aiden Quinn, Keanu Reeves, Alan Rickman, Christian Slater and Sting.  
  3. Jared Leto, The Thin Red Line, 1998.    Alongside Kevin Costner, Luke Haas, Etan Hawke, Martin Sheen in March 1995,  Dermot took part in the first reading of auteur Terrence Malick’s comeback scenario  –  17 years after Days of Heaven. Numerous stars -Cage, Clooney, Costner, Depp, DiCaprio, McConaughey, Pacino, Pitt,  etc –  collided over themselves to offer their services  – even for free.  Others wondered if he still had “it”. He did.  And then lost it with one too many oh his iconoclastic/pretentious pieces.
  4. Joshua Malina, The West Wing, 2002-2006.      No major surprise about who took over Rob Lowe’s position (rather than his actual character). Not Mulroney, much less Macauley Culkin (!) or Judd Nelson but Josh – an old pal of the show’s creator, Aaron Sorkin, having  appeared in all his work since  A Few Good Men on-stage.  Lowe returned for the final two episodes in 2006, to assist the new Prez, Jimmy Smits.  By 2007, Lowe was running for President in TV’s Brothers & Sisters.  Malina was a pal of creator Aaron Sorkin – in everything Sorkin had written from A Few Good Men onwards.

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  4