The actors co-starred in 'Anyone But You.'
Dermot Mulroney wanted Glen Powell to take rom-coms seriously.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mulroney reveals the words of wisdom he imparted on his Anyone But You co-star before filming began. Mulroney's advice goes back to his own rom-com days, when he starred alongside Julia Roberts in the 1997 flick My Best Friend's Wedding, which enjoyed great box office success at the time.
"I was sitting there ready for the gift with purchase that was supposed to come along with being in a popular movie, and instead, I probably didn't work for a year," Mulroney recalls. "I chalked it up to me being so tiny on the poster, the little guy on the cake. I thought, 'Gosh, you guys, if you'd made me a little bigger, maybe I could have gotten a job.'"
So, after the Anyone But You cast watched My Best Friend's Wedding together all these years later, Mulroney knew just what he wanted to say to the new rom-com's actor.
"I didn't want him to do what I did, which was minimize how important something is that might feel a little light or a little fluff when you're doing it," Mulroney says. "'What these movies mean to people,' I told Glen, '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."
Powell was onboard with the sentiment, as he tells the outlet, "For some reason, the rom-com male lead has just been reduced to a brooding male model that occasionally smiles at the girl across the room, but for me, if you're a male and you leave a rom-com looking cool, you've totally messed it up."
In the wake of Anyone But You's success -- which came, thanks in large part, to Powell's on- and off-screen chemistry with Sydney Sweeney -- fans are eager for the duo to team up again onscreen.
That's currently being discussed, as is a potential movie reunion with Mulroney and Roberts.
"I'd give anything to go around again with Julia," Mulroney tells the Times. "We're trying, for sure. We'll do whatever anybody can get up and going."
Mulroney's interest in a Roberts reunion is nothing new. Back in December, the actor told ET, "I would love to work with her any day of the week, month or year... If they put that story together, I'm there for sure."
Regardless of whether Mulroney gets to star in a new movie alongside Roberts, he was thrilled to enter the world of rom-coms once again, even if it wasn't as the leading man, but as the dad to Sweeney's character, Bea.
"I'm glad I'm still in the business of romcoms," he told ET. "It's been a rocky road for a little while. Harder movies to make, hard to find an audience... It's an R-rated romcom destination wedding movie... what else could you want?"
RELATED CONTENT:
