While your family is gathering around choosing a favorite romantic comedy to zonk out to this holiday season, you’ll have a fun fact to share about Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Wedding Date, The Family Stone, Must Love Dogs): He is also a professional-level cellist. The Los Angeles Times reports that Mulroney, in addition to his day job on CBS’s Pure Genius, is also a go-to cello player for film composer Michael Giacchino. Since Giacchino and Mulroney met in 2005, the actor has been hopping in for scoring sessions in such high-profile movies as Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek, and Jurassic World. Mulroney was classically trained as a child by a cello player from the National Symphony Orchestra, but stopped short of pursuing a formal conservatory training for college. Yet, he still felt skilled enough to dare Giacchino to give him a shot playing with career performers. While he is far from the most prominent musician on any given score — he held the 11th seat in the cello section for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — he has played on nearly every song from a soundtrack scored by Giacchino since Mission Impossible III. It’s a shame Julia Roberts’s character didn’t learn about this talent sooner in My Best Friend’s Wedding — she could have convinced him to whip it out for a rendition of “I Say a Little Prayer (for You).”
