Dylan McDermott vs. Dermot Mulroney
Battle of the Probably Quite Affordable Name-Alike Leading Men

In our illustrious half-decade-plus producing this site, there have been a couple of entertainment stories we have hesitated to cover, because we feared that you had already had occasion to hash them yourselves, out at the pub or after an especially enervating family dinner. Like, for instance, Leelee Sobieski really looks a lot like Helen Hunt. And Bills Pullman and Paxton have a lot in common. And the essential redundancy of Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulroney is another much-chewed-over fact of showbiz.

We all know that Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott are frequently confused by members of the public. Even they know it; if they didn't, at least one of them got a hint to that effect when he was on The Colbert Report last week, and intro-ed with the host's uncertainty as to whether we'd be seeing Dylan McDermott, Dermot Mulroney, or former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. I forget which it ended up being. Possibly it was Brian Mulroney's son Ben Mulroney, the host of Canadian Idol -- and that is not a joke; our version of the karaoke talent show really is hosted by Canada's answer to Chelsea Clinton.)

Partly, what we know about McDermott and Mulroney, who are apparently two distinct individuals, gets all snarled up in our minds because their fine Irish names share two consecutive syllables. But that only partly explains why we can't really tell them apart: the rest we can ascribe not just to an accident of ethnic nomenclature, but may actually blame on neither actor's having done anything much to distinguish himself. A comparison of their IMDb profiles may actually astound you with their amazingly generic credits. There are forgettable period efforts that probably looked good on paper, like Kansas City and Texas Rangers. There are gay-friendly range-provers, like Party Monster and Longtime Companion. There are ill-advised remakes, like Miracle on 34th Street and Point Of No Return. There are opportunities to walk around with a gun and a badge looking all tough, like The Grid and Copycat. There are indies that no one you know actually saw, like Wonderland and The Safety Of Objects. There are romcoms where they play the guy the girl is supposed to end up with, like 'Til There Was You and The Wedding Date, as well as romcoms where they play the guy the girl isn't supposed to end up with, like Three To Tango and Must Love Dogs, and we have to say, that last category is the one that's really got to sting. Imagine getting a part in a major studio picture only to learn you're playing Impediment Guy to the likes of Matthew Perry or John Cusack? It must take a lot of really hot showers to rinse off that residue.

Mulroney and McDermott have had years in which to prove to the public that one fulfills a professional purpose the other can't, and until recently, we would have said that the time had passed for one to pull away from the other in any meaningful, lasting way. But maybe one has. Although Mulroney's The Family Stone looked like yet another "I'm bringing my incompatible mate to meet my crazy family during the holidays, with predictably disastrous results" movie (not unlike McDermott's earlier Home For The Holidays), it does unite him with some ascendant stars -- the winsome Rachel McAdams, the post-Incredibles career renaissance enjoyer Craig T. Nelson -- and he's been so charming on the movie's press tour (especially the aforementioned Colbert Report appearance) that we may finally see what our movie girlfriend Catherine Keener saw in him when she married him, and why cool directors like Nicole Holofcener and Tom DiCillo keep casting him. On the other side of the aisle, Dylan McDermott has made two movies this year that sound suspiciously like straight-to-tapers (The Tenants and Mistress Of Spices) and a third -- Edison -- that's notable for (a) starring some descendant stars (Kevin Spacey, John Heard); (b) marking the feature-film debut of one Justin Timberlake -- which, if it's anything like Usher's, should sink unnoticed into the depths of history; and (c) isn't available for viewing unless you head to Chinatown and spring for a bootleg. Consequently, no one cares about McDermott except InStyle, and they're really just trying to brush past him to get to his "fashion icon" of a wife. The Practice was a long time ago, in other words, and...it wasn't such hot shit even when it was still on, if we recall correctly. Which we probably don't, because we never watched it.

Advantage: Mulroney, the one whose movie actually played in theatres in front of legitimately paying customers.