Dermot Mulroney has signed on for a recurring role in Shameless's fifth season, which is expected to air in 2015. From the character description it sounds like he'll play a potential -- ok, most likely eventual -- love interest to Fiona. Spoiler alert if you're not caught up on Shameless through Season 4!
With the character's potential to be Fiona's love interest, it should come as no surprise that the role Mulroney has been tapped to play has some bad-boy tendencies. From what Showtime has revealed about "Sean Pierce," he's trying to stay on the straight and narrow path. Sean is the new manager at Patsy's Pies and he's described as an "ex-bad boy and recovering addict." Anyone who knows Emmy Rossum's character well enough is likely to guess that she'll be drawn to Sean if she picks up even the slightest whiff of a dark side. It sounds like Fiona and Sean's relationship gets flirty and tension eventually starts to grow.
This could be a recipe for pie with a side of disaster. Or it could be a brilliant match-up. Fiona is constantly battling her impulsive nature and inner demons, and she's made more than a few bad judgment calls in the past. In Season 4, one of those calls was getting involved with the bad-boy brother of her boyfriend Mike (Jake McDorman). Robbie was trouble with a capital T, and one more mistake in a series of bad choices for Fiona, especially when the cocaine-present he gave her landed Liam in the hospital. And of course, the tryst caused Fiona and Mike's relationship to implode. Mike was a good guy. That was never going to last. And the affair with Robbie was doomed as well. So, how will Fiona do with a man who has bad-boy tendencies but is trying to fight them? They could be a perfect match, or the exact wrong thing for one another. We'll find out.
While Dermot Mulroney got his start in feature films, with credits that include Bad Girls, My Best Friends Wedding and About Schmidt, he's shifted over to television in recent years, with recurring roles in Enlightened and New Girl, and a starring role in NBC's Crisis. On the feature side, he's currently filming Insidious 3: Into the Further. Apparently, production on the horror film won't conflict with his Shameless schedule. The Showtime drama is currently in production for Season 5 now.
Dermot Mulroney was also the subject of a relatively recent Saturday Night Live sketch that involved a game show where contestants were tasked with determining which celebrity was Dylan McDermott and which was Dermot Mulroney. Watch that after the jump...
