Dermot Mulroney Walks Out of ‘The View’ Interview

Dermot Mulroney made an appearance on The View this week, but his interview ended in a walkout. Entertainment Weekly reports that, in solidarity with the WGA writer’s strike, Mulroney respectfully exited the show’s Friday episode after discussing his most current project. Sources close to the situation have said that there was no tension between The View panelists and the actor.

“Are we going to break? Okay, sorry, first, I want to do this symbolically, in support and solidarity with the writers, I’m going to walk off your show,” Mulroney said as he left, adding, “Thank you, I’ll see you on the picket lines in July!” He later issued a statement, explaining, “Since I have such respect for The View, a news program with a heart, it was there that I felt comfortable enough to draw attention to the ongoing WGA strike for fair wages and working hours. I find it incredibly important to continue to support the union.”

The Writers Guild of America strike began on May 2 and currently has no end date. The organization represents more than 11,000 Hollywood TV and movie writers. The strike was the result of the WGA not reaching an acceptable agreement after six weeks of wage negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. “Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal – and though your strike vote gave us the leverage to make some gains – the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing,” the negotiating committee wrote in a letter to members, per VOX. “The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing.”

Earlier this month, PopCulture.com had a chance to speak with Mulroney about his recently concluded Showtime series, Ghosts of Beirut, in which he real-life American hero Robert Ames, a CIA agent who died in an embassy bombing in 1983 while hunting down infamous terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. Mulroney told us he found the series “staggering, really, because… it’s real life and it’s an important, partially untold story.” 

He went on to discuss why he took on the project, saying, “It felt like an important part and an important project right from the first page. I was on board that way, feeling like this is an untold story. It masquerades…as a genre film, a spy thriller, but you can’t believe that every note in it is exactly true to history. It was meticulously researched.” Mulroney also heralded Greg Barker, who is a writer and executive producer on the series. “He’s our hero, really, that put this incredibly fragmented story of all these different regions, nations, religious factions together in one storyline,” he said, “in a way that plays like a movie thriller.”