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‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ Cast Then & Now: You Won’t Believe How They’ve Changed

We still can't hear 'Say a Little Prayer' without thinking of this iconic film!

Ah, weddings. White, fluffy dresses, expensive flower arrangements, love in the air and in the case of 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding, unrequited love. That’s right — this 90s romantic comedy broke the mold of the typical girl-ends-up-with-boy plot line that so many films of its time chose to follow — and we still don’t know how to feel about it. After all, who doesn’t love a leading lady getting her happy ending? Regardless, with Julia Roberts leading the My Best Friend’s Wedding cast, it’s hard not to love this movie, even sans happy ending.

What is My Best Friend’s Wedding about?

Julia Roberts stars as Jules Potter alongside Dermot Mulroney as Michael O’Neal. The two longtime friends struck a deal with one another that if neither were married by the age of 28, they’d marry each other. Yet just three weeks shy of her 28th birthday, Michael reveals to Jules that he’s engaged to a 20-year-old woman named Kimmy, played by Cameron Diaz, who goes so far as to ask Jules to be her maid-of-honor.

'My Best Friend's Wedding', 1997
My Best Friend’s Wedding, 1997

Arriving in Chicago, Jules embarks on a series of schemes to tear the happy couple apart, but ultimately falls short each time, until one final effort results in Michael calling off his wedding with Kimmy. The two decide to go through with the wedding anyway, but Jules’ dramatic confession of her love for him sealed with a kiss (that Kimmy saw, of course) sends Kimmy dashing away. Finally, Jules finds Kimmy, assuring her that it’s her that Michael loves, and the wedding carries on as planned.

A controversial ending

Despite a conclusion that deviates from the norm, the film’s director, P.J. Hogan, laid it out in an interview with The Ringer: “Ron (screenwriter Ronald Bass) had always said, ‘I really want the ending to say that sometimes the person you love the most isn’t a lover.’ You still have to find happiness where you can, and that’s why the movie has lived on. It leaves you with hope.”

My Best Friend’s Wedding will certainly live on to be a quintessential rom-com for decades to come — take a look at what the cast is up to today!

My Best Friend's Wedding, 1997
Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding, 1997Ronald Siemoneit/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images

My Best Friend’s Wedding cast then and now

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