Comedian Nick Mundy thought he was attending a movie junket when “the next thing I know, the Rock was walking me down the aisle.”
The Rock now pronounces you man and wife.
Comedian Nick Mundy was tired, sweaty and wearing ridiculous American flag pants at last Saturday’s press junket for San Andreas, where he’d planned to film a bit with star Dwayne Johnson. Instead, he walked into an elaborate wedding, where the Rock (his childhood idol) officiated a ceremony for Mundy and his fiancee, animator Dilara Karabas.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh shit, oh shit. I hope Dilara is cool with this,’” Mundy tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The second one was, ‘I have hat hair, I’m sweating and wearing American flag pants.’ And then my best man and writing partner threw my jacket on me, and the next thing I know, the Rock was walking me down the aisle and the music was starting and I signed the marriage license. The whole thing was insane.”
Mundy’s relationship with the Rock began back in 2013, when the Screen Junkies YouTube Channel sent him to Miami to the Pain & Gain junket as a fan so starstruck that he could barely get through his interviews with Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Tony Shalhoub. A Paramount exec called them “the worst interviews I’ve ever seen,” but Johnson got a kick out of Mundy, and went on to request him for junkets for Hercules and Furious 7, where they developed a tradition of performing bits together. In one, Johnson called up people who had wronged Mundy in the past, and in another the comedian begged Johnson to be the best man at his wedding. Combined, the three videos have around 2 million views on YouTube.
“With the success of the past few, we’ve always been wondering, ‘How do we one-up it?’” says Andy Signore, vp programming at DEFY, which produces Screen Junkies. “The thing Nick had been suggesting to us was the Rock should be the best man at his wedding. I thought it’d be even funnier if we could make it so Nick wouldn’t know.”
With Karabas‘ blessing, Signore reached out to Johnson’s team to see if that would be possible. Signore got word Johnson was interested, but wanted to do it right. Johnson pitched the idea that he would marry the couple, and that he would become ordained to make it all legal.
“Dwayne was very adamant that Nick’s fiancee Dilara was involved the whole way in every step. That she approved everything,” says Signore. “He wanted to make sure that this was her day and not just a silly thing we were doing with Nick. We wouldn’t have done it if Dilara hadn’t really wanted to do this, too. So she was super into it and thought it was super fun.”
Karabas spent months secretly coordinating the wedding with Screen Junkies, which arranged to have their families flown out to Los Angeles.
“I did lie about things,” says Karabas. “The hardest part was I wanted to tell him, because I tell him everything.”
Johnson charmed the families of the bride and groom so much so that Mundy’s father invited him to come eat barbeque in Mundy’s hometown of Houston.
“He was so sweet and generous with his time,” says Karabas.
Though they are legally married, the couple still plans to have the wedding ceremony they originally set for Sept. 6 for friends and family.
