interest Jane Seymour as Kathleen Cleary, William's wife Ellen Albertini Dow as "Grandma" Mary Cleary, William's mother Keir O'Donnell as Todd Cleary, William & Kathleen's son Bradley Cooper as Sack Lodge, Claire's boyfriend Henry Gibson as Father O'Neil Ron Canada as Randolph Rebecca de Mornay as Mrs. Kroeger Dwight Yoakam as Mr. Kroeger Jenny Alden as Christina Cleary, William & Kathleen's daughter Will Ferrell as Chazz Reinhold (uncredited) Arizona Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Democratic strategist and CNN contributor James Carville both make a brief cameo appearance, they are shown congratulating the secretary and his wife on their daughter's wedding. McCain was criticized for his appearance in the film, having previously called out Hollywood for marketing R-Rated films to teenagers. Production Andrew Panay, co-producer of Wedding Crashers, had the idea for the film based on his own experiences of being excited to attend weddings in his 20s due to the prospect of meeting women. Panay then consulted the screenwriting team of Steve Faber and Bob Fisher to come up with a story based on this premise. Much of the film was based upon Fisher's experiences as an college intern in Washington DC, where he would make up fake backstories to crash lobbyist events. Panay and Fisher's experiences merged together to form the idea of a film in which the main characters crash weddings in order to meet and sleep with women. The screenwriters had doubts that the premise could be sustained into a feature-length film, so they decided to add female love interests born from a political family, inspired by their dream of marrying a girl from the Kennedy family when they were young boys. It was also Panay's desire "to explore male friendship through this crazy idea of crashing weddings" as the emotional core of the movie. In preparation for the film, the creators would crash political party platform committee meetings in order to delve into the psyche of the characters and what it means to crash a party. On April 6, 2003, Variety reported that both Faber and Fisher had struck a "mid-six figures" deal with New Line Cinema to acquire the pitch for the film. David Dobkin signed to direct in 2004, seeing it as an opportunity to pair Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, who had previously worked with the director and gave him an Abbott and Costello impression when they were at