Interviews (Full Copies)

[SugarMagnolia]

Hi everyone, I have an idea for a new thread and I wonder what you think of it. It's fine if it seems like it's not needed, moderators you can delete or we can let it fall if no one wants to use it.

I was just looking back over some of the old posts on the IMDB, and there was a thread a couple of years ago where TylerDurden37 (who did all the interview quotes in Owen's IMDB profile) gave some links to their favorite Owen interviews. I got a little worried that some of the links might eventually go down, and we might lose those interviews. Do you think it might be good to have a thread for interviews in their complete form, copied and pasted with the text in the thread here so we can always come back and read them if we want to?

Here's one that TylerDurden37 said was their favorite one:

www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/aug/27/features.review1



'I don't like caring what other people think - but I do'

With his goofy Texas slacker persona, actor Owen Wilson is the last person you'd expect to suffer from nerves. But the man who co-wrote Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums has a phobia about premieres.

By Miranda Sawyer, Photograph: Sam Holden
The Observer, Sunday 27 August 2006

Owen Wilson 'Some people say you should go write some place where there no distractions. We're thinking of Amsterdam' ... Owen Wilson.

Owen Wilson comes across like the most relaxed man in the world. The star of daft movies such as Starsky & Hutch, Wedding Crashers and his latest, You, Me and Dupree, he has an on- and off-screen image that mixes laissez-faire with lady-killer, slacker with Southern good ol' boy.

Wilson is one of the less well-known members of Hollywood's 'Frat Pack' - the group of young comic writers and actors that includes Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Owen's brother Luke and which specialises in goofy, verging-on-doofus comedy movies. It's rare for a mainstream Hollywood comedy to emerge now which hasn't got Frat Pack fingerprints all over it - although the group evolved through such esoteric, critically lauded hits as The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, and Rushmore.

In Dupree, a fairly typical Wilson/mainstream Frat Pack film, he plays Dupree, Matt Dillon's best friend who moves in with him and his new bride (Kate Hudson) and gets too comfy to ship out. It suits: even in a PR-marshalled hotel interview Wilson, 37, is laid-back. Literally: stretched out on a day bed, feet slippered, head pillowed, thoroughly at ease. For some reason, he is trying to convince me that he isn't stress-free.

'Dupree is all about being in the moment, and I'm not as good at that as I would like to be. I don't like caring what other people think, but I do,' he says in his chocolatey drawl. 'There's a freedom when you meet someone who doesn't care, who is just themselves in all situations. As a kid, my parents were pretty strict about manners, so I had the way I was with my friends, and then my personality with adults, and that's continued a little bit. To just be yourself, and not try to sell anything, or make a good impression, that's something worth striving towards.'

And he does stress: he gets too anxious to go to premieres. Well, he goes, signs autographs, talks to the press, but then, when the lights go down, he leaves. He had a bad experience with his first film, 1996's Bottle Rocket, which he co-wrote with director Wes Anderson, and starred in alongside younger brother Luke. Bottle Rocket - a comedy about a group of oddballs who embark on a crime spree - did not soar. Panned by audiences, it eventually earned a cult following, with Martin Scorsese naming it as one of his top 10 movies ever made. Anderson and Wilson went on to write the brilliant Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums; Wilson has acted in scores of successful films. But Bottle Rocket still stings: 'When it did so badly, it was such a wounding thing that I don't ever want to care that much again. You waste so much time agonising and worrying.'

So is Wilson just pretending to be relaxed? 'The image - being from Texas, the slacker, surfer thing - you don't think of that and see a worrier, an angst-ridden person, I know that. Also, I'm reasonably polite and that puts people at their ease, so they think you are too.' He does have a talent for rubbing along with people, which he puts down to dealing with his father, Robert. Not that his dad was a monster, but he was 'a tricky person - major mood swings', a high achiever who ran the local TV station when Wilson was a kid and has recently edited a book and TV series about US Presidents called Character Above All. There's a picture on the Character Above All website of Robert A Wilson: you wouldn't want to mess.

But, as a child, Owen did: the second of three brothers, all of whom now make and star in films, he was the classic middle child, slipping under the radar. 'My dad has a friend who does this imitation of coming over to our house at Christmas. And my dad would be like, Did you see that Andrew scored a touchdown? And Luke is over! The friend would say, Where's Owen? And my dad would go, I dunno, he's around here somewhere ...'

Wilson laughs, and tells me that in Rushmore there's a Bill Murray line that is a direct quote from his dad. 'He says: "Never in my wildest imagination did I dream I'd have children like this," and I remember my dad saying this, just shaking his head in disbelief.' Apparently, Mr W calls his sons the 3790 Club, as in three boys, seven high schools, nine colleges, zero degrees. Owen himself was chucked out of his private school for cheating at a geometry test, sent into therapy ('I liked it, but I wasn't totally honest'), then to military school, where he didn't shine. He eventually ended up at the University of Texas, studying English. He flunked.

Still, it was at university that he met Wes Anderson with whom he wrote Bottle Rocket. Owen only acted in it because they couldn't find anyone else: he's never studied, and most of his parts seem to be a distillation of his real self. On the subject of the latter, there have been umpteen rumours that he and Kate Hudson are dating (she recently split from her husband). He denies it: 'I'm single, despite what people say. I think hopefully I'll meet someone that I'll want to have a family with, that's what I would like.' It's hard to believe he hasn't got a girlfriend, but he's admitted that his laziness can let him down, as it did when he dated Sheryl Crow. He told Playboy magazine that 'because of my lack of focus, the relationship went south'.

Perhaps it's because he has brothers, but Wilson has always seemed to get on better with men: his films are almost all buddy movies, and he tells me that he likes chatting with the kind of bloke that others would dismiss as odd. 'I've always had a good radar for characters, and for me, talking to somebody like that over the period of a day is interesting or amusing.'

There can't be many Hollywood stars who spend their days in such a manner; but, despite appearances, Wilson is clever and determined enough to organise his life so that it suits him. Is he going to do any more writing, I wonder, because his scripts are very good, and he says he's meeting up with Woody Harrelson in the next few days. 'We're going to write for a couple of weeks in Europe.'

What about? 'Well, there's not been so much discussion about what we're going to write, there's been a little more thought into where the writing's going to take place. Some people would say you should go write some place where there's not a lot of distractions, but we're going the other way. Anybody can do that! We're thinking of Amsterdam. Let's prove that we really are disciplined! Everyone's betting against us, but we're confident ...' And he twinkles like a man who doesn't know what worry means.

One more thing ...

You, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jack Black and your brother Luke in a huge Frat Pack fight. Who would win?

Wow. That's a good old-fashioned donnybrook there. You know, Ben is strong, he's solid. And Vince is very tall and very big and I think he studied some boxing. Luke's pretty tough. So that leaves Jack Black, and he just did Nacho Libre, so maybe he picked up some wrestling moves. I'd definitely know I'd been in a fight.

What are your qualifications?

Er ... Jeez ... I'm not a college graduate. When I went to military school, I left as private first class, I didn't exactly shoot through the ranks. I can drive. I'm good at ping-pong. And backgammon. I'm very competitive with games. Like if we went into the park and threw a tennis ball at a tree to see who could hit it - I can do things like that for hours.

What posters did you have on your bedroom wall as a teenager?

Billy Idol. And a lot of James Dean. Then when I met Wes [Anderson], in his apartment he had a lot of James Dean stuff. I just thought James Dean was cool and I wanted to be like him. But now I think being cool is too much effort. Look at Elvis, he started out being cool and eventually he was like, 'Ah, it's too much trouble, I'll settle for a white cat-suit.'

Would you ever cut your hair?

I'm about to make a film in India with Wes and he was talking about me dyeing my hair. And when I grew up I never had it long, and I know that if I had short hair I would feel like I'd do better in that fight with all those comics.

[SugarMagnolia]

staging.darkhorizons.com/interviews/339/owen-wilson-for-you-me-and-dupree-



Interview: Owen Wilson for "You, Me and Dupree"

By Paul Fischer Friday July 7th 2006 01:57PM
Owen Wilson for "You, Me and Dupree"

Owen Wilson can not stop himself - one comic hit after another, and as he confessed, he has no doubt that this comic niche is his permanent comfort zone which he'll never change reports Paul Fischer.

Question: What jokes are stashed in your Blackberry?

Owen: You know, I get criticized for being on my Blackberry especially from my girlfriends... you're more interested in that than having a good conversation'. But, I will say, in my defense, that I feel like I do sometimes write down good ideas or funny stuff, ideas for scenes and stuff. But, sometimes I'm just on there just bullshitting.

Question: What do you think of your nickname of 'The Butterscotch Stallion' and do you have a 75-year-plan like the character in 'Bottle Rocket'?

Owen: Yeah, well, the 75... well, that was actually a reshoot that we added and I remember that Wes and I had a five year plan and Jim Brooks was like 'why don't you make it like a 75 year plan? What do you get out of being subtle?' And I've always remembered Jim Brooks saying that because you do get more mileage and definitely more people quote that. It's also my handwriting because I'm left-handed, I have kind of a chicken-scrawl. Wes always thinks it's funny to see my handwriting. And I know in 'You, Me and Dupree' when they see me writing the thank you notes, people start laughing. They think 'oh, he's doing that for the character, making it look so bad' but that's my penmanship.

Question: Dupree is a very lovable kind of character. How do you see him? Was he inspired by something? Did you know someone like that? Can you see this guy going on for more movies?

Owen: Well, part of Dupree definitely was kind of a little bit like... we had this Dalmatian that we had when we were kids that my parents got us named Nutmeg and this dog, at least was just insane and tore up everything and my parents wanted to send it to go [using quote marks in the air] live on a farm. That's what they were telling us, where it would have more space and we were crying 'noooo' and finally my parents began to fall in love with the dog and Dupree has a little bit of that quality. That was the inspiration, after some of our family dogs growing up.

Question: Do you see Dupree going on as a motivational speaker like he is at the end of the film?

Owen: Somebody was saying the Tony Robbins used to live in his car and so, if Tony Robbins can do it, I don't see why Dupree couldn't become sort of a force out there because I think his message is kind of a good one, 'stay loose, stay liquid, laugh a lot'. What else is there?

Question: I'm curious about chemistry carrying a film. You and Matt Dillon have different approaches and personalities as actors.

Owen: I think with chemistry, seems like very movie I'm in they talk about, if you're in it with another person they're always talking about the chemistry and it just seems to be based on if the movie does well, 'you and Vince have great chemistry but you and Eddie Murphy, your chemistry wasn't so good ['I Spy']'. All I know is that when Eddie and I were working, we had a great time together. We were really laughing a lot but, for whatever reason, it just didn't quite play or connect. But, I think it's just enjoying the people that you are around and kind of play off them. I know, with Kate, I think why Matt and I liked her and the crew loved her and the directors, is that Kate is very easy to get laughing and she's always kind of smiling so you feel like 'wow, I'm really on fire today!' Then you realize she's like that with the prop master and the caterer. She kind of makes everybody feel like they're great. And, it doesn't hurt that she's super pretty.

Question: What about chemistry with your brothers?

Owen: I think, with your brothers, it's feeling very comfortable, not just comfortable but to say 'you're my brother and I love you' which we would never say. But it's feeling very comfortable to say, 'you're driving me crazy' and to sometimes say sort of mean stuff. Because they're your brother, you sort of have to take it.

Question: David Spade just did a joke about Ashley Simpson getting asked for your autograph. Did that ever happen to you?

Owen: You know, that has never happened to me but people will call me Luke sometimes. But, I don't think we really look alike or maybe just being from Texas they'll sometimes confuse you with another Texas person. But, I would say that would be the main thing I would hear is people calling me Luke.

Question: We see a lot of you in this movie. Are you particularly proud? Are you an exhibitionist?

Owen: [laughs] I was thinking, that scene where I run out of the house practically naked. I'm just covered by those pillows. Yeah, this might me one that maybe I should give my mother a little heads up on. She might want to go see 'Cars' for the second time.

Question: Is there any embarrassment involved?

Owen: Yeah. There's a lot of embarrassment. Believe me, there were other shots that they had in there that I was like 'no, we're not puttin' that in'. People would say, was it hard...

Question: Hard?

Owen: Touche.. uh, was it hard not cracking up doing the scene where I have the sock and there is an adult-themed movie playing and I was like 'no. It was really embarrassing' so it worked for the character. You've got all the crew standing around and teamsters and stuff and there you are kind of simulating something that is probably not meant to be simulated in front of fifty people.

Question: There's a line that love can conquer all the challenges you might have. What's you take on that?

Owen: That's what I think is kind of nice about Dupree, is that he definitely wears out his welcome and he doesn't have a job and he rides around on a bike but he's not like a cynical, jaded slacker. He's got this sort of Labrador-like enthusiasm and he really does want their marriage to work out.

Question: And, do you think love can conquer everything?

Owen: Yeah, that's a nice idea, the idea that love conquers all. That's a nice idea.

Question: Audrey Hepburn was Dupree's idea of a perfect girl. What's your idea of the perfect girl?

Owen: I like that Dupree's ideal is Audrey Hepburn and when Kate is saying that she is having a hard time imagining Audrey Hepburn listening to Funky Cold Medina, Dupree says he doesn't have a hard time. He can picture it very clearly. My ideal girl, obviously you have to be attracted to them and be on the same page sense of humor-wise, I think is the biggest thing. Just enjoying the other person's company, liking stuff they have to say.

Question: Favorite romantic film.

Owen: Favorite romantic film would be... I like that movie 'The End of the Affair', I thought it was really, really good. Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore. Was it Neil Jordan? I thought that was great. I read the Graham Greene book after that.

Question: Have you been over in Europe recently? Owen: Well, I just went over to Europe a couple of times. I went to Barcelona for the Grand Prix to do 'Cars' stuff then I just went over to Italy to just hang out and visited Woody Harrelson and his family and I got some soccer games in Rome, all the world cup stuff. People are really fired up about that.

Question: In another world, would you like to try a more straight-laced character?

Owen: Yeah. I definitely could identify with a lot of Carl's feelings and the lines that he says. When I originally started working on the script with the writer, he pitched me the idea, I did think of myself as maybe playing Carl and, there was a possibility, at one point, that I was going to play Carl and I think I could have definitely related to some of the stuff that he goes through but I think everybody can. You've either experienced a Dupree or you've been a Dupree and, in my case, I've had both.

Question: What is your favorite book?

Owen: I would say that probably my favorite book is 'Huckleberry Finn' or 'The Great Gatsby'. I love those books. I just feel like I get a lot of ideas from those books. I know that there's stuff in 'Bottle Rocket' that's lifted from 'Huckleberry Finn' like the whole ending where Jim is already free but Tom and Huck go through this whole sort of charade of freeing him. That's kind of put into 'Bottle Rocket' in the beginning where I'm trying to get Luke out of the mental hospital even though it's a volunteer hospital. 'The Great Gatsby' I just like some of the themes in that, being a little bit of a dreamer.

Question: How do you find your 'ness?

Owen: I think I try to find my 'ness the way that Dupree does with 'stay loose, stay liquid, laugh a lot'.

Question: Could you see playing a villain?

Owen: Yeah. I think it would be fun to play... I saw Robin Williams in this movie 'Insomnia'. He's like a killer. I was like 'what is Mork doing? This isn't right'. I would like to do that also but I wonder if people would have a problem with it. 'Behind Enemy Lines' isn't, obviously, a comedy. And, I think, hopefully, comedic actors can... I think that I could probably pull something off like that if given the chance.

Question: Are you going to pursue it actively?

Owen: Yeah. I would definitely like to do a movie where the burden wasn't on that you had to get big laughs in set pieces. I think it would be nice to do a movie that had funny stuff but it was more sort of from the characters. I loved that movie 'Sideways'. That has really funny stuff but it has a lot of emotional stuff. I think Wes and I tried to do that in some of the scripts that we worked on. I can't imagine ever doing a straight, serious movie that didn't have anything funny in it because I don't think that life is ever really like that. Even in 'Raging Bull' the scenes between DiNiro and Joe Pesci, some of those are hilarious.

Question: Didn't you play a serial killer?

Owen: Yeah, I did play a serial killer, he says excitedly and laughing. 'The Minus Man', Hampton Fancher and I had a great time working with Hampton. He wrote 'Bladerunner'. That's actually the only part that I've ever gotten from auditioning so, I don't know, maybe I was able to tap into my inner psycho I guess to play that part.

Question: Dupree tries to get his girl back. Have you ever had the experience of trying to get a girl back?

Owen: Oh yeah. I've definitely had to try and win a girl back. All of a sudden you're sending flowers and you're pretending that there's nothing you'd rather do on a Sunday than go antique shopping, drive to Pasadena and hit the flea market and usually that relationship doesn't last because there's only so long you can fake that.

Question: Do you write any poems?

Owen: I've probably pawned off some poems as my own that I got from like a song lyric, yeah.

Question: Are you and Vince in a competition this summer to see which one will do the best after 'Wedding Crashers'?

Owen: It's funny. We have the same agent and she was saying that Vince gets so into stuff and Vince has this natural exuberance and I feel like he's now getting ready to do press for 'You, Me and Dupree' to help this movie like this is one of his projects also.

Question: Do you and your brother have a kind of competition?

Owen: I don't think so. We'll stand out on the beach and throw rocks at a post for four hours and get in screaming matches but I don't think we've ever been competitive about this stuff because I think it's the feeling like 'Gee, if Luke does really well, I know I can always get him to be in a movie with me'. It's kind of hoping that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Question: How many different swimsuits did you guys make Kate try on?

Owen: Probably about seventy-three. And they were all good. That was a fun day!

Question: Would you say you are a messy or a neat person?

Owen: I'm probably ...well, slob would be too strong a word but edging in that direction.

[SugarMagnolia]

wilson-brothers.com/owen/articles/nightinthelife.html

A Night in the Life of Owen Wilson
Premiere Magazine, December 2004

by Christine Spines

The curiously refreshing star sets off an impromptu tour of his old Dallas stomping grounds with no idea where it will lead.

No more than ten minutes have passed since he appeared on my hotel lobby couch, slouching like a kid who'd just been grounded for a month. Now we're riding through the streets of Dallas on an impossibly hot September night, and suddenly we're skyrocketing. Owen Wilson has just issued the mandate, a towering challenge that will test the skills and resources available to us at 10 p.m. on Labor Day. "You know what? Let's just make this great," he said, flooring his brother Luke's late-model Cadillac out of the hotel parking lot. "We're going to make this the best there ever was. People won't know what happened to them after reading this story. It's going to change lives, change the world as we know it. This thing is going to be great because we're going to make it that way!"

His eyes are twinkling like new toys. It's hard not to believe that he can make great things happen just because he wills them to be so. As pained and put upon as he first was by the prospect of taking time away from a long weekend at his parents' house to be interviewed, the 34-year-old actor is unwilling or unable to let the experience pass without mining it for whatever drama or adventure it may hold. The car's outdoor thermometer reads 98 degrees, and Wilson devises a plan on the fly as we sail past the crowded trattoria he just nixed from the agenda. Too stuffy. "Do you like ice cream?" asks Wilson, wearing khakis, an untucked black T-shirt, and ankle boots that sometimes catch the hem of his pants. "I'll take you to a place I've been going to a lot. I got into going and getting smoothies in Los Angeles. But then I was thinking that maybe smoothies aren't that good for you. Have you ever thought of that, that smoothies are nature's cancer?"

Wilson is not actually health-conscious. He is acutely conscious, though, that neurotic behavior in a seemingly laid-back guy like him is always good for a laugh. In fact, he's built his career on crafting these casually eccentric characters ever since stepping in front of the camera in Bottle Rocket as Dignan, the irrepressible outlaw naïf who seeks to find substance, excitement, and a career in a life of crime. Wilson cowrote the movie with director Wes Anderson, whom he met in a playwriting workshop at the University of Texas, and the two went on to collaborate on the screenplays for Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, creating a menagerie of funny-sad characters whose outsize passions and foibles can never be contained by the worlds they inhabit.

The same might be said of Wilson, who has spent the past eight years volleying between the spirited art films he cowrites and the high-concept studio affairs that have transformed him from a scene-stealing bit player into a bankable headliner. In a series of small roles in summer spectacles and event movies following Bottle Rocket, Wilson managed to upstage Jim Carrey (The Cable Guy) and Robert De Niro (Meet the Parents), and provided badly needed moments of effortless humor in Anaconda, Armageddon, and The Haunting. When Wilson applied his offbeat characterizations, astute satire, and script tinkering to his first big-budget starring roles, in Shanghai Noon, Zoolander, and Behind Enemy Lines, he scored a trifecta of critically praised sleeper hits. This winter he's partnering with Eddie Murphy for I Spy and Jackie Chan for the Shanghai Noon sequel, Shanghai Knights. Then he'll star opposite Morgan Freeman in The Big Bounce, based on the Elmore Leonard novel.

Still, Wilson has yet to fully embrace acting, a career he stumbled into. He's mortified by the idea of displaying any typical "actorly" traits. "Smoking is obnoxious," he says, pulling onto the highway. "It just fits the profile of some young actor driving, like, an old Mustang with a cigarette. It's like, did you ever see Barfly? And this is actually kind of a cliché to talk about Bukowski. But I love the part in that movie where Mickey Rourke talks about the bartender who just stole his girlfriend, saying, 'Why did it have to be Eddie? He symbolizes everything that disgusts me: obviousness, unoriginal macho energy, ladies man.' "

Wilson checks the rearview mirror repeatedly. He had a run-in with the police earlier today riding shotgun while Luke was pulled over for speeding, and he amazingly managed to talk the officer out of the ticket. "I've developed a really good method for talking to cops," he says. "I used to get so many moving violations in Dallas, and then not pay the tickets and get arrested, that I've developed a really good rap, which is kind of like, 'Look how crazy this all is. Here we are . . .' You just go off his expression and try to get him to laugh." It's hard to imagine a Texas cop pocketing his ticket pad just because Owen Wilson made him laugh by inviting him along for the ride. But that seems to be what happened. "I said, 'Uh, sir, I've gotten a lot of tickets and I know I deserve it, and we deserve this one, but can I just say in my brother's defense that I was urging him to go faster. We're going to meet our dad. Luke has to go back to the airport,' " he says excitedly. He seems proud of the con, not for having gotten away with something but rather for having passed the ultimate test of his storytelling abilities.

Wilson's humour is all in the delivery. His off-tempo cadence and extravagant pauses combine with his slightly nasal voice, inflected with just a hint of a Lone Star drawl, to give him the baffling ability to transform the most mundane phrase or word into a hilarious joke the moment it leaves his lips. Case in point: not long after he arrives at the ice cream place, Wilson is hoisting a giant spoonful of chocolate chip gelato into his mouth when a couple of high school girls ask if they can take a picture with him. He needs to do no more than put down the spoon, grin, and say, "Well, allright!" and all the nearby tables erupt in peals of laughter. Why is that funny? Who knows. But the joke hit its mark perfectly, stashed in there somewhere between "all" and "right". It would be easy to assume, based on most of the evidence so far, that Wilson is the real-life embodiment of all his movies with Anderson. But that story would be far too obvious and predictable for Wilson. "I think of myself as a doom person", he says. "I'm a worrier. Like about movies and sustaining work. But I like the idea of being an optimist." He's self-aware enough to know that it's hard to reconcile the guy who showed up tonight determined to make it great with the guy who fears the party will be over before he's ready to leave. "Wes really stuck with "Bottle Rocket" when we had terrible test screenings. I was looking into joining the Army. I swear," he says, grabbing his keys, ready to move on and resuscitate the mood. "Maybe I'm the kind of optimist who deep down knows it's not going to work."

Wilson knows that every good story needs a worthy villain. And as a co-creator of tonight's experience, he knows what needs to be done. With that in mind, Wilson has decided to pay a visit to Harvey Goff's hamburger stand. A rundown, fluorescent-lit joint tucked into the fringes of an affluent Dallas neighborhood. Goff's seems to operate in its own world by its own rules. First, there is the sign declaring "America Won." And then there is Harvey Goff himself, a patriot of the highest order, a man known for tossing off withering insults to well-meaning customers.

Tonight Wilson has ostensibly come to settle a score. The last time he was here, Goff called him a dummy and kicked him out of his seat even though the entire restaurant was empty. But truly this is a thrill-seeking mission--so much so that when he learns that Goff is not here yet, he decided to order a burger and wait. Our caper now has become a stakeout, and Wilson is pumped. "You know, I think this is going pretty well," he says, devouring an enormous chili burger. "We're having some fun. I'm kind of energized, waiting for Harvey."

Wilson has developed a reputation for working well with, shall we say, challenging personalities. "I'm probably better with eccentric people than with someone who seems like they've got it all together," he says. He hit it off with two of Hollywood's most notoriously tempestuous directors. "Jan De Bont was really nice to me, and people said he might not be," he says of The Haunting's director. "I got along great with Michael Bay." Wilson has won over such commanding costars as Robert De Niro (Meet the Parents) and Gene Hackman (Behind Enemy Lines) by showing up on the set armed with a battery of devastatingly funny unscripted lines and a keen attention to his characters' quirky idiosyncrasies.

When star Ben Stiller suggested that Wilson play the Renaissance man ex-boyfriend opposite him in Meet the Parents, both director Jay Roach and costar Robert De Niro had trouble envisioning Wilson as the kind of wholesome beefcake the role seemed to demand. "Bob was kind of skeptical of Owen," Roach recalls. " I remember him saying, 'Ben is more athletic-looking than Owen.' And then when he worked with him, he completely got it. It one scene, the take that really killed everybody was when Ben Stiller goes, 'I'm a nurse,' and Owen's scripted line was 'Oh, that's interesting. I wanted to do some volunteer work, too.' But Owen just starts riffing, saying, 'Just the other day I was driving and saw this golden retriever that had a gimp.' He started describing his experience of seeing this dog and De Niro just kept losing it. It may have been the only day when he actually couldn't get a line out."

Wilson even managed to endear himself to his I Spy costar, Murphy, who has a reputation for being standoffish on set. "Neither one of them wanted to meet each other [before shooting], and I thought it could be a disaster," recalls director Betty Thomas of the duo, who play a boxer (Murphy) and an international spy (Wilson) who go undercover to scuttle a European arms dealer's nefarious plans by penetrating a fight he's organizing. "But I thought it would the be ultimate buddy move to have two types of comedy. Eddie goes for the joke. He knows where the joke is, and he goes for it. [Whereas] Owen can say a joke and you go, 'That might not be funny.' But with Owen saying it without treating it like a joke, it is funny."

Though undeniably a broad comedy intended for the widest possible swath of moviegoers, I Spy experiments with a post-modern approach of combining the old grand master of the buddy comedy (Murphy) and the new (Wilson). Every era has a maverick comedian who defined what was funny to a particular generation. After Trading Places and 48 Hrs., Murphy was considered subversive and was constantly quoted in the '80s college dorm rooms in the same way that Wilson's self-styled lines have become today's all-purpose punch lines. Just try not to laugh while saying this classic that Wilson wrote for his bit part in Anaconda: "Is it just me, or does the jungle make you really, really horny?"

It was in the mystical realm of the comic imagination that the I Spy stars connected on their first day of shooting together. "I was nervous around him because he's really quick and funny, and it was hard to figure out how I was going to fit in," Wilson says. "We were sitting in a car about to come into this big party, so there were mounted guards on horses. We don't know each other very well so it's kind of uncomfortable because it's just us, and Eddie says, ' I wonder what horses think.' He wasn't saying it to be funny, but it's the exact type of thing I like to think about. So I was like, ' Yeah, I wonder what they do think.' I could see that as kids we probably would have gotten along."

Wilson's ability to tap into the mind-set of his younger self may be the source of his ability to reinvent standard-issue roles as singular characters whose lines often out-funny the rest of the script. Even in a broad comedy like I Spy, Wilson signed on to a heroic secret agent role that he had no intention of playing. "My first thought was to try to change the script and make it something I could relate to by making my spy not such a tough guy," he says. "That was something I could see myself playing."

Thomas first envisioned him for the role after going to the premiere of Shanghai Noon and witnessing his bloodhound ability to dig up the funny in any line he's given. But there is an ineffable quality to Wilson's appeal: an inexplicable desire to laugh at the moment the camera lands on him. Strangely, Thomas is either unwilling or incapable of expressing what she responded to in his performance that made "this Owen dude" a perfect foil to Murphy. "[It's] because I don't think he's normal," Thomas offers, curtly. Silence. Well, what is normal? "Normal is when people go after the joke, and Owen goes aggressively against the joke."

Wilson, on the other hand, is the rare comedian who has no trouble laying out his own laws of levity. "Our humor comes from insecurities or earnestness," he says, referring to the writing he does with Anderson. "What I mean by earnest is that I'm not interested in jokes, or people, like, telling jokes. I've never gone to a comedy club. I think stuff that's funny is stuff in real life. It's like some earnestly trying to talk rather that looking to make a joke. A lot of stuff I describe as funny is really sad."

We've been here for nearly an hour when a loud screech echoes across the parking lot just beyond our table. Harvey Goff hops out of his shiny white sedan. Wilson's back straightens as he whispers, "Look at him, he's got a gun." Sure enough, the tall, fiftyish man in a perfect crew cut is marching toward us armed with a glare and a fat pistol stuffed in the back of his polyester slacks.

Owen: Harvey! How's it goin'?

Harvey: [scowling] You writin' a book?

Owen: I've brought a friend I'd like to introduce you to. She's a journalist.

Harvey: Friend? That's not a friend. That's just another beast you brought in from the woods.

It's hard to fathom another circumstance in which I could be called a "beast from the woods" and genuinely laugh it off. But Wilson's obvious delight in the purity of this man's ill temper is contagious. Hanging out with Wilson is like entertaining the fable-like world of one of his collaborations with Anderson, where people's foibles are never suspect and always celebrated.

It's nearing midnight and Wilson grows quiet as he drives off from Goff's. "It was going into places like this that we got Kumar in the movie," he says, referring to Kumar Pallana, the diminutive Indian man who has appeared in each of the Wilson-Anderson movies, most recently as Pagoda the butler in The Royal Tenenbaums. "Kumar worked at this place we eat, the Cosmic Cup." He drives for a few minutes in silence. "You want to go?"

Wilson clearly holds a deep nostalgia and affection for the simpler days of making Bottle Rocket and his collaborations with Anderson, which have become less frequent as Wilson dedicates more time to his acting career. "I think Bottle Rocket means the most to me," he says, "because it was the first movie, and it's got so much of me and Luke and Wes in it."

By all accounts, Wilson is a world-class collaborator, partner-in-crime, buddy. As we've seen tonight, he's a guy who can be relied upon to show up and try to make it great. "He's a really fun person to hang around as a guy friend," says Ben Stiller, who cast Wilson in The Cable Guy and then appeared with him in Permanent Midnight, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, The Royal Tenenbaums and a forthcoming Starsky and Hutch. "It's definitely a childlike quality. I don't mean he's not mature. But it's a way of working that is just like having fun with your friends and making up things. And what you do together is always better than what you get separately."

It was in this spirit of mutual inspiration and power in numbers that Wilson and Anderson conceived of Bottle Rocket. "Wes and I were roommates, and we wanted to try to write a movie together because he wanted to direct. I was an English major and had written some short stories, and I saw a ton of movies," he says, parking on a side street near the Cosmic Café, as the establishment is now called, a small converted house painted in a mosaic of wildly colorful Indian deities, where he and Anderson would often write. "Wes had the title Bottle Rocket, and we had the characters, and so then it was trying to spin a story out around them." For a time, Anderson says, "Owen didn't think it was a good idea for him or Luke to be in it. He thought we should have real actors, and that it would somehow make us unprofessional. But obviously, no one was going to be as good as Owen."

The first moment he stepped in front of a camera, any self-consciousness evaporated immediately. "He's the most naturally gifted actor I've ever seen", says Polly Platt, who produced Bottle Rocket with James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment). "It was mainly because I knew he had no training. Their mother visited the set one day and said to me, ' How can you just let them make a movie?' and I said 'They're going to be movie stars'".

Wilson insists that his life remains relatively untouched by the changed brought with the realization of Platt's prophecy. But when asked how is screenwriting process with Anderson has changed with each project, he's clearly conflicted about what it says about him and who he is as an artists that he's allowed his acting career to push his screenwriting with Anderson into the margins. "[During] Bottle Rocket we were living together. Rushmore and Tenenbaums, it was just trying to find the time…" he trails off. "I don't know how to type or use the computer so Wes would do that stuff. I'd use notebook paper or say it out loud or send it to Wes," he says, brushing his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes. " I should write more. Writing's hard." He looks heartbroken when asked about their next project together, in which, tellingly, Wilson will participate as an actor, but not a writer. "Wes has a story about an oceanographer that he came up with a long time ago. He has an idea or me and Bill Murray to play this father-son thing," says Wilson. "He's writing it. When he gets a draft done, he'll show it to me and maybe I can, uh, be helpful as an actor."

Sitting on the steps of the closed Cosmic Café, Wilson brightens when he spots and Indian man emerging from the back door. "Sir!" he yells, grinning. "Do you ever talk with Kumar?" The man eyes us suspiciously. " I think Kumar is at the multiplex right now," the man says with a hint of scorn. This is the kind bittersweet moment full of irony and pathos and humor Wilson could easily have written into any of his movies, and right now he's savoring it. " I don't think he was disdainful," the actor giggles. "It was more like, ' Oh, you poor guy, just sitting around wondering what Kumar was doing.'"

The mischievous middle child of transplanted New England liberals--his mother, Laura, is a photographer who used to work with Richard Avedon; his father, Robert, ran the Dallas PBS station before launching an advertising business--Wilson was the kid who always took supreme pleasure in getting away with something. But Wilson's scamartistry was never an act of malice or rebellion. It was simply a way he'd devised to keep himself engaged, interested, and inspired as he made his way through the St. Marks School of Texas, a prestigious prep school. The role of troublemaker also happened to be one that that was available. His older brother, Andrew (an actor who appeared in Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums), "was the hero of the family--a great athlete, dated the prettiest girls. Luke and I really looked up to him," Wilson says. " I don't think I was the clown. My dad was the funny person of the family. I was kind of thought of as being creative...and getting into trouble."

His most defining moment came in the tenth grade, when he was kicked out of St. Marks for stealing his geometry teacher's textbook to expedite his math homework. Following that incident (which might explain the comic-tragic fate he and Anderson later wrote for Rushmore's Max Fischer, who was also expelled from his beloved academic haven), Wilson suffered the greatest indignity of all: a stint in public school. "I like not studying and being lazy and goofing off when I knew that wasn't the thing to do," he says, but he didn't enjoy being " at a school where no one cared, no one does homework, and no one was like, 'Owen's special' anymore." He then opted for a place that made even less sense: military school. " I graduated private first class, lowest-ranking person in my grade," he says of his two year stint at New Mexico Military Institute. "If you look at your life as a story, I kind of like the fact that I went to military school."

It's after 1 A.M. and Wilson is now back at the hotel, splayed out on the lobby couch. He checks his cell phone. He's missed a call from a woman he was hoping to meet up with later. He silently considers his options and decided that he's not yet ready to give up on our interview. "We made a commitment at the beginning of the night and I'll be damned if I'm going to waver," he says. "I'm going to finish strong! I want the record to show that we're here and we're doing our best to figure out what makes this guy tick." Abruptly, he cuts himself off. " I only wish the article could be like this. They never sound how our actual exchange was."

Wilson approaches his every role with a similar alchemy of excitement and dread. " I never dreamed I'd be an actor I always though I would be a writer," he says. After being cast opposite Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon, the move sent his career sailing into the mainstream, he was in no mood for celebrating. " I was in Dallas trying to work with Wes and I was freaking out, like, 'This is going to be a total disaster.'"

The feeling was mutual for director Tom Dey when he started receiving faxed, hand-written ideas for the film's opening scene from Wilson, weeks before production began. "I got nervous because I didn't know him, and the scene read like a really conceited actor writing his entrance full bravura. [His concept for his character] was like a rock star in a bed full of hookers," Dey says. "And I'm thinking 'Oh, no!' But I wasn't reading it knowing Wilson's sense of humor and the tongue-in-cheek nature of it."

Ultimately, Wilson's I'm-a-lover-not-a-fighter interpretation made it into the movie. But his most enduring brainstorm came during production while dining with Chan one night and watching him play rapid-fire drinking games with the stuntmen. "Owen saw that and said 'We gotta put that in the movie,'" says Dey of what became Shanghai Noon's signature bathtub scene. " I wouldn't have known how to put that in. That's the difference between Owen and someone else."

Wilson finally was able to learn to stop worrying and love his job while making Shanghai Knights, Noon's sequel, which takes the original characters to Europe on a quest to avenge the murder of Shanghai Kid's father. " I already knew [the characters], so I didn't have to fight any battles in myself or with other people," Wilson says. "I could just keep figuring out funny situations and lines."

"Some of the most brilliant stuff in the movie is Owen off the top of his head," says Knights director David Dobkin (Clay Pigeons). "He has the ability to manipulate the written word and make it his own. In one scene, when Jackie says, ' This woman wants to sleep with me,' Owen who has popped movies. He would fit into that world."

Anderson's opinion is one of two in this world that seem to matter most to Wilson. (The other is his mother's.) He seems to regard Anderson and their work together as the true expression of his best self. The struggle now is to find creative ways to find a connection between his two alternate universes. " I don't feel like I'm a hundred times happier than when I first started going to the Cosmic Cup," Wilson says. He rolls his eyes skyward, ponderously demanding answers from the deities. "Can't we petition someone to make it so that outside stuff is the key to happiness? I'm tired of people always saying, 'It's gotta come from you!' Can't it come from, like, a new pair of shoes?"

Wilson's eyes are now marbled red and his body is slightly listing to the left. No one could have predicted at the beginning of the night that his lofty ambitions for this interview experience would test endurance, heart, and spirit the way it has. " I was making a joke in the beginning of the night. My lord, I didn't know we were going to be slouching towards Bethlehem here," he says, sitting up straight, fortifying himself. "Let's push forward. One more topic."

There is a searching sincerity to Wilson that flickers on and off throughout the night between jokes. He wants to know what my impression of him was, based on his movies (innocent, unjaded, romantic). He likes that, "romantic," but "I'd have to say I'm probably a better friend than boyfriend," says the actor, who has been single for the past year. His last long-term relationship was that with singer Sheryl Crow, whom he lived after meeting on the set of the 1999 indie thriller, The Minus Man. "We're still friends," he says, averting his eyes.

Fortunately, he is not the kind of actor who makes apologies for enjoying the social perks of his job. He seemed briefly but genuinely disappointed when he missed that cell phone call earlier tonight from a woman he'd met today "while eating a taco." Picking up women at taco stands! There's got to be a better way! "It wasn't a taco stand," he corrects with a grin. "It was, like, a sit-down place." He's made the young actor's requisite pilgrimage to the Playboy mansion. " I had a great time," he says. "It was like a pajama party, so the girls were wearing lingerie and you just kind of walk through the grotto. It's not so different from anything else."

Wilson understands that what makes him different is the source of his power onscreen. But he remains surprisingly tender about the subject of his most outwardly unconventional attribute, his nose. Wilson is widely admired and desired for proving that an aquiline nose is not a job requirement for being a bankable leading man. His nose, which remains unfixed after being broken once in the ninth grade and again in a college football accident, is distinctly asymmetrical, with a slightly cubist effect of shifting shape depending on the side from with it's shot. It is the think that makes women want him and men want to be like him: comfortable with who he is. And yet all signs of that defiant spirit vanish when he's asked about his most distinguishing feature a week later over breakfast in Los Angeles. "Can't you read about that some place?" he asks quietly, with a wounded look that seems to ask, "How could you?" We came within reach of making it great but now a pact has been broken. The unexpected depths of Wilson's vulnerability have flooded the room. " I never knew my nose was, like,… I guess because no one would say something until recently. Most people are too polite, so I was able to go along cheerfully thinking I was fine. And then I've had to confront this issue."

In truth, the confrontation is primarily an internal one, between the ardent individualist and the sensitive writer who stumbled into the glare of movie stardom. And though this is undoubtedly an uncomfortable moment form which we will never recover any of the shimmering abandon of our Dallas escapade, this slip into the melancholy is perhaps the most authentic way to close a story by or about Owen Wilson--unexpected, unordinary, original. He'd have it no other way.


(Thanks to Jamie and Stephanie for typing this up by hand for the now defunct wilson-brothers.com site. Photos were previously linked up to this article on that site but were taken down when the site changed ownership.)

[SugarMagnolia]

articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/09/entertainment/ca-wilson9

It's funny about Owen Wilson
More ad-lib comic than thespian, the Frat Pack's golden boy says he just got `lucky.' (Don't believe it.)
THE ACTOR'S LIFE
July 09, 2006|Rachel Abramowitz, Times Staff Writer

OWEN WILSON may be the only Oscar-nominated screenwriter who's never owned a computer. He's not going to take the plunge now at the advanced age of 37 because he's afraid he'd get addicted to computer games.

"If I got one at this point, I'm very susceptible to getting super into it," he drawls over turkey burgers in a joint in Venice. "I'll look at these ads for these war games they have, and they look so cool." He elongates the word for effect. "I feel I could really lose myself."

It's hard to reconcile the various faces of Owen Wilson: the wildly competitive devotee of ping-pong, foosball, bocce and a game called head soccer (soccer played on a tennis court), the girl-chasing figure labeled "The Butterscotch Stallion" in the tabloids, with the guy who cries at "The End of the Affair" and reads the Graham Greene novel afterward, who can quote chunks of dialogue from films such as Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven." With director Wes Anderson, Wilson co-wrote two of the most amusing but poignant distillations of precocity of the last dozen years: "Rushmore," with Bill Murray, and "The Royal Tenenbaums," which was nominated for an Oscar.

Yet he's also a charter member of the comedy frat pack, a golden circle of 30-something funny guys that includes Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, Jack Black, Steve Carell, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, whose broad antics have powered mainstream comedy for the last half-dozen years and whose most potent screen relationships appear to be with one another. That was all too apparent in last summer's raucous, hard-R comedy "Wedding Crashers," in which Wilson and Vaughn troll for chicks like a particularly libidinous Lewis and Martin.

At first, it appeared as if the latter incarnation came to lunch as Wilson ambled up in a rumpled T-shirt, loose pants and no wallet. His freakishly blue eyes peer out from under a mop of longish blond surfer hair, and the famed, twice-broken beak looks more Roman in profile than the mashed-up boxer's schnoz that defines his face from the head-on perspective. And then there's the grin, which alternates from shy, polite Texan to louche ladies' man. Still, while some major movie stars seem shellacked in narcissism, Wilson emits a wry curiosity. He actually asks questions and listens for the answers.

Like Woody Allen, Wilson is less an actor than a comic persona who acts. And the shtick does vary from a kind of mouthy, ironic parody of a Tom Cruise action figure ("Armageddon") to a mouthy, ironic, arrested-adolescent party boy ("Wedding Crashers") to a so-sincere-it's-ironic adolescent slacker ("You, Me and Dupree," landing in theaters Friday).

The latest film is a comic paean to the underachiever. Wilson's Dupree is a wide-eyed naif who at 35, 36, 37 can't manage to get a life, a career, a girl, a sense of direction, some hard elbows useful for clawing one's way through the grown-up world. In the film, Dupree, beanbag chair in tow, moves in with his newly married best friend, the uptight Carl (played by Matt Dillon), and his wife (Kate Hudson), and wreaks havoc, ultimately imparting some addled life lessons. Perhaps the most important involves being true to oneself -- a theme that echoes from both "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" -- although here the message is delivered with goofy glee rather than drenched in loss.

Wilson developed the idea for "You, Me and Dupree" with writer Mike LeSieur and produced the Universal film while ad-libbing more than a few of the movie's signature scenes.

"He's got an amazing ability to improv, because he has such a mind for storytelling," says Anthony Russo, one of the forces on the cult TV show "Arrested Development," who directed the film with his brother, Joe. "Owen keeps his improv right on target. Normally you can use about 10% of what somebody does, but with Owen, you can use 90%."

"The way he works is he likes to keep every take fresh," adds Joe Russo. "He changes every take, and he rarely does the same thing twice. He's like a jazz musician who goes on a 10-minute riff. He'll find a new melody to start playing."

"Owen is great because you get all the imaginative, addictive stuff that the great comics bring, but without the angst," says director Shawn Levy, who just employed Wilson as a 3-inch-tall cowboy in the upcoming holiday release "Night at the Museum." "Maybe there's angst, but if so, he's disguised it well. I had all the pleasure and none of the pain. For a comic, that's unique."

Unlike some of his counterparts (Stiller or Vaughn or Anderson, for instance), Wilson doesn't bristle with ambition and perfectionism.

He seems to treat the whole movie-star phenomenon as an incredibly fortuitous freak of nature, like a comet that happily landed on his head. He never intended to star in "Bottle Rocket," his screen debut, which he co-wrote with Anderson, but they couldn't get anybody else to take on the role of Dignan, the demented would-be burglar.

"I didn't study to be an actor. It always seems like a lucky thing," says Wilson. "I don't think of myself as really driven as an actor to try to stretch myself. I think I'm sort of limited. I can do some stuff and make it sound real.

s→Owen Wilson
It's funny about Owen Wilson
More ad-lib comic than thespian, the Frat Pack's golden boy says he just got `lucky.' (Don't believe it.)
THE ACTOR'S LIFE
July 09, 2006|Rachel Abramowitz, Times Staff Writer
(Page 3 of 6)

He seems to treat the whole movie-star phenomenon as an incredibly fortuitous freak of nature, like a comet that happily landed on his head. He never intended to star in "Bottle Rocket," his screen debut, which he co-wrote with Anderson, but they couldn't get anybody else to take on the role of Dignan, the demented would-be burglar.

"I didn't study to be an actor. It always seems like a lucky thing," says Wilson. "I don't think of myself as really driven as an actor to try to stretch myself. I think I'm sort of limited. I can do some stuff and make it sound real.
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"A movie like 'Anaconda' -- it's weird -- I would have been embarrassed to have written that movie but not to act in it. I don't know why that is."

Indeed, Wilson admits to being more "discerning" about the writing, which is partly why he hasn't actually sat down and written his own script start to finish, since Anderson, his college roommate from the University of Texas, began writing without him. He and his good friend Woody Harrelson are planning to write one in August, but they've spent most of their time discussing in which beautiful spot on Earth they should write. And then there's the issue of who will man the computer.

"What keeps me from writing more is I'm very particular. If I don't feel something's good, I don't want it out there. I'm more discerning. I always feel with the writing I'm going to get to it." He grimaces and sighs. This is himself he's talking about. "I was also going to get to graduating college."

Middle man

WHEN Wilson was 3, his mother wrote to her sister describing her second son: "Owen has a very zany sense of humor. He doesn't like to read the same book twice, and he idolizes Bobby [Owen's dad]."

We're discussing nature versus nurture. Wilson has one of those minds that remembers all the nuances, the slings and arrows of childhood, coupled with a firm grasp on the mythology of family. He's the middle son of a couple of cultured East Coasters who transplanted to Dallas, where his father ran the public television station and his mom became a photographer.

He remembers himself always being the "odd man out," with his mom gravitating to his older brother, Andrew, also an actor, and his father having a special affinity for his younger brother, Luke, who's starred in all the films Owen has written as well as appearing in "Legally Blonde," "The Family Stone" and the upcoming "My Super Ex-Girlfriend."

"It wasn't like I was like Oliver Twist: 'More bread, sir,' " adds Wilson, who knows that his parents love him. "It was maybe easier for my dad to be around Luke. They had more of a connection. Luke looked like my mother. My dad and I would butt heads."

It's pretty safe to say that his parents worried that Owen would turn into a permanent screw-up.

He always had problems in school -- not working up to his potential, as a raft of teachers pointed out. He wrote one of his first short stories in eighth grade -- about a real-life incident in which his brother Andrew shot a deer. It was so good that his teacher thought he plagiarized it. In 10th grade, he actually got kicked out of the tony Dallas prep school St. Mark's for cheating on a math test and ended up transferring to a local high school for a semester, then getting shipped off to a military academy.

At least the trauma proved useful for the art. The deeply idiosyncratic protagonist of "Rushmore" flunks out of his tony prep school and winds up at the local high school. He befriends the industrialist played by Bill Murray, who looks at his own children, a pair of violent lunkheads, and bemoans, "Never in my wildest imagination did I dream that I would have children like this."

"My dad would say that," Wilson says with a laugh. "But thing is, my dad and all his friends, all the stories he told that were celebrated, were about getting around the rules. One of my earliest memories was my dad sneaking us into the state fair, saying he was with the Channel 4 news. It was pretty clear where we got this from."

Even today, the Wilson boys are a tight clan, ferociously competitive in sports and games, and nothing makes Wilson happier than beating someone who deeply cares.

"I don't have to win. I just want to know that the person I'm playing hates to lose and really wants to win, otherwise it's no fun." He insists that this competitiveness does not extend to their respective Hollywood careers. "Not because we're so generous and loving -- it's more selfish," Wilson explains. "If Luke's movie does really incredible, I know I can always get him to do a movie with me, or for me. It's a rising tide. If one of us does well, it's going to help the other guys too."

As kids, Owen dreamed up the games and the clubs and forced Luke to serve as a pledge, getting hazed to get in. As grown-ups, Luke -- in a kind of Dupree moment -- moved into Owen's Santa Monica house, bringing along a stuffed boar's head, a wild javelina he'd appropriated from the set of "Tenenbaums." Although Luke Wilson owned his own house a mile away, he stayed for a year. "When he finally moved out, he took the javelina with him. I miss it. It tied the room together," cracks Wilson. "Even a mile away I don't see him as much."

His brothers are the only people Wilson has fought with -- physically -- as a grown-up. Right before the Wilson brothers and Anderson boarded a plane from Texas to California to meet writer-producer-director James L. Brooks about making their debut, "Bottle Rocket," "Luke and I had a punching fight. I had scratch marks down my face. I had to get on the plane. It's really emotional fighting your brother. We were crying a little bit on the flight. We went to the meeting. It was such a heavy vibe from us, they didn't even ask us what had happened to our faces."

'Rocket's' red glare

WILSON doesn't elaborate about what they were actually fighting about, but "Bottle Rocket" -- and meeting Anderson in a University of Texas playwriting class -- were the pivotal events in his professional life. Brooks, the director of such films as "As Good As It Gets," "Terms of Endearment" and "Broadcast News," arranged for the financing of the $5-million film, about a loopy gang of aspiring burglars.

But the making of the film was something of a bloodbath, an ugly collision between a renegade indie sensibility and mainstream Hollywood moviemaking.

The film got eviscerated by audiences in test screenings, a process that Wilson has said left him feeling so pummeled that he even considered joining the military.

Polly Platt, the film's producer, recalls one particularly rough day when the boys were wrestling with the powers-that-be in the editing room. She went across the street to sit in the Roman Catholic church to get a little sanctuary. "I looked over to my left and Owen was in the same church praying. That's the only indication I had that he was suffering."

Anderson wrote his latest film, "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," with another partner, Noah Baumbach, which at first shocked Wilson, who still starred in the film, a much more sprawling, undisciplined work than the earlier Anderson-Wilson collaborations. The former screenwriting partners are still close. "I can hardly think of anyone that I have as much fun talking to as Wes. We're really on the same page," says Wilson.

The distinctive, stylized Anderson films definitely launched Wilson in Hollywood. "Bottle Rocket" might have failed financially, but it has turned into a cult favorite, drawing fans such as Martin Scorsese and Stiller, who wrote the filmmakers a fan letter. Wilson has gone on to star with Stiller in half a dozen comedies, including the upcoming "Night at the Museum." Like Stiller, and much of the comedy mafia, he's represented by United Talent Agency, who, in fact, were the ones who introduced him to "You, Me and Dupree" writer Mike LeSieur, then a complete unknown. The actor appears to have made peace with mainstream Hollywood.

"He has that breed of effortless Texan cool that's incredibly winsome," says Levy. "He doesn't seem to have adjusted his life to the rules of celebrity. For better or worse, he's doing whatever he damn well pleases, whether it's going to a bar and chatting up a pretty girl or running along the sea wall in Vancouver alone during the middle of the day. He seems to have refused to rejigger his lifestyle the way many famous people do."

"One thing I admire about Owen is he loves life," says "You, Me and Dupree" producer Scott Stuber. "All of us get caught up in striving for success, and weirdly, when you're in the middle of it, success ... tends to be the most stressful time of life. You feel this need to continue it. Owen understands that he's in a great place as a person and has great opportunities as an actor and appreciates it. He travels. He reads a lot. He's expanding himself as a person."

One direction in which he does not appear to be expanding is maritally. Unlike Stiller or Jack Black or Ferrell, Wilson isn't settling down. When asked if he's ever a Dupree himself, he admits that he occasionally gloms on to Woody Harrelson's family unit. He went to visit the actor and his wife and young daughters in Hawaii for four days but stayed a month. Recently, he bounced over to Italy to see them and their new baby in Ravello, where they were vacationing.

"I'm single. I'm still out there," he muses. "But who knows for how much longer."

He laughs. Devilishly.

"I could be winding down."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. At 37, he has at least 40 more years in which he can procreate. That's in Hollywood-movie-star years, which is something akin to dog years for men.

Adds Wilson, "If you read the Bible, I've got till I'm 120."

[SugarMagnolia]

159.54.226.237/06_issues/060709/060709owen_wilson.html

Issue Date: July 9, 2006

Owen Wilson's Walk of Fame

Don't be fooled by the sleepy drawl and easygoing manner. The Texas-bred, military-schooled, quirky comic star behind next week's "You, Me and Dupree" means business.



By Steve Pond
Cover: Owen Wilson
"It's that middle brother syndrome ... that might give you a little bit of sensitivity."

He's distracted. Walking down a residential street on the west side of Los Angeles, a few blocks from the Cape Cod-style home he bought in the first flush of stardom, Owen Wilson is trying to talk about growing up, about how fame has freed him from the responsibilities his father had, about how he feels as if he's heading in the direction of settling down to have a family. But every couple of sentences, he stops, cocks his head and tries to overhear the two young women talking into a cellphone 20 feet behind him. He listens, shakes his head and moves on. His sandals -- slippers, really, blue fuzzy bedroom slippers -- scuff against the sidewalk. His eyes squint under the brim of a faded blue baseball cap pulled low.

"Kids all have cellphones now," says the 37-year-old actor, his mop of dirty-blond hair sticking out beneath the cap. He frowns. "Camera cellphones."

Wilson takes a couple of steps into the driveway of a two-story house and stops. "Let's let this group go by us," he says, keeping his back to the women and their cellphone. Whereupon his "stalkers" step into a nearby car, apparently oblivious to the fact that the disheveled dude in front of them is a movie star known to pull in $10 million a picture. Wilson watches them drive away, then shrugs. When you're the most laid-back celebrity this side of Willie Nelson (the actor's sometime poker buddy), a little misplaced paranoia is just one thing you learn to take in stride.

He takes things easy; that's Owen Wilson's way. He's smart, to be sure (witness the 2001 Academy Award nomination for co-writing "The Royal Tenenbaums"), and as a comic actor, his wit can be as off-kilter as that notable nose of his. But he moves deliberately, talks slowly. He's "a little tired" when he arrives at an upscale Brentwood take-out joint this day in mid-May, worn out after a trip to Europe on behalf of Pixar's animated hit "Cars," for which Wilson provided the voice of a hotshot rookie race car. In contrast to the motormouth we've seen in everything from "Bottle Rocket" to "Wedding Crashers," his Texas drawl initially oozes out at a pace that falls between understated and comatose.

Then again, lethargy's an effective defense against prying questions or the attentions of one's public. And his public does notice: No sooner does Wilson sit down -- his three plates piled high with kale, beans, mac and cheese, a mini-pizza and a variety of other comestibles ("Let's get a snack," he'd announced) -- than a man at the next table strikes up a conversation about a friend of his who'd recently met Wilson. "She's a good girl, man," the guy insists. "You should call her."

A few minutes later, a woman drops off a note for Wilson, who folds it and puts it in his pocket, sight unseen. And finally, a toddler looks over and announces that he was on his way to Grandma's house, before eyeing Wilson's repast and asking loudly, "Why did the people give you a lot of food for all your friends?"

When the kid leaves, Wilson laughs. "That's kinda the way Dupree is," he says. "But the fact that Dupree is 37 makes him slightly less lovable." Wilson is talking about his cluelessly obnoxious character in the July 14 comedy "You, Me and Dupree," but the offhand comment is one of the only times the actor seizes on a chance to hype his new project. Instead, Wilson lets the conversation ramble, stopping now and then to enthuse over particular favorites of his. When it comes to shows, he TiVos "The Sopranos" and "sports stuff once in a while," watches the British version of "The Office" on DVD, and hears "24" is great but won't watch it because he's afraid he'll get hooked.

Not long ago, his younger brother, actor Luke ("Old School"), turned him on to Bob Dylan, although Owen goes for Dylan's maligned late-period stuff. He reads biographies and World War II books and rarely goes online, sparing him those Internet stories that have dubbed this reputed ladies man the Butterscotch Stallion. "I don't have a computer," he says. "I have a real primitive BlackBerry, and as much as I've gotten into that, I'd be worried if I got a computer. I don't think I need too many more distractions."

It all fits -- the casual attitude, the fact that he leaves the house in slippers and never appears to be trying too hard. But somebody who ought to know says that it'd be a mistake to assume this is all there is to Wilson. "People think Owen's this laid-back guy," says Andrew ("Charlie's Angels"), the oldest of the three Wilson brothers, all of whom are actors. "He is that, but there's a little more going on, trust me." For one thing, Andrew says, the middle brother is more competitive and occasionally more combative than people realize, evidence of which can be found in the BB pellet permanently lodged beneath the skin of Andrew's hand. "Owen had a fort in the top of our barn, and I went out there with a hose and started squirting water into his fort," remembers Andrew of a teenage prank at the family's Dallas home. "I was probably getting his "Playboys" wet. And all of a sudden I saw the barrel of his BB gun come out the door, and he shot me. But I deserved it."

As a kid, Wilson figured he'd be a writer of some sort, advertising jingles, maybe. His father was an ad executive, his mother a photographer. An inattentive student, he was expelled for Xeroxing his high school teacher's geometry book. "[My teacher] was at lunch, and I got it out of his office," Wilson explains. "The school I went to was a very hard school. If I'd gone to a normal school, I probably could've skated by." Instead, he wound up at a military academy in New Mexico, which was not as terrible as it sounds. "It was kinda funny, actually. But it makes for a better story to say it was bad." He grins. "I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the military school bit."

At the University of Texas, he met aspiring director Wes Anderson, who recruited his new pal to co-write and star in a short called "Bottle Rocket." Then, in 1996, they raised $5 million with the help of director James L. Brooks and turned it into a feature film. "Bottle Rocket" tanked at the box office, but it launched Wilson's career and has since become a cult classic.

Although better known for his acting, Wilson is just as fond of the writing, and, often as not, he manages to combine the two. "On the comedies that Owen does, he tends to approach them as a writer as much as an actor," says Anderson, whose four films included Wilson as co-writer ("Rushmore"), actor ("The Life Aquatic") or both ("Tenenbaums"). "He's not thinking, 'How do I play this,' but 'How can we improve this scene?' "

Wilson did just that on Dupree, in which his character is forced to move in with newlywed friends (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson) and leaves wreckage in his wake. "There were so many times on the set where he'd look at the script and say, 'It could be really funny if this happened,' " producer Scott Stuber says. Stuber points to one key scene in which Dupree subs for his pal at a grade school career day, hilariously expounding on a philosophy that incorporates a mother ship and pods, among other things. "Owen wrote or ad-libbed the entire scene," Stuber says.

Of course, Wilson knows this territory is something of a minefield. "I have to be sensitive to the fact that other actors don't always want to hear your ideas," he says, then frowns. "Which is weird for me. Do you understand why somebody would feel weird about me giving them ideas?" The question isn't rhetorical; he wants an answer. "I don't quite get it." Wilson shrugs, fingers the BlackBerry sticking out of his shirt pocket and decides he wants to go check out classes at a nearby yoga studio. ("Anything where a beginner won't be left behind?" he asks a staffer.)

A few minutes later, class schedule in hand, he plops down at a table on a second-floor patio overlooking a parking lot full of high-end SUVs. He starts musing about exercise (he likes running on the beach, hates the gym), about the time a date took him to hear the Dalai Lama (he wasn't impressed by the Dalai Lama but is still friends with the girl) and his schedule after Dupree. Maybe something in the fall. Maybe Wes Anderson's new movie. Maybe something else. Actor Woody Harrelson, for instance, wants to collaborate with him on a script.

"I think Woody and I would have a good time writing together," he says. "Woody's the middle of three brothers. I get along with middle brothers." He nods slowly. "It's that middle brother syndrome. The older child has a very clear identity, and the baby gets a lot of attention. The middle brother is a little bit in no-man's land," he explains. "That might give you a little bit of sensitivity, a feeling that you're not clearly on the winning team, you know? ..."

He trails off, then realizes whatever it is he's trying to say isn't worth worrying about. "Well, first of all," he says firmly, "it's just not as funny to be on the winning team. I like to feel like the odd man out."

[iluvtexas]

Excellent idea...

[negirl]

Awesome idea! I like them

[lawoodry]

Hi all,

This is my first post and not sure if this is exactly the right spot, but here goes.

I came across an interview with Stephen Merchant online. He is probably best known for writing "The Office" with Ricky Gervais. He recently acted in "Hall Pass," with Owen and had nice things to say about Mr. Wilson. I have placed the quote below pertaining to Owen and put a link to the whole article if anyone is interested. Enjoy!

www.digitalspy.com/movies/interviews/a259816/stephen-merchant.html

How was it working with the Farrelly Brothers on Hall Pass?
"That was really interesting. Both in terms of how they work and also how Owen Wilson acts. He has an amazing confidence to do nothing. I don't mean that in a lazy way, he doesn't feel he has to shout or draw the attention away from the other actors. He just speaks at his level, very quiet, and knows that his natural charisma and talent is sufficient. It's kind of amazing to watch."

[locke]

Thanks lawoodry i love Steven Merchant and didn`t know he had a part in this movie..I will defo see it now....Thanks and #welcome# to the site.

[iluvtexas]

Wonderful interview with Owen....Enjoy!

What I've learnt: Owen Wilson


NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE: Owen Wilson says making movies is something he does for fun. 'I'm never going to play a guy in a wheelchair.'

The actor on writing versus acting, being a Texan cowboy and dying spectacularly on film

There is something about Texan Owen Wilson, 43, that money can't buy. He's small, vital, with an asymmetrical nose and shaggy blond hair, a bit scruffy in the wrong light. But that "something", whatever it is, has made him one of Hollywood's most interesting actors, producers and writers.

We saw him first in Jim Carrey's 1997 black comedy The Cable Guy, then big box-office fare such as Meet the Parents, The Wedding Crashers, Marley and Me and, most recently, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.

He was a well-known writer and producer before he started acting and was Oscar-nominated as writer of The Royal Tenenbaums and associate producer of the Oscar-winning As Good As It Gets. His new film, The Big Year, is a comedy co-starring Steve Martin and Jack Black.

My character Kenny Bostick holds the record for having seen 732 different species of birds in North America over the course of one calendar year. He sees himself as the king of this world and is ruthless to be the best and will do anything to hold that position. His record is as significant to him as Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.

I think that there's something about being in Hollywood. I don't know if I'm shallow, but you want to make sure that you make the right choice because you know that it's forever once you start. Then at some point, you take stock and ask yourself: What am I doing here?

I am one of three brothers and we are very close. We have our own connection that other people don't understand. We started messing about in movies and that was it. We've never really competed. Luke (the youngest of the three) and I once both went up for the same role in There's Something About Mary, but Ben Stiller got it. It didn't matter. Ben and I are best friends and have made a load of films together.

We were lucky with our childhood. We'd run wild in summers on the lake in boats, building forts up creeks, and going to a school called Lamplighter where they really encouraged the "inner you". If you weren't much good at math they would say: "That's okay, you love to read, so why don't you read instead?" And we'd read TheChronicles of Narnia or something like that, while the girls braided the teacher's hair.

The fact that I'm from Texas and have a Texan drawl gives me the appearance of a solid kind of cowboy. It separates me from those New York and LA pretty boys.

I never dreamed I'd become an actor. I always thought I'd be a writer. Acting is more fun than writing. Writing is harder, more like having a term paper. I can't think of a movie I wish I'd acted in, but there are movies I wish I'd written.

My humour comes from insecurities or earnestness. I'm not interested in jokes or people telling jokes. I've never gone to a comedy club. I think stuff that's funny is stuff in real life. A lot of stuff I describe as funny is really sad.

I thank God every day that I'm able to make a living doing something that I can have a good time doing, and be creative. I'm never going to play a guy with MS or a guy in a wheelchair. I can play a dramatic character, certainly, but I'm not the real chameleon-type actor who changes his voice and everything. I'm more the actor who is conscious that neurotic behaviour in a seemingly laid-back guy can be very good for a laugh.

I've also developed a tradition of dying spectacularly on film. It sort of works out because by the time I die, I'm usually tired of working on that particular movie, so I look forward to it.

18 March, 2012

[iluvtexas]

Nice interview with Owen....

"Q&A With Owen Wilson: The actor talks about his new movie ('Free Birds'), plus why he practices gratitude.

In Free Birds, you travel back in time to save turkeys from becoming Thanksgiving’s main course. Is turkey on your Thanksgiving menu this year?

Yes, turkey is on the menu. In fact, I’m planning on having some turkey today.

How did you prepare to play a turkey?

There wasn’t a lot of preparation needed. It just kind of came naturally to me, playing a turkey. I guess I just had a lifetime of preparation for it.

What is the biggest difference between acting in an animated film and playing a live action role?

It’s like when you’re a kid with make believe. It’s all sort of in your head. It’s also just easier. There isn’t a big crew, no hair and makeup and wardrobe. You just roll out of bed and go up to the sound studio. I like it. I would never have thought, based on my voice, that I would have done a lot of animated work, but for some reason it happened.

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving?

I celebrate it in Dallas with my family. We watch the Cowboys game, eat Thanksgiving dinner, and maybe try to get up a football game earlier in the day. My mom makes the Thanksgiving dinner, and she’s great at it. She makes apple pie, pecan pie, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, yams. I’d say it’s my favorite meal of the year.

What does the holiday mean to you?

I read an article a few years ago about how the holiday is a nightmare for nutritionists, but for psychologists, there’s actually something quite healthy about it. The idea of giving thanks, of being grateful, has a lot of health benefits. The simple act of writing down three things a day you’re grateful for has a measurable impact on people’s happiness and contentment. I wasn’t writing them down, but over the course of the day, I’d see a sunset, or someone laughing, and I’d check that off and say that’s something to be grateful for. It shifts your perspective because you’re now looking for things to be happy about. Take the time, make the decision, to slow things down, and make a conscious effort to look for things over the course of a day to feel good about.

You’ve been a father for nearly 3 years now. How has life changed for you in that time?

There’s this new person that didn’t exist a few years ago, and it’s this person that I have incredible love for, and beyond that, it’s fun and it's gotten more fun. As Ford plays around, and laughs and talks more, it just keeps getting better and better. I love to be around him. That’s the biggest change, having this little person around who, if I have to pick someone to be around, is at the top of the list.

What are your favorite father-and-son activities?

We like to be on the tennis court and hit tennis balls. We’ve been fishing a few times. He loves playing with balls. Just kind of kidding around. He’s getting to the point where he likes to roughhouse a bit and have pillow fights. Stuff I would have done with my brothers as a kid I’m now starting to get to do with him.

What’s the most valuable lesson your son has taught you?

It’s like those things your parents say to you: You get out what you put in. Before Ford arrived, I didn’t imagine I would be doing stuff like changing diapers, waking up with him, doing all these things. I was a new father, so I didn’t really know. Doing all that stuff, that all makes for a stronger bond and foundation. You’re taking care of this little person, feeding him, changing him, getting him ready for his bed, along with his mother. All that creates this real connection.

Do you have a personal health philosophy?

One of the biggest things for me is, if I get enough sleep and I exercise, I almost always have a great day. If I don’t get those things, especially sleep, I’m a lot more prone to being irritable and getting sick. When I’m working a lot or traveling a lot, I have to be really careful to get enough sleep.

What do you do to keep in shape?

I go swimming or jogging or use the treadmill or stair master or ride a bike. I sometimes throw in some weights but mostly it’s cardio.

Do you make a point of eating well to stay fit?

When you’re tired, all of a sudden you’re like, ordering cheeseburgers and French fries. When you’re being healthy, getting exercise and enough sleep, you really want to continue that momentum by eating healthy. I’m not a vegetarian, I eat everything, but I try to eat a lot of vegetables, drink vegetable juices, and try to eat organic, clean, locally sourced food. It makes you feel better.

What’s your best health habit?

My best health habit is probably exercise. I’m pretty good about always exercising. And it goes way beyond vanity. It’s really about what it does to my mind, the peace of mind I get. After exercise, it’s like a high. You just feel a lot more energized and at the same time relaxed enough to deal with the day’s stress.

What's your worst health habit?

I sometimes don’t get enough sleep. I run myself ragged by going to bed too late and waking up too early. I really have to guard against that and make sure I don’t get into a thing where I’m only getting 5 or 6 hours of sleep. I really need 7 or 8.

Is there anything about staying healthy that you wished you’d learned 20 years ago?

As a kid, I played in the neighborhood and did sports, and that kind of continued into college. But I didn’t really start exercising until I was about 29, so I would say that for most of my twenties I was not exercising. I hadn’t made it a habit. I didn't understand how much exercise could improve my state of mind.

What are some of your favorite, guilty-pleasure foods?

Cheeseburgers and French fries. I would say I have a cheeseburger once a month. But when I was just in New York working for 6 weeks, I stumbled upon this place that had one of the best cheeseburgers I’d ever had in my life. Over the next 2 weeks, I literally had 11 of them. I could not stop going there. It was so good.

What do you do to relax?

I love going to the ocean. I live in Hawaii and in Malibu, and a big part of both of those places is spending time at the ocean swimming and stand-up paddling. The ocean kind of represents vacation and freedom to me. Having grown up in Dallas, a landlocked city, I still get excited when I see the ocean.

Where did you go on your last vacation?

I’m in Hawaii now so it sort feels like a vacation. I went to Vancouver 2 weeks ago. A great city with a great healthy, outdoor lifestyle. I went cycling around Stanley Park’s Seawall and hiked up Grouse Mountain.

You’ve been in movies for close to 20 years now. How do you stay passionate about your work?

I always remember Woody Harrelson saying, ‘If you’re on a movie set and you’re not feeling really grateful to be there, there’s a problem.’ I try to think of that when I’m feeling irritable or if I start to take it for granted. As a kid growing up in Dallas, I loved the movies, and I remember thinking that if I could one day work in the movies, that would be the greatest thing ever. I try to stay in touch with that feeling, but some days it’s easier than others.

What's one way that your family influenced you and your career?

I was very lucky to grow up in a family where both my parents were creative and on both sides of my family humor was a big part of how you’d cope with life and deal with things. That helped me and my brothers a lot.

If you could act side by side with any actor, living or dead, who would it be?

Nicolas Cage, Adam Sandler, Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, and Daniel Day-Lewis are a few that come to mind.

How do you measure success both professionally and in your personal life?

It goes back to that part of the conversation about being grateful. I think the way I would measure success is feeling content and happy with family and friends, and being able to make a living doing something creative."