Best Known As: Vince Vaughn's co-star in Wedding Crashers
Owen Wilson is a comic actor and screenwriter known to most moviegoers as Jackie Chan's co-star in Shanghai Noon (2000) and Shanghai Nights (2003). Wilson began his movie career starring in the independent movie Bottle Rockets (1996), a low-budget charmer he wrote with director Wes Anderson. After several roles in clunkers such as The Cable Guy (1996) and Anaconda (1997), Wilson's career took off in 1998, with appearances in Armageddon (starring Bruce Willis) and Permanent Midnight (with his frequent co-star, Ben Stiller). Since then he has appeared in several movies, including Meet the Parents (2000, with Stiller and Robert DeNiro), Zoolander (2001, as the surfer supermodel Hansel) and Behind Enemy Lines (2001). Although he often appears on-screen as a blithesome stoner or goofy neer-do-well, Wilson is no slouch: he co-wrote Wes Anderson's critically acclaimed films Rushmore (1998, with Bill Murray) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, starring Gwyneth Paltrow), and has already appeared in more than twenty films, including The Big Bounce (2004), Starsky and Hutch (2004, again with Ben Stiller), Meet the Fockers (2004, with Dustin Hoffman), Wedding Crashers (2005, with Vince Vaughn), and You, Me and DuPree (2006, with Kate Hudson).
Wilson was hospitalized on 26 August 2007, first at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, and then at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Neither Wilson or the hospitals have announced a reason for the hospitalization, but newspapers have widely reported it as a suicide attempt... Wilson's brothers, Luke and Andrew, are also actors... Wilson supplied the voice of the car Heat Vision in the short-lived television show Heat Vision and Jack (1999, starring Jack Black).
Career Highlights: Bottle Rocket, Shanghai Noon, Permanent Midnight
First Major Screen Credit: Bottle Rocket (1996)
Biography
Whether he's acting or co-writing brilliantly quirky character studies with director/writing partner Wes Anderson, Owen C. Wilson's work exudes an insouciant yet earnest charm and eccentric comic sensibility, making him one of the most promising new talents to emerge in the 1990s.
Born and reared in Dallas, Wilson raised enough hell in high school to get expelled from one institution in tenth grade, but he managed to attend college at the University of Texas in Austin and graduate in 1991. Along with his degree, Wilson's Austin years resulted in a budding partnership with a like-minded creative classmate, aspiring filmmaker Wes Anderson. Their first film together, a short about a bookstore heist called Bottle Rocket, played at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, attracting the attention of producer Polly Platt and writer/director James L. Brooks. With Brooks' support, Wilson and Anderson expanded the short into a feature, indie cult favorite Bottle Rocket (1996). Though it made little impression at the box office, Anderson and Wilson's distinctly offbeat, wry, and optimistic tale about aspiring criminal Dignan and his best friend Anthony (played by Wilson's brother Luke Wilson) earned ardent fans among cinéastes. Wilson's inspired performance as Dignan, not to mention his blond hair, large grin, and affable drawl, became his Hollywood calling card. That same year, Wilson also began a fertile association with actor/director Ben Stiller, appearing in one memorable scene as a smooth, ill-fated date in Stiller's black comedy The Cable Guy (1996).
Alternating between supporting roles in Hollywood spectacles, collaborations with Anderson and Stiller, and smaller independent projects, Wilson worked steadily for the rest of the 1990s. Though he always seemed to fill the generic slot of Guy Marked for Death, Wilson still managed to bring a reliably laid-back, humorous spark to the bombastic proceedings in Anaconda (1997), Armageddon (1998), and The Haunting (1999). On a more artistically successful front, Wilson's next script with Anderson resulted in the lauded coming-of-age film Rushmore (1998). With its singular cast of characters, distinctive combination of deadpan humor and true emotion, and superb performances by Jason Schwartzman as teen prodigy Max Fischer and Bill Murray as depressed millionaire Blume, Rushmore earned prizes from the critics (if not the Academy) and proved that Bottle Rocket was no fluke. As far as acting, Wilson's ability to suggest complexity beneath a breezy surface earned positive notice for his unsettling performance as a laconic, self-styled Good Samaritan serial killer in indie thriller The Minus Man (1999).
By 2000, Wilson began to take center stage in larger Hollywood projects as well. Though it was another Jackie Chan vehicle, Wilson's hilarious co-starring turn as a surfer dude-tinged outlaw in the chop socky Western Shanghai Noon (2000) nearly stole the movie. Wilson's brief appearance as a Jesus-loving, super rich romantic rival to Ben Stiller's put-upon Greg Focker was a comic highlight of the hit Meet the Parents (2000). Stiller's supermodel farce Zoolander (2001) further sealed Wilson's status as a superlative comic actor. As Zoolander's rival Hansel, Wilson's offbeat timing made him the ultimate bubble-headed mannequin; his catwalk competition with Stiller provided the biggest laughs in a hit-or-miss movie. Even as he flourished in broad Hollywood comedy, Wilson continued his partnership with Wes Anderson, co-writing with Anderson and co-starring (with his brother Luke and Stiller among others) in the unusual family story The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Branching out into serious roles, Wilson then co-starred with The Royal Tenenbaums patriarch Gene Hackman in the military drama Behind Enemy Lines (2001).
An increasingly prevalent figure in action films following the millennial turnover, Wilson followed Behind Enemy Lines with I Spy (2002) and the Shanghai Noon sequel Shanghai Knights (2003) before appearing opposite Morgan Freeman in the critical and commercial disappointment The Big Bounce and co-starring in the underwhelming big screen adaptation of Starsky & Hutch. He made his third appearance in a Jackie Chan vehicle in the 2004 Disney production Around the World in 80 Days; though poised to be a blockbuster, the mega-budgeted film was one of the biggest flops of the season.
A rebound was in order, and if his supporting turn in the 2004 holiday-season blockbuster sequel Meet the Fockers wasn't enough, Wilson found his greatest leading-man success to date as foil to the bawdy Vince Vaughn in 2005's raunchy, runaway hit The Wedding Crashers. The Wilson-Vaughn pairing challenged the Wilson-Stiller hilarity quotient as a pair of divorce consultants who bide their free time crashing weddings to get laid. The $200-million smash was indeed a tough act to follow, and while 2006's You, Me and Dupree - a thematic reprise of his Wedding Crashers role in which he plays an irritating houseguest who refuses to vacate - was something of a letdown, Wilson more than made up for it that same year with a leading voice role in Pixar's Cars and a supporting turn in Stiller's special-effects comedy A Night at the Museum.
Romantically linked, by turns, with a pre-Ashton Demi Moore, rocker Sheryl Crow, and actress Kate Hudson, Wilson, with his shaggy blond mane, blue eyes, and (as one magazine cited humorously in its front cover headline) "unusual nose," also found himself the unlikely forebear of a new wave of Hollywood sex symbols. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Wilson was born in Dallas, Texas, to photographerLaura Cunningham Wilson and Robert Andrew Wilson, an advertising executive and operator of a public television station. He has an older brother, Andrew and a younger brother, Luke, both also involved in filmmaking.[1] His family is Irish and Roman Catholic.[2] While living in Dallas, Wilson attended The Lamplighter School, and St. Mark's School of Texas, from which he was expelled when, in the tenth grade, he stole his teacher's textbook to aid him in his homework.[3] Wilson also attended his junior and senior years in high school at the New Mexico Military Institute.
Career
Initial success
Wilson's initial acting role was as "Dignan" in the Wes Anderson film Bottle Rocket. He also worked with Anderson as a creative collaborator on Anderson's next two directorial efforts, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Wilson did not appear as an actor in Rushmore, but he did make two "appearances": he and Anderson acknowledged on the Criterion CollectionDVD audio commentary that Wilson appears as Rosemary Cross's dead husband, Edward Appleby. When Max Fischer visits Miss Cross in Appleby's boyhood bedroom, photographs of a young Owen Wilson are incorporated in the set for the scene.[4] Wilson and Anderson can also be seen driving go-carts in the background during a shot of Max Fisher posing on his go-cart.[5]
Wilson quickly landed roles in big-budget movies such as The Cable Guy, directed by Ben Stiller, an early admirer of Bottle Rocket. After minor appearances in action films like Anaconda, Armageddon and The Haunting, Wilson appeared in two dramatic roles: supporting actor in Permanent Midnight, which starred Stiller as a drug-addicted TV writer; and a role as a serial killer in The Minus Man. He also made a cameo in the Girl skateboarding video Yeah Right! in 2003.
Movie star
Wilson at the London premiere of You, Me and Dupree, 2006
Wilson got his big break with the 2000 comedy action hit Shanghai Noon, starring opposite Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. The film grossed nearly US$100 million worldwide. His fame continued to rise after starring alongside Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell in the 2001 film Zoolander.
Gene Hackman took notice of Wilson's performance in Shanghai Noon and recommended Wilson to co-star in the 2001 action film Behind Enemy Lines. Also in 2001, Wilson and Anderson collaborated on their third film, The Royal Tenenbaums, which was a financial and critical success. The comedy featured an all-star cast, including Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Glover, Seymour Cassel and brother Luke. Owen Wilson had a memorable supporting role in the film as Eli Cash, a drug-addled bon vivant who becomes a literary celebrity. It earned the writing team an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Wilson returned to the buddy comedy genre in 2002 with the action comedy I Spy, co-starring Eddie Murphy. This big-screen remake of the television series flopped at the box office. He then reunited with Chan to make Shanghai Knights (2003) and the movie remake of the television series Starsky & Hutch (2004). Due to his busy schedule as an actor and an ongoing sinus condition, Wilson was unavailable to collaborate on the script for Wes Anderson's fourth feature, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The 2004 film was ultimately co-written by filmmaker Noah Baumbach. However, Wilson did star in the film as Bill Murray's would-be son, Ned Plimpton—a role written specifically for Wilson.[6]
Wilson partnered with Vince Vaughn in the 2005 Wedding Crashers which grossed over $200 million in the US alone. Also in 2005, Owen collaborated with his brothers by appearing in The Wendell Baker Story, written by brother Luke, directed by Luke and brother Andrew.[7] In 2006, Wilson provided the voice of Lightning McQueen in the Disney/Pixar film Cars, starred in You, Me and Dupree with Kate Hudson, and appeared with Stiller in Night at the Museum as Jedidiah, the cowboy, an uncredited role.
Owen also provided the voice for the Whackbat Coach Skip in Wes Anderson's version of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Relationships
Wilson was previously linked with actress Demi Moore, singer Sheryl Crow and with the actress Kate Hudson. His relationship with Hudson ended in May 2007.
Suicide attempt
In 2007, Wilson was taken to St. John's Health after attempting to overdose on drugs and having a slashed wrist. Once stabilized at St. John's, Wilson was transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where his condition was initially described as serious, then later described as stable. His lawyer later confirmed that he had been undergoing treatment for depression at the time of his suicide attempt.[10]
On August 27, Wilson issued a statement: "I respectfully ask that the media allow me to receive care and heal in private during this difficult time."[11] On August 29, 2007, Wilson withdrew from filming in Tropic Thunder, produced by and starring friend and frequent collaborator, Ben Stiller. He was later replaced by Matthew McConaughey.[12]
On October 4, 2007, Wilson made his first public appearance since the incident at the Los Angeles premiere of The Darjeeling Limited.[13]
