Owen Wilson

Owen Cunningham Wilson (born November 18, 1968) is an American actor and writer.

Biography

Early Life

Wilson was born in Dallas, Texas to Robert Andrew Wilson, a PBS executive, and Laura Cunningham, a photographer, both of whom were of Irish Catholic descent. Owen is the middle sibling of three brothers: Andrew, the eldest, and Luke, the youngest, who is also a well-known actor. He attended The Lamplighter School for grade school, and later visited the school in 2005. He also attended the St. Mark's School of Texas before graduating from high school at the New Mexico Military Institute. He was expelled from St. Mark's in tenth grade after stealing his teacher's textbook in an attempt to help him finish his math homework more quickly. Afterwards, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met future collaborator Wes Anderson. Owen dropped out two courses shy of a degree; he needed a math and a Spanish class to graduate.

Rise to Stardom

In 1993, Wilson co-wrote and starred in the short film version of Bottle Rocket, which was directed by Wes Anderson. After being screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Wilson and Anderson were recruited by filmmaker James L. Brooks to expand the Bottle Rocket short to feature-length for Gracie Films. The young team of filmmakers were given $5 million dollars to make the film, about a group of innocents who try their hands at being petty thieves. Although not a financial success upon its release in 1996, the film became a cult favorite and introduced Wilson's offbeat acting style to American audiences.

Owen, along with his brothers Luke and Andrew, moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting careers. Owen landed minor roles in big budgeted movies very quickly such as The Cable Guy which was directed by Ben Stiller, an early admirer of Bottle Rocket. After minor appearances in action films like Anaconda, Armageddon and The Haunting, Owen got his big break with the 2000 comedy action hit Shanghai Noon starring opposite Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. After the success of Rush Hour, producers thought the buddy formula could work again with Jackie Chan being paired with a white man this time, and they were right. The film was a success, grossing nearly US$100 million dollars worldwide.

Gene Hackman took notice of Owen's performance in Shanghai Noon and recommended him to play opposite him in the 2001 action film Behind Enemy Lines — it remained the only big budgeted film which Owen had a starring role that deviated from buddy comedy roles that Owen has since embraced.

Career

Buddy Comedy Success

Owen returned to the buddy comedy genre in 2002 with the action comedy I Spy, co-starring this time with Eddie Murphy. The big screen remake of the television series flopped at the box office. He then reunited with Chan to make Shanghai Knights (2003), teamed up with Ben Stiller in the movie remake of the television series Starsky & Hutch (2004), and partnered with Vince Vaughn in the 2005 Wedding Crashers which grossed over $200 million dollars in the US alone. This year he has starred in You, Me, and Dupree.

Writing Career

Although he found initial success as a film actor after his turn as "Dignan" in Bottle Rocket, Wilson remained a key creative collaborator to Wes Anderson's next two directorial efforts. Rushmore was the two writers' second script, and was partially based on Wilson's own expulsion from St. Mark's as a teenager. Although he didn't appear in the film, he and Anderson acknowledged on the Criterion Collection DVD audio commentary that Wilson has a sort of quasi-cameo as Rosemary Cross's dead husband, Edward Appleby. The photographs of Appleby in Ms. Cross's room are ones taken of Wilson as a boy. ^*

In 2001, Wilson and Anderson wrote 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, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, and Danny Glover. Wilson had a memorable supporting role in the film as a Professor-turned-bestseller "Eli Cash." It earned the writing team an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Due to his busy schedule as an actor, he wasn't able to collaborate on the script for Wes Anderson's fourth feature, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which was ultimately co-written by filmmaker Noah Baumbach. However, Wilson eventually did star in the film as Bill Murray's would-be son, Ned Plimpton, which was a role written specifically for Wilson. ^*

Frat Pack

Wilson's roles have varied between small, quirky comedy collaborations with Anderson and bigger budget box office fare. Wilson, along with Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Jack Black, and Steve Carell are considered members of the Frat Pack. ^* Owen is the first "Frat Pack" member to receive an Academy Award nomination.

He has been in seven movies with Ben Stiller, up to this date. They are The Cable Guy (1996), Permanent Midnight (1998), Meet the Parents (2000), Zoolander (2001), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Starsky & Hutch (2004) and Meet the Fockers (2004).

In early 2005, Wilson rushed to the defense of his long-time friend and fellow frat-packer after The New Yorker published a disparaging characterization of Stiller's film performances, calling him "the latest, and crudest, version of the urban Jewish male on the make." The esteemed magazine published a letter written by Wilson, charging that the critic David Denby was a "bully" who blithely dismissed all of Stiller's filmography with a touch of personal rancor. In Wilson's words, he jumped to defend Stiller "not because article was good or fair toward my friend but exactly because it wasn’t." ^*

Personal Life

Owen Wilson dated Sheryl Crow when he was making the film Minus Man. The couple separated in 2000. Currently, Wilson is reportedly dating Francesca Versace, Donatella Versace's young niece, after becoming infatuated with her after spotting her during a night out in Los Angeles. Wilson is also a big Willie Nelson fan, and enjoys playing Ping Pong. He once played a publicized match against Regis Philbin on Regis and Kelly. Owen also likes to skateboard and appears in Yeah Right! a 2003 skateboarding movie.

Nose

His trademark crooked nose was caused by having his nose broken once in high school and again in college during a flag football game at the University of Texas. When asked why he never had it fixed, he stated that it was his "trademark".

Salary

Wedding Crashers (2005) $10,000,000
Starsky & Hutch (2004) $10,000,000
Behind Enemy Lines (2001) $3,000,000
Zoolander (2001) $2,000,000
Shanghai Noon (2000) $4,000,000

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2006	You, Me and Dupree	Randy Dupree	Post-production
2006	Cars	Lightning McQueen	Voice
2005	The Wendell Baker Story	Neil King
2005	Wedding Crashers	John Beckwith
2004	The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou	Ned Plimpton
	Meet the Fockers	Kevin Rawley	Cameo
	Around the World in 80 Days	Wilbur Wright	Cameo
	Starsky & Hutch	Ken Hutchinson
	The Big Bounce	Jack Ryan
2003	Shanghai Knights	Roy O'Bannon
	Yeah Right!	Himself	Cameo
2002	I Spy	Alex Scott
2001	Behind Enemy Lines	Lt. Chris Burnett
	The Royal Tenenbaums	Eli Cash
	Zoolander	Hansel McDonald
2000	Meet the Parents	Kevin Rawley
2000	Shanghai Noon	Roy O'Bannon
1999	Heat Vision and Jack	Heat Vision/Doug (voice)	TV
	The Haunting	Luke Sanderson
	Breakfast of Champions	Monte Rapid
	The Minus Man	Vann Siegert
1998	Rushmore	Edward Applebee
	Permanent Midnight	Nicky
	Armageddon	Oscar Choi
1997	Anaconda	Gary Dixon
1996	The Cable Guy	Robin's date
1996	Bottle Rocket	Dignan
1994	Bottle Rocket (short)	Dignan

External links

References

Biography on Yahoo! Movies

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