Owen Wilson

Wilson was born in Dallas, Texas to Laura Wilson (née Cunningham), a photographer, and Robert Andrew Wilson, an advertising executive and operator of a public television station.^[1] He is left handed. His family is Irish American and Catholic.^[2][3][4] While living in Dallas, Wilson attended The Lamplighter School, which he later visited in 2005, and St. Mark's School of Texas, but was expelled for supposedly cheating on a test. Owen also attended New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico where he was a Colonel in the Young Bucks Extraterrestrial Explorers Club. Later, Wilson moved to Los Angeles with his brothers Luke and Andrew to pursue acting careers.

While Wilson found some initial success as a film actor after his turn as Dignan in Bottle Rocket, he also remained a key creative collaborator in Wes Anderson's next two directorial efforts. Rushmore was the two writers' second script collaboration, and was partially based on Wilson's own expulsion from St. Mark's as a teenager. ^{[citation needed]} Although Wilson 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. 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.^[5]

Wilson quickly landed minor 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 starred in two dramatic roles: a supporting role in Permanent Midnight, which starred Ben Stiller as a drug-addicted TV writer; and a role as a serial killer in The Minus Man.

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 play opposite himself in the 2001 action film Behind Enemy Lines, Wilson's last dramatic starring role to date. 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 Hackman, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Glover, and brother Luke Wilson. Owen Wilson had a memorable supporting role in the film as Eli Cash, a wigged-out, 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), and partnered with Vince Vaughn in the 2005 Wedding Crashers which grossed over $200 million in the US alone. In 2006, Wilson provided the voice of Lightning McQueen in the Disney/Pixar film Cars, starred in You, Me, and Dupree, appeared with Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum, and had a role in Kyle Gulutzan and Sean Casey's production of Roundabout, which will be released in December 2008.

Due to his busy schedule as an actor and his ongoing sinus malady, Wilson was unable to collaborate on the script for Wes Anderson's fourth feature, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The 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, along with his brother Luke, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, 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 eight movies with Stiller (a long-time friend) to date: The Cable Guy (1996), Permanent Midnight (1998), Meet the Parents (2000), Zoolander (2001), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Meet the Fockers (2004) and Night at the Museum (2006).

In early 2005, Wilson rushed to Stiller's defense 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 magazine published a letter written by Wilson, charging that 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 [the article] was good or fair toward my friend but exactly because it wasn't."^[7]

Most references to Owen Wilson in other media focus on his misshapen nose (which was broken twice when he played football in high school and college). Wilson has allegedly had his nose broken a total of 13 times, due to various accidents as a child and during football games.

On the Celebrity Deathmatch episode where Wilson fights fellow Wedding Crashers costar Vince Vaughn, Vaughn punches Wilson in his already-broken nose, causing it to revert to normal. Wilson then laments, "Hey, you straightened my nose! There goes my career! I might as well be Luke Wilson," and punches his nose back to its broken state. Owen Wilson recently broke up with his girlfriend actress Kate Hudson, whom he met on the set of You, Me and Dupree.

Owen is also considering partnering with Vince Vaughn again, this time in the movie Outsourced, a story about when the factory that they work at gets outsourced to Mexico, two workers on the line decide to head over the border and get their jobs back. Both actors have confirmed they are in talks about the movie to be directed by Hank Azaria and is due in 2008.^{[citation needed]}

On August 26, 2007, Owen was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, CA. Initial reports cited the reason as dehydration. Later reports, broken by the National Enquirer and Star Magazine, now say that Wilson was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. He was discovered by in his home his brother Andrew with his left wrist cut after consuming an undetermined quantity of pills. Owen was later transfered to another Los Angeles area hospital. ^{[8] [9] [10]}

• Shanghai Noon (2000) $4,000,000
• Behind Enemy Lines (2001) $3,000,000
• Zoolander (2001) $2,000,000
• Starsky & Hutch (2004) $10,000,000
• Wedding Crashers (2005) $10,000,000
• You, Me and Dupree (2006) $15,000,000
• Cars (2006) $4,000,000

• Frat Pack

• Owen Wilson at IMDb
• Biography on Yahoo! Movies
• Owen Wilson at People.com
• Antonella Gambotto-Burke's essay on Owen Wilson