Owen Wilson Talks About Being "Royal" and "Behind Enemy Lines"
Whoever said that staying close to your friends and family was impossible once you become a successful actor obviously has never met Owen Wilson. The 33-year-old Texas-native may have been a bit shy about living in the City of Angels at first, but over the past few years he's discovered one of the key ingredients to success-- staying true to who you are.
"I know that when I first went to USC I was really lonely," Wilson said in a recent interview where he was promoting not one, but two movies. "I didn't like Los Angeles so I went back to Texas. Since I've been back out here (Los Angeles) though, it's been nice. I have both my brothers out here and Wes (Anderson) was out here for a long time, so it's nice that we are all kind of working in the same thing. You have stuff to share, stories."
Wilson, who is probably best known for his roles in "Shanghai Noon" and "The Haunting," broke into Hollywood in 1994 with the short film "Bottle Rocket" alongside his two brothers, Andrew Wilson and "Blue Streak"'s Luke Wilson, and writer/director Wes Anderson. Unknown to everyone involved in the project, "Bottle Rocket" was just the beginning of this foursome's collaboration together in Hollywood.
Two years later, Wilson and Anderson developed the short script to "Bottle Rocket" and made it a critically acclaimed feature-length film. The movie won numerous awards, including Best Filmmaker (Anderson) at the MTV Movie Awards and a special award for Wilson at the Lone Star Film and Television Awards. Its success paved the way for not only Anderson as a filmmaker, but also for Owen Wilson as an actor and a writer.
Although after "Bottle Rocket" Wilson appeared in such huge blockbusters as "Armageddon" and alongside such notable actors as Jim Carrey in "The Cable Guy," he didn't start making waves in Hollywood again until he teamed up with Anderson to co-write the critically adored "Rushmore." Despite the film winning over a dozen awards at film festivals though, it failed to receive an Oscar (actor Bill Murray did, however, win a Golden Globe for his performance). Now, three years later, Wilson and Anderson are teaming up once again to hopefully get the Oscar that many say "Rushmore" was overlooked for with their latest black comedy, "The Royal Tenenbaums."
"The Royal Tenenbaums" focuses on a family of overachievers that slowly crumbles when the father, Royal Tenenbaum (played by Gene Hackman), walks out on them. Years later, when he decides that it is time to re-enter their lives, Royal manipulates his way back into the Tenenbaum family by lying and telling them he only has a few months to live. While Wilson's character, Eli Cash, isn't a Tenenbaum (Wilson plays the best friend of his brother Luke's character and the fading love interest of Gwyneth Paltrow's character), Wilson says that he had enough on his hands simply co-writing the script. For unlike the other films he and Anderson have written, Wilson says that writing "The Royal Tenenbaums" was much more difficult because of its extremely large cast.
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