A writer as well as an actor, OWEN C. WILSON has displayed a
uniquely offbeat sensibility both in his performances on film and
his screenwriting.
"Bottle Rocket" marked Wilson's debut as both an actor and writer.
Co-written and directed by Wes Anderson and co-starring Wilson's
brothers Luke and Andrew, the film follows the trials of a group
of friends who aspire to be small-time criminals.
Wilson subsequently appeared in a small role as an ill-fated date
in Ben Stiller's "The Cable Guy" (1996) with Matthew Broderick and
played a horny sound engineer who meets a grisly end in "Anaconda"
with Jennifer Lopez. He was also credited as associate producer of
James L. Brooks' 1997 Oscar®-winning film "As Good As it Gets"
starring Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, Skeet Ulrich
and Cuba Gooding, Jr. In 1998, Wilson appeared in Michael Bay's
box office hit "Armageddon" opposite Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck.
Despite his character's untimely death, the film helped Wilson
break into more mainstream features. He was later seen again in
small roles in Alan Rudolph's "Breakfast of Champions" with
Willis and Albert Finney and David Beloz's "Permanent Midnight."
He followed his minor appearances with starring roles in his next
films. He played yet another doomed character in Jan DeBont's
thriller "The Haunting" co-starring Lili Taylor, Liam Neeson and
Catherine Zeta-Jones and earned positive notices with his
unsettling performance as a laconic, self-styled Good Samaritan
serial killer in the 1999 indie thriller "The Minus Man" directed
by Hampton Fancher.
2000 marked Wilson's first leading role in a mainstream feature
with the successful period Western "Shanghai Noon," in which he
shared stellar billing with Jackie Chan. Wilson's hilarious
performance as an outlaw who teams up with Chan to rescue a
princess (Lucy Liu) endeared him more to both critics and
audiences. He then had a brief role as Ben Stiller's romantic
rival in the hit "Meet the Parents," which also starred Robert De
Niro. The following year, he worked again with Stiller in the
supermodel comedy "Zoolander," in which he played a rising
supermodel named Hansel.
In the recent "Behind Enemy Lines," Wilson has the lead role of
a Navy pilot who is shot down over enemy territory, and struggles
to survive the relentless pursuit of a ruthless secret police
enforcer, a deadly tracker, and countless hostile troops. Gene
Hackman plays his commanding officer. Wilson will soon reprise his
role in "Shanghai Nights," the sequel to the hit "Shanghai Noon."
Wilson's quirky vision as a writer was seen last in the critically
acclaimed comedy "Rushmore," his second collaboration with director
Wes Anderson. "Rushmore" follows the love triangle of an unusually
driven fifteen year-old private school student, a beautiful
first-grade teacher, and a jaded millionaire. The film was named on
several critics' "Top Ten" lists of films for 1998. He also wrote
and acted in 2001's acclaimed "The Royal Tenenbaums."
Owen Cunningham Wilson was born in Dallas, Texas on November 18,
1968. His father Robert Wilson is an advertising executive and his
mother Laura is a photographer.
Wilson attended the Thomas Jefferson High School in Austin, Texas,
and graduated from a military high school in New Mexico. He
graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991 with a
BA in English.
![[Liv Tyler]](owen.jpg)