Wilson, Owen Cunningham (1968– )

US actor, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for his shaggy blond surfer-type good looks, long crooked nose, and quirky charm. Known mostly for his comedy roles, he starred in Shanghai Noon (2000), Meet the Parents (2000), Behind Enemy Lines (2001), Starsky and Hutch (2004), and The Life Aquatic (2004). He wrote and produced the screenplays for the stylishly quirky comedies film Rushmore (1998) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), collaborating with US filmmaker Wes Anderson.

He starred in a string of critically panned films during the late 1990s, including The Cable Guy (1996), Anaconda (1997), and The Haunting (1999), before appearing in more highly regarded films in the early 2000s. He frequently worked with US actor Ben Stiller, for example in The Cable Guy, Meet the Parents, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Starsky and Hutch.

He was born and grew up in Dallas, Texas. A self-proclaimed troublemaker, he was expelled from his private secondary school during his sophomore (second) year. He met Anderson at the University of Texas at Austin, from which he received a BA in English in 1991. The two wrote the screenplay for Bottle Rocket, which was filmed in 1996. The film starred Owen and his brother Luke Wilson and was directed by Anderson; it received critical but not commercial success.