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The story of O: he got kicked out of an exclusive prep school in Dallas. He didn''t even graduate from UT. His first movie was a commercial disaster. (And that nose!) So why is everyone in Hollywood trying to be buddy-buddy with Owen Wilson?

Article Excerpt
"MOOOOOONSHINE," SAID OWEN WILSON, SOUNDING typically awed and random. "Isn't it too bad that something with such a great name has to be illegal? 'Moonshine.' It's beautiful. I've never even had any, but I've always wanted to try it. How could you not? It's called 'moonshine.'" [paragraph] The Oscar nominated screenwriter and big-popcorn movie star was driving down Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, and the talk in the car was going a lot like it does in his films. Whether his lines are ones that he works on for months or just thinks up that morning on the set, they zig and zag softly around topics that appear to have no ready connection other than the fact that they popped into his head and right out his mouth. Following Owen through a conversation is like replaying the last five thoughts that entered your own mind, only he does it out loud.

The discussion had started with, of all things, a quote from Samuel Beckett. From there he moved through his dad, Ireland, God, Planet of the Apes, and moonshine. Owen was on a roll. He bounced to hard drugs to Axl Rose to James Garner to James Brown, then he lightly touched down with a bittersweet anecdote about perception and love that he'd lifted from another master of letters. The punch line to his rambling? Owen had never actually read the anecdote or anything by its author. But he sure did think it was cool.

And that was it: the perfect opening scene for a magazine profile of Owen Wilson. Here was Owen behind the wheel, floating in innocent oblivion, throwing out observations that would sound sarcastic coming from anyone else, looking a whole lot like Owen onscreen. Whether he's the supremely blond male model Hansel in Zoolander or the obnoxious young western novelist Eli Cash in The Royal Tenenbaums, his characters seem wholly unaware that the rest of the world runs at a different pace and in a different direction, and Owen plays them so naturally that it's hard not to assume that he's just being himself. This was the proof. Owen is as Owen does.

But a problem arose. When we talked on the phone a week later, he said that the bittersweet anecdote, the best part of our conversation, couldn't show up in the article. Not even the author's name. He said it was a key point in a script he'd been reading and that to use it would ruin the film. "So if you wouldn't mind," he said, as polite as you please, "I think we have to leave that out." A couple of days later I e-mailed him to gauge his resolve. He wouldn't budge. "I can't say any stronger how off-limits that thing is," he wrote. "But call me if you want to come up with something else. We're both funny guys. Shouldn't be too hard."

Come up with something else? It didn't exactly bear the hallmark of great literary journalism, but it was a curious notion, and not just because he was calling me funny. Owen Wilson was offering to co-author a scene for this story. I e-mailed him back saying I would give it a go. With Owen on board, it might not be hard at all.

AT A TIME WHEN THERE are enough successful big-screen families to justify a separate map to sibling stars' homes--Baldwins, Culkins, Gyllenhaals, and so on--the moviemaking Wilson brothers, Owen, 34, Luke, 31, and Andrew, 38, are the most fun to watch, in large part because they're so often found together. Owen has created roles for Andrew and Luke in all three of the movies--Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums--that he's penned with his best friend and collaborator, Wes Anderson. Luke still lives in Owen's house in a quiet neighborhood in Santa Monica, even though he bought a house of his own more than a year ago. And...

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