Media & Arts
Owen Wilson
Dallas-born Owen Wilson met Wes Anderson at the University of Texas at Austin, helping turn a Texas student-film collaboration into Bottle Rocket and a long career as an actor and screenwriter.
- Roster rank
- #197
- Category
- Media & Arts
- Subject type
- Person
- Profile source
- Published Texas Icons profile
Texas story
Life and career
Owen Cunningham Wilson was born in Dallas in 1968. He attended schools in Dallas and later the University of Texas at Austin, where he met Houston-born filmmaker Wes Anderson. Their friendship became a creative partnership, beginning with the short and feature versions of Bottle Rocket.
Wilson went on to act in studio comedies, dramas and animation while continuing to collaborate with Anderson. He co-wrote Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, earning an Academy Award nomination for original screenplay for the latter. Dallas family culture and the UT Austin creative network directly shaped his entry into film.
Defining work
What to know
- Bottle Rocket
- Rushmore
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Wedding Crashers
- Cars
Timeline
Key milestones
- 1968Born in Dallas, Texas.
- 1990sMeets Wes Anderson while studying at the University of Texas at Austin.
- 1996Bottle Rocket is released as a feature film.
- 2001Co-writes and stars in The Royal Tenenbaums.
- 2002Receives an Academy Award nomination with Wes Anderson for The Royal Tenenbaums screenplay.
Texas connections
Places in the story
Dallas
Birthplace and family home shared with brothers Andrew and Luke Wilson.
University of Texas at Austin
College setting where Wilson met Wes Anderson and began the Bottle Rocket collaboration.
Legacy
Why the story lasts
Wilson became a durable comic and character actor while maintaining a parallel identity as a screenwriter in Anderson's early films.
His Dallas-to-UT story is also part of the origin of a larger Texas film network involving Wes Anderson and the Wilson brothers.
Sources
Research trail
Cross-linked profiles