Owen Wilson

In 2007, Wilson was hospitalized after a suicide attempt and received treatment for depression. He later described how his brothers, Andrew Wilson and Luke Wilson, supported him during his recovery. He withdrew from his role in Tropic Thunder shortly afterward.

Wilson has three children. He had a son, Robert Ford Wilson, with Jade Duell in 2011, a son, Finn Lindqvist Wilson, with Caroline Lindqvist in 2014, and a daughter, Lyla Aranya Wilson, with Varunie Vongsvirates in 2018.

Wilson grew up in Dallas as the middle son of photographer Laura Wilson and television executive Robert Andrew Wilson. His brothers, Andrew and Luke, also became actors. The brothers were raised without a television at home and spent much of their childhood staging plays, playing sports, and entertaining friends.

After being expelled from St. Mark's School of Texas during high school, Wilson completed his education at a military school in New Mexico. He later studied English at the University of Texas at Austin but did not graduate. He met Wes Anderson at the university in 1989, and the two became roommates and longtime collaborators.

Wilson broke his nose twice as a teenager, once during a high school fight and once while playing football with friends.

Wilson and Wes Anderson developed the idea for Bottle Rocket while they were students in Austin. They first made a 13-minute short film, then expanded it into the 1996 feature with support from director and producer James L. Brooks. Wilson played Dignan, an optimistic would-be criminal, opposite his brother Luke Wilson.

Wilson and Anderson also co-wrote Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Wilson did not appear in Rushmore, but his childhood and school experiences influenced parts of the film. The Royal Tenenbaums, in which Wilson played author Eli Cash, earned the pair Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominations for best original screenplay.

Wilson built his early film career with roles in The Cable Guy, Anaconda, Armageddon, The Haunting, and The Minus Man. His first sole leading role came in The Minus Man, in which he played a polite and soft-spoken serial killer.

His breakthrough as a comedy star came with Shanghai Noon in 2000, in which he starred alongside Jackie Chan. He reunited with Chan for Shanghai Knights and also appeared in comedies such as Meet the Parents, Zoolander, I Spy, Starsky & Hutch, and Wedding Crashers. Wilson frequently worked with Ben Stiller, including in The Cable Guy, Zoolander, and Starsky & Hutch.

In 2006, Wilson began voicing Lightning McQueen in Pixar's Cars. He reprised the role in Cars 2, Cars 3, Cars on the Road, and other related projects. His slow, breathy delivery of the word “wow” also became a recurring feature of his performances and an internet meme.

Wilson played disillusioned screenwriter Gil Pender in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011). The performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a musical or comedy. He also appeared in The Big Year and continued his association with Wes Anderson in The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The French Dispatch.

His later film roles included Inherent Vice, She's Funny That Way, No Escape, Wonder, Father Figures, Marry Me, Secret Headquarters, Paint, and Haunted Mansion. In Inherent Vice, he played a troubled police informant, while in Wonder he portrayed the father of a child with a facial difference.

Wilson made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in the Disney+ series Loki, playing Mobius M. Mobius opposite Tom Hiddleston from 2021 to 2023. He reprised the role in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Wilson leads the Apple TV+ comedy-drama series Stick as Pryce Cahill, a retired professional golfer who mentors a child prodigy. He also serves as an executive producer on the series.