Playboy Interview: Owen Wilson

A candid conversation with the movies' favorite slacker about his hatred of delis, his love of 7-Elevens and how he turned being a goof-off into stardom

Owen Wilson is an unlikely movie star, an unlikely screenwriter and an unlikely action hero. Renowned for his slow-pitch delivery, benignly demented improvs and smile that comes off as either knowing or out of it--or both--Wilson has generated a persona unusual for Hollywood. Surfers, stoners and hipsters all claim him as their own, and one critic even described him as the first "slacker hunk."

As close friend and frequent co-star Ben Stiller explains, "When I first saw Bottle Rocket it took me about five minutes to figure out where he was coming from, and after that I didn't stop laughing. There's a certain seme of self that he lias, a confidence that's also completely self-deprecating. People try to categorize him, but he has created a whole new category."

Wilson has acted in some 25 movies, ranging in quality from the so-bad-it's-good Armageddon to the acclaimed Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, for which he and co-writer Wes Anderson received an Academy Award nomination. He starred opposite Jackie Chan in the blockbusters Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights and put a distinctive twist on male modeling in Zoolander. The one constant in these movies? Wilson's quirky demeanor, which inevitably generates laughs in unexpected ways.

Wilson is also unique for what Gene Hackman once discreetly called his "original looks." Unsurprisingly the press hasn't always been as circumspect, particularly when it comes to his nose. Time magazine called it a "twisting, swollen ski slope"; the Los Angeles Times called it "a bulbous, dented, twisted clump." In an interview Stiller once told a reporter, "I don't get questions about my nose, and I have a huge nose."

Wilson says growing up in Dallas in a family with an "Irish strain of depression" gave him his offbeat humor. His mother was a photographer, his father an ad executive. All three of their children went on to become actors. Andrew, the eldest, was in Rushmore and Charlie's Angels. The youngest, Luke, starred in Anchorman, Old School, Legally Blonde and Home Fries. The three brothers appeared together for the first time in Bottle Rocket and later in The Royal Tenenbaums.

While in college at the University of Texas at Austin, Wilson first met director Anderson, with whom he co-wrote The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and Bottle Rocket, their low-budget debut, which has become a cult classic. Martin Scorsese includes it among his top 10 films of all time.

Wilson, 36, never planned on acting. He took the lead role in Bottle Rocket only because no one else was willing to do so. In a short time he morphed into a bankable actor, working with everyone from Bruce Willis to Eddie Murphy to Vince Vaughn, not to mention his brother Luke and, more often than not, Stiller. Wilson's latest movie, with Vaughn, is Wedding Crashers, in which the two play a couple of lugs who invite themselves to strangers' nuptials and hook up with the hottest guests.

To interview Wilson Playboy sent novelist and screenwriter Jerry Stahl, who first met the actor when he appeared in the adaptation of Stahl's book Permanent Midnight. Here's Stahl's report: "The bulk of our sessions took place on the back porch of Owen's immaculate Cape Cod-style home in Santa Monica. From the outside the place looks as if it could just as easily belong to a dentist. But step inside and you're surrounded by overflowing bookshelves and countless gallery-worthy photographs. And contrary to his less than eggheaded on-screen image, the real-life Owen Wilson is probably the most intellectual, flat-out hysterical slacker-stoner-surfer-hunk you're ever likely to meet. In fact, he has the uncanny ability to make any hour spent in his presence seem somehow like time spent cutting fifth period in 10th grade."

[Q] Playboy: You never attend the premieres of your movies. Why not?

[A] Wilson: I stopped going to any kind of screenings after Bottle Rocket, which tested, like, worse than any movie in history. After one disaster in Santa Monica, when half the people walked out, I asked Luke if he thought anybody liked it. He said, "Let me put it this way. I was afraid someone was going to recognize me from the movie and beat me up." For a couple of weeks after that I couldn't talk. There was something about having my face up there that made it seem like a personal rejection. I just wanted to distance myself. I even looked into joining the military.

[Q] Playboy: How far did you get?

[A] Wilson: I got the phone book and started calling different branches. I was 28, and I think at the time the Marines had the oldest age for being able to sign up and still be an officer. I lived in a house with Luke and Wes, so I kept having to run out to the mailbox to keep them from finding any recruiting stuff.

[Q] Playboy: Looking back, was it an excessive reaction?

[A] Wilson: It seemed like a dramatic thing to do and sort of honorable. At the time I was thinking about Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. It seemed really cool when Martin Sheen talked about how he resigned his rank as a colonel and went back to jump school with guys half his age to be in Airborne.

[Q] Playboy: Have you gotten better at dealing with criticism?

[A] Wilson: If a movie goes south, it might not capsize me the way it used to. But I still have a terrible fear of failure. I'm a huge worrier. My father gave me a Beckett quote he used to keep taped over his desk: "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." I find that really liberating. Still, if I had to do the whole going-to-auditions-and-getting-rejected thing, it'd be over.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever had to audition?

[A] Wilson: I obviously didn't have to audition for Bottle Rocket, and after that I just started getting offers. If someone doesn't want me, I'm not going to hang around and win them over.

[Q] Playboy: Supposedly Jerry Lewis would intentionally leave a briefcase behind after his Hollywood meetings. Inside was a tape recorder. After retrieving it, he would play the tape to find out what people said about him. Would you want to know?

[A] Wilson: I wouldn't. I had a job as a runner at a law firm when I was at the University of Texas. One of my specialties at any job was to lower expectations--I didn't want them to expect much from me. They would think I wasn't very bright and wouldn't give me too much responsibility. I'd act like I couldn't really follow what was going on. The secretary would send me out to do some errand, and I'd just go to a bookstore and grab a book, read a while, then go deliver my thing. But one time I came in through the back door when I returned to the office and heard the secretaries talking about me. They're going, "He's so stupid! And his voice, like, 'Uh, yeah, I don't know where that is.'" They were doing an imitation, and it was so mean. And even though I had acted like that, and that's what I wanted, I got really offended when I heard them. I quit the job that day.

[Q] Playboy: Did you give up trying to lower expectations?

[A] Wilson: Not really. It's the same philosophy I used when I was a waiter. The way I got tips was by letting them know at the beginning, "Look, I'm not a good waiter, so let's get that clear right now."

[Q] Playboy: Would you actually say that?

[A] Wilson: No, but it was my demeanor, which was like, I'm a guy who looks like he's trying, but I'm not going to succeed. I'm going to screw things up. But I did okay as the incompetent waiter. I'd go for mercy tips.

[Q] Playboy: Were these the first signs of your performing ability, or were you the class clown when you were a child?

[A] Wilson: Class clown was never something I aspired to be. What I really wanted in high school was to be the cool guy. I wanted to be dark. One time I tried to freak out my mother, so I said, "I got some bad ideas in my head." But I was really copying that scene from Taxi Driver. Travis Bickle says to Wizard he's got some bad ideas in his head, and it just seems so sad and ominous. It's kind of pathetic when you're plagiarizing lines and emotions from a movie to your mother.

[Q] Playboy: Did she buy it?

[A] Wilson: I think she saw through it. I just wanted to seem tortured, about God knows what--maybe my curfew being one A.M. instead of two or some bullshit. I wanted to come across as this James Dean--like wounded type, only it wasn't in me. So even though I wasn't class clown, there was something going on. I remember being asked to get up in front of my Spanish class and give a talk, and people immediately started laughing. I wasn't trying to be funny. I think it was because I was bullshitting, like I obviously hadn't done my work but was trying to look like I was trying. So the whole class broke up. It's the same with talking your way out of speeding tickets.

[Q] Playboy: That can be useful. Can you really do it?

[A] Wilson: I've been able to talk my way out of some--and I'm talking about before a cop might have recognized me. It's not that hard for a famous person or a really hot girl--where's the challenge in that?

[Q] Playboy: What works?

[A] Wilson: Act incredibly cheerful and upbeat. And don't admit to speeding--tell the cop you deserve the ticket and then add, "But if I could say one thing in my defense, and this isn't an excuse, because I know you got me dead to rights...." From there start talking a mile a minute about something crazy--why you're in a rush and how you forgot something for your girlfriend and she's going to kill you or whatever. It doesn't even have to make sense. You just want to connect. You don't say it, but the subtext is, "Look at us out here on the road--it's all just a game, and we're both playing our parts because we've got no choice, but there's something kind of great about it...." And at the first sign of the cop cracking a smile, you smile, and pretty soon you're both kind of shrugging, like "Look how crazy life is!" And then--this is important--you don't ask to be let off; you say, "Wouldn't it be great if you let me off with a warning? How great would that be? Then we could both go our own way, and I've learned something and maybe you have too. And we just chalk it up to lessons learned." I don't know why, but I've had more success with black cops than white cops. Maybe black cops tend to have a better sense of humor or an appreciation for the absurdity of life. Who knows? Anyway, you don't really prepare all this; you just kind of bullshit, but at the same time you're sincere.

[Q] Playboy: Bullshitting and lack of preparation--they don't teach you this kind of stuff at the Actors Studio. Have there been times when this technique has caught up with you?

[A] Wilson: I have been guilty of showing up at a movie and not knowing the ending. One day on Anaconda I kind of wandered up to the director and asked, "Hey, what are we up to today?" It turned out this was the day I had my biggest scene. I mean, I didn't even find out my character died until we did the read-through down in Brazil. I was like, "Wow!" It isn't so much that I'm lazy. Well, I am lazy, but it's also that I don't like to know too much. I like to get an idea of the script and the character, but I don't need to read the whole thing. I kind of like showing up at work and being like a little kid who's getting a story told to him. But the director completely freaked out.

[Q] Playboy: How did you pull it off?

[A] Wilson: I didn't go into scramble mode, because even though I hadn't looked at my lines, it's easy for me to get the dialogue down quick. It's not like learning math. It's a conversation. So I can remember, like, "Okay, you're going to say this, then I'm going to have my response, and it's just got to get you to the next thing." In that situation the director was already freaking out because I was supposed to get really buff for that movie.

[Q] Playboy: Did you?

[A] Wilson: Well, I had 50 workouts scheduled and missed 46 of them.

[Q] Playboy: Obviously you didn't get to where you are without discipline.

[A] Wilson: That's right. When I got down there they decided I would keep my shirt on when I was swimming. That was a little insulting--I was going to be one of those guys who swim with their shirt on. My character was supposed to be a hunk. But whatever I did with him, he wasn't the classic hunk.

[Q] Playboy: Do you work out now?

[A] Wilson: I swim a mile five or six days a week. But whenever I have to work with a trainer I ask a million questions about the different types of weights and the theory behind different exercises. I try to neutralize them.

[Q] Playboy: Neutralize them?

[A] Wilson: Slow them down so I don't have to exercise so hard. One guy finally said to me, "I've never had such a curious client!" I don't go to the gym much. I'll go down to Gold's once in a while because that one is kind of anonymous. But gyms are slightly creepy to me. There are so many insane muscleheads and these crazy women on steroids. I always feel like there's a whole underworld going on with bodybuilders. Like, how do they make their money? I think there's some kind of weird sex-pimping thing going on with these guys.

[Q] Playboy: Happily, the sport people associate you with isn't powerlifting; it's surfing. You're pretty much a poster boy for surfers. Do you surf?

[A] Wilson: I like the culture. If I hung out with surfers, though, they'd probably be disappointed that I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground out there. I like the way surfers seem to be straight-ahead and open. One of the coolest things I've ever read was an interview with Jay Moriarity, this amazing surfer who died a couple of years ago. He was 17 and on the cover of some surfing magazine, falling off the biggest fucking wave you've ever seen at this break called Mavericks, near San Francisco. Just a horrific wipeout. When they ask him what happened, he goes, "Well, the board got broken in three places." So the interviewer asks, "What did you do then?" And Moriarity says matter-of-factly, "I went and got another board and got back out there." The interviewer was like, "Dude, you're so gnarly!"

[Q] Playboy: Have you at least tried surfing?

[A] Wilson: The times I tried to learn, I didn't like it. As with everything, I like it at a distance. I like having that be something I say I'm always going to do. Maybe I'll get around to it, maybe I won't. It reminds me of this great book by Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I always think of the opening line: "Ships at a distance have every man's wish onboard." I really love that, and it sort of applies to how I feel about surfing. I could be driving down the highway and see the surfers way out there, and I'll think of that sentence. It's kind of a great feeling, and somehow it applies to a lot of things in my life.

[Q] Playboy: Any other areas in which you think you rate an incomplete?

[A] Wilson: I always think about taking a literature class with a great professor and knocking off a bunch of classics. I picked up Speak, Memory, Nabokov's memoir, and the first page is incredible. From one page you feel you've played a chess match. You're completely drained. But that's as far as I got. I've never read James Joyce, Tolstoy or William Faulkner. I want to read them all, but it seems so daunting.

[Q] Playboy: What book are you busy not finishing now?

[A] Wilson: For the past couple of days I've been reading a book on the history of the Australian cattle dog because I have one. And I found myself tearing up, I swear to God, reading the general description of the breed's temperament. Listen to this: "The cattle dogs want nothing more than to be your buddy and will be thrilled to accompany you in the most mundane chores or errands. They are often referred to as 'shadow dogs' because wherever you go they are right behind you. He will be happiest when allowed to be just under your feet or by your side." Am I crazy, or is this really moving? The first time I read that I felt like that guy Tommy at the end of Bellow's Seize the Day, when he stumbles into a stranger's funeral and starts bawling because he gets what his heart needed most. I think it was absolution or empathy--but whatever it was, reading that passage triggered something similar in my heart. I liked it so much, I memorized it.

[Q] Playboy: It sounds as if you've got a spiritual side underneath that reluctant movie star exterior.

[A] Wilson: It's like the surfing thing. I love the outdoors, but I'm not an outdoorsy type. I'm not interested in being in a sleeping bag on the ground. I like staying in nice hotels. Still, any type of spirituality I might have comes from nature-type stuff, like trees or die ocean. I know it sounds slightly ridiculous and corny, but these are the types of things I really get into. Sometimes I'll be swimming at the beach with the sun going down, and it's just so beautiful. And the beaches, especially here in California, they're so democratic. At Venice you see Mexicans, Asians, blacks, whites, everybody. And the idea that's so nice, when you're out there in the water with the sun going down, is that this is available to everybody. It's like that's the way it should be--the best stuff available to everybody. That kind of makes sense to me. I like that.

[Q] Playboy: Are you one of the few Los Angelenos who admit to liking it here?

[A] Wilson: I always chafe against that herd mentality of having to have the right opinion because you're afraid of looking uncool. So I feel I'm always putting down New York just to make up for all the people putting down Los Angeles. It's a response to people who want to judge and say Los Angeles is shallow and superficial. It's just so stupid. Go drive around Los Angeles. It has some of the most incredible parts of any city in the world. It's amazing. And to me it's a much more American city. There's that sense of invention, of coming here and inventing yourself. Like that album cover for Hotel California you'd look at when you were a kid. To me it just seemed incredibly exotic. Something like Malibu, that whole scene, the idea of all that was unbelievable. The land of milk and honey. For me it had a lot more hold on the imagination than New York did.

[Q] Playboy: When did you first come out here?

[A] Wilson: In 1987 I went to USC for a year, which seemed like a vacation. I'd applied to five colleges, and all of them turned me down. The guidance counselor said, "Well, I know a junior who could maybe help get him in." So that's how I ended up there. I lived off campus, and the neighborhood back then was a little rough. But it was still great.

[Q] Playboy: How does living in L.A. compare with living in New York?

[A] Wilson: For one thing, I hate delis. I think of deli people as being particularly suspicious. I like L.A. because it has 7-Elevens. People who work in 7-Elevens are more-- well, come to think of it, people who work at 7-Eleven aren't that friendly either. But I still love 7-Elevens.

[Q] Playboy: That's a sentiment we rarely hear expressed.

[A] Wilson: You have now. Maybe it's from playing Asteroids at 7-Eleven while growing up in Dallas. They used to have great video games. I really like the layout of them. I like the way 7-Elevens look. I like the uniforms, the 7-Eleven colors.

[Q] Playboy: Do you appreciate their late-night hours?

[A] Wilson: Yes. You roll in, grab some Gatorade, a lighter and some Clear Eyes, and you're good to go.

[Q] Playboy: Did we just revisit some illegal territory?

[A] Wilson: I'm talking about the bad old days, back when I heard the call of the wild coming in on a much louder and clearer frequency. These days, when I hit 7-Eleven it's just for a newspaper and a bottle of water, maybe some Pepperidge Farm cookies if I'm really living on the edge. But I partied more in L.A. than I did in New York. And somehow the partying seemed much darker and scarier in New York, like something bad could happen. I don't know why, maybe because it's colder--and hotter, too, actually--and because of all that concrete and those huge buildings hanging over like impending doom. And you're always in a taxi or on the subway. At least in L.A. you're in your own car, a little more the master of your own fate. People talk about Los Angeles being a dangerous city, but I've never felt scared driving around. And that's another great thing about Los Angeles--driving. It's like having your own horse, and that's the West. That's freedom.

[Q] Playboy: Has weirdness come along with being well-known?

[A] Wilson: I remember hearing that Jack Nicholson had this bumper sticker on his car in Aspen: Yes, I am a movie star. I don't know if it's true, but it sounds so much better and original than the actor who says, "I hate all this stuff--I got in because I love my craft" or some shit. Even if it's true, don't say it. Because that's what everybody says, and it's boring.

[Q] Playboy: How has your fame impacted your life?

[A] Wilson: Well, it's not exactly thrilling when some guy wants to have a conversation with you in the men's room. I'd just as soon not have men wanting to shake hands with me or take my picture in there. Beyond that there isn't much downside to people coming up to you to say how much they like you or bending over backward to do you a favor and be nice. To me it feels sort of like the way things should be. It's nice to walk into some restaurant or hotel and everybody's excited to see you--"Yes, of course we've got a room!" It's the way it should work for everybody. I'm serious! The attention reminds me of when I was a little kid and my parents would be having a party and wake me up and bring me in, and suddenly every head in the room would turn. All the grown-ups would be like, "Hey, look at him!"--just really happy I was there, you know what I mean? I was a little towhead; I was a little angel. Of course, the fame can go the other way, too. Especially if you're in a bar late at night and some drunk idiot with a chip on his shoulder comes over because he wants to prove something, because he feels obligated to come up and tell me he hated Shanghai Knights compared to Shanghai Noon so he can go back to his pals all puffed up, like, "I guess I told him!"

[Q] Playboy: How do you deal with the chip-on-the-shoulder guys?

[A] Wilson: I don't. I just kind of shrug and say, "Well, you win some and you lose some." It's almost like judo. You give them nothing.

[Q] Playboy: So you resist the temptation to defend Shanghai Knights to drunken, belligerent strangers in bars?

[A] Wilson: Yeah, that's a real win-win situation. But the subtlest thing you have to fight against fame-wise is somehow feeling entitled. A sense of entitlement is a really unattractive quality in anyone. I remember landing in Germany on a stopover on the way to Rome. Basically I got off the plane and was completely ignored. I kept trying to ask people, "What is this? What the fuck's going on?" But they weren't responding. Turned out the problem was that I had to get to a different terminal to catch my connection and I was late, and rather than someone taking me with a special VIP car or just taking me to the front of the security line, I had to figure it out myself.

[Q] Playboy: Were you waiting for people to realize you were famous?

[A] Wilson: More like I was making fun of that. It was like, 'Jesus Christ, is this what it's like? No one there to help you? No one to scoop you into this special little area where only you can go? How do people live?" I mean, I was mocking the whole dynamic. So hopefully that's my saving grace. But sure, if you're not careful you can get hung up on all that shit. That's the thing about living in Los Angeles--on one level the food chain is so visible. Even now I don't look at the trades. I try not to look at all the magazines. I'm doing okay, but it can still depress me. Because you can still think, Wow, all these people are doing so much better than me.

[Q] Playboy: From what we've read, you were a lousy student, got thrown out of schools and didn't graduate from anywhere, so there are probably a lot of people who are either surprised or annoyed to see that you've come as far as you have.

[A] Wilson: My dad was very aware of that. When my brothers and I first had some success with movies, he got really charged up. Some of it was pride and excitement, but a lot of it was imagining how this must sting all the people who had bet against us. In my dad's mind there were a lot of them--people for whom our success was a stake in the heart. The headmaster who expelled me, for example, would've been a charter member of the stake-in-the-heart club. I don't know how spiritually sound that kind of approach to life is, but sometimes you need little things to get you charged up, even if they're negative. Of course, we're Irish, and the whole stake-in-the-heart thing is a pretty good example of Irish humor.

[Q] Playboy: So you were always an underdog?

[A] Wilson: If you're an underdog, you'd better at least develop a sense of humor, because otherwise life is too painful. There's no question that losing is a lot funnier than winning. Clark Kent is funny, not Superman. I think Irish humor tends to be lacerating. Favorite targets are smugness and self-importance, people who put on airs. I don't know who first expressed the sentiment "Who the fuck does this guy think he is?" but it wouldn't surprise me if he was Irish. Also the Irish use humor as a way to do battle, to deal with how life can sometimes knock the wind out of you. I read somewhere about how Richard Goodwin, a speechwriter for the Kennedys, tried to comfort Robert Kennedy after JFK was assassinated. I guess Robert Kennedy was severely devastated and inconsolable, and Goodwin reminded him that Julius Caesar ruled for only three years and was still immortal. And Bobby answered, "Yeah, but he had Shakespeare, and we got you."

[Q] Playboy: You and Wes Anderson received Academy Award nominations for The Royal Tenenbaums. Were you surprised he decided to write The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou with somebody else?

[A] Wilson: It was a nonissue when I thought he was going to write it himself. In fact it was kind of a relief. I was busy doing other stuff, and this meant I didn't have to go to New York to sit around and write. But I didn't know he was writing it with somebody else. When I found out about it I asked him, and I think he was a little embarrassed. Then I met the guy he was working with, and he couldn't have been a better guy. I expected to read the script and offer all kinds of suggestions, but it was just what I'd have hoped I could have done if I'd been sitting there with Wes myself. My big criticism was that the pirate attack was too long and zany. Then I saw the finished film and loved that stuff. I came out of the theater saying I hope he does an all-action movie.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think of yourself more as an actor or a writer?

[A] Wilson: The writer thing is easier.

[Q] Playboy: To do or to be?

[A] Wilson: To say. If people ask about my occupation, I usually say writer first. There's a vanity I associate with saying "actor," and I just think "writer" sounds good. What I really wish is that I'd written The Great Gatsby or Huckleberry Finn. Think about it. On Armageddon they used a double for me galloping on a horse through die desert, and for the close-up they shot me in the parking lot sitting on a barrel with a fan blowing through my hair. The magic of Hollywood. I just don't think there's any writing equivalent to riding a barrel in a parking lot.

[Q] Playboy: "Writer" won't get you laid like "actor," though, will it?

[A] Wilson: Well, die combination can be very potent: "I'm going to write the part, and then I'm going to fuck you in the movie."

[Q] Playboy: How has that worked out?

[A] Wilson: Not well, because I'm not that prolific a writer.

[Q] Playboy: Did you do all right with women before you became famous?

[A] Wilson: Famous or not, I've done all kinds of stupid stuff to impress a girl.

[Q] Playboy: Looking back, what did you do that makes you cringe?

[A] Wilson: I went to see the Dalai Lama speak at UCLA once to impress a girl, and it was horrible, not so much because of him but the people there. The crowd made me want to throw up. At the end of his corny lecture, with a bunch of goof-ball utopian ideals, he opened it up to questions. Somebody asked, "What's the answer to world hunger?" And his answer was like, "Sharing!" And everyone oohed and ahhed like he'd just solved die problem. Somebody else asked, "What's the solution to racism?" And he came back with, "We all have the same color of blood," and everybody was swooning. I just couldn't see what the big deal was. But listen, I don't think it matters how huge you are, you still go through all kinds of insecurities. Like sometimes I'll notice some detail with a girl that really turns me off, like an errant hair or something. But I won't say anything--and this is an example of my paranoia--because then I'll start wondering if she's noticed something about me that really turns her off or even disgusts her and she's not saying anything. Then I assume it probably has happened, and it kind of freaks me out. I wonder what it might be and end up getting kind of depressed.

[Q] Playboy: There has to be a difference between how women come on to you now and how they did before your face started showing up on magazine covers.

[A] Wilson: Of course being recognizable makes it easier to get girls. But I don't abuse that sacred privilege.

[Q] Playboy: Never?

[A] Wilson: Well, I have to admit a lot of the heavy lifting is now done by DVDs and movies and stuff. But at the same time I'd like to think the girls are with me for me, not because of my "accomplishments." Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit, but I don't think I can get fooled. I'm kind of suspicious in a low-key way. I would rather have a girl who hasn't seen anything I've done and try to pretend she's seen something and say she liked it. I can get hustled for one night, but I'm hustling them for one night too.

[Q] Playboy: When you put it that way it sounds like a wholesome, or at least fair, proposition.

[A] Wilson: If she likes you for the movies you've been in, is that necessarily a bad thing? Even if she just likes that you're a recognized person, is that any more superficial than your liking her because she's got a nice ass? The worst are those girls who read books like The Rules. Everything is a negotiation. I like girls who, if they like you, are going to mess around on the first date and not play some lame-ass game, like on date number one we can do this, and on date number three we can do that. That's just so unoriginal and stupid. And it doesn't work. I guess they think they can parlay that into a relationship, (concluded on page 144)Owen Wilson(continued from page 60) but the truth is that practically every serious girlfriend I've ever had has pretty much messed around completely or close to it on the first date. And that seems to hold true for most of my friends, too.

[Q] Playboy: Are you the kind of guy who calls the next day?

[A] Wilson: I do call. Just to be nice, you know, to be a gentleman. And also to make sure I don't have a Blanche DuBois on my hands. I'm terrified of crazy women. And demented little children with English accents, like Damien in The Omen.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel you have to be careful that some woman doesn't spill all kinds of intimate stories about you on the Internet?

[A] Wilson: I can't even think about that. It would really inhibit me. I don't Google myself, so I'm not aware of it. But I know they say a lot of stuff on the Net, and you can find it quickly. I try not to worry about it when I'm with a girl. I just deliver my usual lackluster performance and let the chips fall where they may.

[Q] Playboy: Your longest relationship was with Sheryl Crow. Did the fact that you're both celebrities have something to do with its ending?

[A] Wilson: Going out with someone who's doing die same thing as you, who's in the public eye, can be a problem. You don't want to have competing agendas, like, "Whose itinerary are we going to follow?" And you want a break when you come home. You don't want someone with the same issues as you maybe reminding you of stuff you don't like in yourself, a need for public recognition or a need to be popular. That being said, I don't think being in the spotlight had anything to do with me and Sheryl not working out. The story of our relationship is the same story I've had with most of my relationships.

[Q] Playboy: Which is?

[A] Wilson: I was lucky enough to find a great girl, and because of my lack of, I don't know what you call it, maybe focus, the relationship went south. The complaints of my girlfriends sound a lot like the comments I used to get from teachers: "Owen is lacking in seriousness. He's not working up to his potential." It's what they used to write on all my report cards. One girl, after we broke up, gave me a watch for my birthday with a card that read, "I hope this helps with your timing so you don't miss the boat on your next relationship." And aside from it being kind of funny, it's probably true. I have missed the boat a lot with relationships. But the great thing is, more boats keep coming over the horizon. And I've got to tell you, some of these boats look pretty good. To be honest, I also thought, Maybe I should've given this girl more credit because I never thought she had that good of a sense of humor.

[Q] Playboy: In Wedding Crashers you and Vince Vaughn play a couple of lugs who go to weddings to pick up girls. Would that really work?

[A] Wilson: I have to say, I haven't been to a lot of weddings, but at the ones I have gone to it's been like fishing with dynamite. Maybe it's something about girls seeing another girl get married, like they want to get it while the getting's good, so to speak. Weddings are sort of like little New Year's Eves--the normal rules don't apply.

[Q] Playboy: Do you stay friends with your exes?

[A] Wilson: You try to, sure. The one who gave me the watch is actually married now, to some Academy Award winner. That's kind of an interesting phenomenon--my exes always seem to land on their feet. They always trade up. I should probably use that as a pickup line-- "Look, it's not going to last very long with me, but the next guy you end up with will be great!"

[Q] Playboy: Whom would we be surprised to hear you find extremely sexy?

[A] Wilson: Former Texas governor Ann Richards. I think she's great. Maybe sexy isn't the word. For sexy I always think Raquel Welch. But Ann Richards is an extremely attractive woman. A handsome woman, as they say sometimes. She has a great face, a great look. Her voice and her attitude are representative of the best kind of Texas woman.

[Q] Playboy: How about on-screen females? Do you ever get jealous of your brother Luke, who has been paired with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Kate Hudson, while you keep getting Ben Stiller?

[A] Wilson: Now hold it a second before you knock me for always winding up with Ben. People magazine picked him as one of the most beautiful men on earth. So I'm not exactly getting shut out here. Ben has some of the most piercing green eyes you'd ever want to see. Actually, I'm not 100 percent sure of the color. Maybe blue? Whatever they are, they're extremely piercing. Almost haunting.

[Q] Playboy: There's a photograph on the nearby wall of you and George Bush Sr. What's the story behind that?

[A] Wilson: That's from Armageddon. Bruce Willis was friends with him, so he came down to the set. Bruce, by die way, is one of the best people I've worked with. He couldn't have been a nicer guy to all of us in the cast, a good example of how just because you're a huge movie star--and a Republican, for that matter--it doesn't mean you can't be a cool guy. He's somebody who handles his fame in a pretty relaxed way. I like that picture because I'm just sitting there eating, and the way George Sr. is walking over, it looks like he asked to have his picture taken with me.

[Q] Playboy: Did you know Bill Clinton?

[A] Wilson: I've gotten the chance to hang out with him a few times. There's something really likable about the guy. He's one of these off-the-chart-IQ guys who can talk about any subject, and that makes him sort of the perfect dinner guest, even if he'd never been president. He's kind of like a human jukebox. You put in a buck and pick your subject--like the Mossad or Sherman's March or chicken-fried steak--then sit back and listen to him blow you away with some shit you never knew about. The only knock you could make on the guy is that a subject might come up-- say, Mark Twain--when you say, "Gee, I can contribute a little something on this one," and Clinton isn't necessarily going to give you an opening to make your little contribution. But so what. He was the president of the United States. Let him hold court.

[Q] Playboy: You're a big Elvis fan. How well do you feel the King dealt with his post-glory years?

[A] Wilson: I've thought a lot about that. There's a picture of Elvis in the middle of a Memphis highway right before he died. He looks insane because everyone else is sporting flattops and normal clothes and he's wearing a long black leather jacket, standing in the middle of the road. He stopped because he saw a car accident, and he's trying to tell people what to do. Just from that picture, you get it. It's hilarious but also kind of sad because he wants so much to help, to try to do something. You see that same quality in the photo of him with Nixon-- he's completely loaded, and Nixon's making him an honorary DEA agent. You see he's a freak but not a Michael Jackson kind of freak. You know, Elvis wanted to have a contract put out on Mike Stone, the karate instructor who was screwing his wife. But when his boys got back to him later and said, "Well, we found him, and we found someone who can do it," Elvis reconsidered. He decided against it. There was a kind of decency there, even at the end.

[Q] Playboy: Some would say you've had a pretty amazing run yourself. Do you ever think about how you'd handle it if everything got taken away?

[A] Wilson: Well, hopefully I'd be okay. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Like Paul Newman says in Cool Hand Luke, "Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand."

My father gave me a Beckett quote: "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." I find that really liberating.

If you're an underdog, you'd better at least develop a sense of humor, because otherwise life is too painful. There's no question that losing is a lot funnier than winning.

I'm terrified of crazy women. And demented children with English accents, like Damien in The Omen.