If your hobby was crashing weddings, you'd probably enjoy it too. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are best buds who enjoy the ceremonies, the parties, the food, and oh yeah - the women! The boys are in their prime during wedding season, and the king of all weddings is upon them - the daughter of the Treasury Secretary of the United States, played by Christopher Walken and Jane Seymour, who plays his wife.
Owen's character takes a liking to one of the bridesmaids, Walken's daughter (Rachel McAdams). But it's Jane who is the aggressor in one particular scene taking off her shirt and giving Owen an eye full - lets just say Owen enjoyed that shooting day.
Owen talked about getting to feel Dr. Quinn's 'puppies' and one of the newest Hollywood starlet, and his co-star Rachel McAdams:
Is this the kind of comedy you enjoy?
Owen Wilson: It is a R-rated comedy and those would have been the ones that I would have seen as a kid like Stripes or Caddyshack, but then it has trended lately towards no rated-R because of the box office stuff. So this is actually the first R-rated movie I've been in other than Wes Anderson's movies. You can only say ‘f*ck' once or twice in a movie, I think. Even though Rushmore or Royal Tenenbaums, there is no reason for them to be rated-R, they are so it's a little crazy.
Any parallels between this character and yourself?
Owen Wilson: No, I mean, I definitely enjoy a good party, but I would be more likely to crash the Playboy Mansion than a wedding. Maybe I just think bigger than my character.
Did you get any ideas for your own future wedding from this movie?
Owen Wilson: Yeah, I think that I would like to have a traditional wedding, like a church. I'm Catholic so I would like to have a Catholic wedding. I like the tradition of it.
Are you as romantic as this character is?
Owen Wilson: That is something that ex-girlfriends have never accused me of. I don't know if it's from growing up with brothers and stuff, but no, I don't think of myself as being romantic, but I guess girls have a different notion of what ‘romantic' is. What is romantic to you? I think sometimes when I turn on the high beams that that could be translated into romance.
How was it working with Rachel McAdams?
Owen Wilson: What I liked about working with Rachel is I didn't have an awareness of who she was. I thought she is a pretty girl who acts well. A couple of weeks into I noticed that any lines she is given she is able to make sound real. I started to pay more attention to her and I noticed she had really good ideas for story and her character. I think in a movie like this it's easy to get bowled over because Vince and I had worked with David before. We had met a lot and we had a lot of energy talking about ideas.
How much improvising is there in a movie like this?
Owen Wilson: You allow yourself some improvising, but you also try to get the structure of the script right and I met with the writers and David about 3 weeks before filming and we did a lot of work on, not just lines, but structure stuff and added the Chas character. It's great to improvise, but it's also great to meet people because Vince and I would meet on the weekends and on the morning of scenes and go over stuff because he has a lot of ideas also.
Do he produce spontaneous on the set, do you have to keep up with him?
Owen Wilson: Yeah, he has kind of a rapid-fire delivery and he has a lot of ideas and it was very appropriate for his character. It was so much keeping up, but trying to figure out where will this take the scene.
What has been the best date you've ever been on?
Owen Wilson: Hmmm, I was going out with this girl when I was living in Rome that came over and visited me. We had rented bicycles and riding around Rome and night and going and seeing some of those sights and seeing the Trevi Fountain that is in the movie, where I think Anita Eckberg dances. And then the Spanish Steps, that was a great date.
Can you talk about the naked breast sequence?
Owen Wilson: Yes, I was there. As Vince likes to say, that's the one day I was there early and stayed late. But I'm a perfectionist. I want to get the scene right no matter how many takes it would take. Some of these girls would say after the 50th take, ‘I think we got it.' And I would say, ‘No, we don't. I didn't like the way my shoulder was placed when I fell into frame so…once again please, from the beginning.'
What is the most effective lie you've ever told?
Owen Wilson: That I'm a hopeless romantic? I've used variations on that theme.
How was shooting in Maryland?
Owen Wilson: Maryland was great. You know what was also cool was shooting in DC and the one morning we shot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking out at the Washington Monument, we shot at daybreak, and that was really cool.
What lessons do you take working on a Wes Anderson movie to use on a broad comedy like this?
Owen Wilson: It's not so much that I take lessons, I just like the way Wes works a lot, and maybe his demeanor on the set. I've never seen him lose his temper or get mad at any of the actors, and David I never saw getting mad at the actors, maybe a few times with other people, but this movie did not have that big of a budget so he was pressed for time so sometimes the frustration of trying to get people to move faster would make him boil over.
Is Wes looking at something else at the moment?
Owen Wilson: No.
Can you talk a little bit about the Frat Pack with the 5 or 6 comedy actors who are always in each other's movies?
Owen Wilson: I guess the name would be a media construct, but you can't deny that it's me and Vince and Will Ferrell in a cameo, so yeah, it's not some grand design, it's that these are the people that I think are funny and would like to work with. I know with this movie that I was really hoping we could get Vince to be in the movie because I think he's really funny. Then when we came up with the Chas character I was really hoping that we could get Will Ferrell to do it.
How do you like working with Vince?
Owen Wilson: Actually sometimes hanging out with him off screen isn't that different from being with him on the movie. He has a lot of energy and he talks a mile a minute and he really just makes me laugh.
What is your favorite thing with Vince?
Owen Wilson: I think the best thing with me and Vince is that if I had a funny idea in my head I could give it to Vince and he could deliver it perfectly. I don't know if I could deliver his ideas perfectly, but he could give me ideas also.
Why do you appear in so many buddy movies instead of carrying movies on your own?
Owen Wilson: I don't know. I think this movie started out less as a buddy movie and then as we started working on the script that's just stuff that I gravitate towards because I like playing off somebody so it probably became more of that.
Are you and Jackie Chan planning on re-teaming?
Owen Wilson: I would like to, I just saw Jackie in Portugal a couple of weeks ago at some sports awards show and I love working with Jackie.
Do you think you are more subdued than Vince?
Owen Wilson: I would say for sure, I'm more subdued than Vince, but we feed off each other when we are doing scenes and he probably raises my energy.
Does your background as a screenwriter mean you think of yourself as more of a story guy?
Owen Wilson: Well, the movies that I've written with Wes, they were more character driven, so I wouldn't say I'm like any danger to making a challenge to Robert Townsend. I do try to have a sense of structure and things that will be believable for the characters and I definitely did a lot of work on this script trying to make stuff more believable for my character and everybody's character.
What's the worst thing you've ever done to another person?
Owen Wilson: I think I'm pretty polite, but I can probably get overtired sometimes and then be abrupt with people who are close to me? The worst thing? I don't know. That's such a downer to think about. I just try to stay positive.
Have you ever crashed a party yourself?
Owen Wilson: Yeah, when I first came to LA I didn't know people and we wouldn't be invited to parties and we just kind of show up. I probably would've benefited from the rules we talk about in this movie. The blend in by sticking out, I think it's very good one. I definitely had some run-ins with bouncers in the past. When we were shooting Bottle Rocket we were living at the Sunset Marquis and that was the real hot spot with the Whiskey Bar, they had really pretty waitresses. Even though we were staying at the hotel sometimes the bouncer wouldn't even let us in. We would always have to have our key to show them. Those bouncers will drive you crazy.
What are your top 3 rules for dating a girl?
Owen Wilson: Ummm…fake it until you make it, that's rule 1,2, and 3.
Do you want to get married eventually?
Owen Wilson: I think eventually. I'm 36 and you can't stay at the party forever. One of these days I think I probably will get married and have a family.
Q25: What was it like working with Christopher Walken and did he teach you anything?
Owen Wilson: He taught me, it wasn't that he taught me anything, but just kind of watching. There is an expression, people say ‘it's all good'. I don't like that expression or most other expressions that enter the culture. Chris started saying that during the shoot, but he has such an inimitable delivery that it took on a different delivery that I started saying it myself by the end of the movie. It was great that he could take something that was real trite and corny thing that people say and he could give it a fresh spin.
Could you do your best Christopher Walken impersonation?
Owen Wilson: I just did it and you guys didn't seem to notice!
Was there a body double in the scene with you and Jane Seymour?
Owen Wilson: No, there wasn't. That was Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Had she recently had them improved?
Owen Wilson: I don't know, they just seemed great. That was another scene that demanded a lot of takes. Jane said, ‘On television we never had time to do this many takes' after the 60th one and I said, ‘That's the great thing about film, even on a low budget.'
What is next for you?
Owen Wilson: I am working on a couple different projects, one that I'll start in the fall, it's called You Me and Dupree, but that's all I can say about it.
What about the Wendell Baker story?
Owen Wilson: The Wendell Baker Story is great. I'm going to Maui for the film festival because they are showing that. Luke was on David Letterman to talk about the movie because Letterman loved it. It still doesn't have a release date, which is too bad because it's one of the favorite movies I've ever worked on. There is no distributor yet and I'm not sure how it will work.
Have you wrapped anything else?
Owen Wilson: No, I've been working on that animated movie Cars for four years. I love it. I love that company, Pixar, and I got to do a day of work with Paul Newman up in New York and we got to go to dinner. He's a real legend.
Did you eat his brand food?
Owen Wilson: No.
Do you think it's a real accomplishment in these days to get a part in an animated picture?
Owen Wilson: I was flattered and relieved when they cast me in the Pixar movie Cars because I was supposed to do an animated movie six years ago and I got fired from it. It was called Kingdom of the Sun and they actually cut my character out, I was the main character. Then two years into it they told me they were going in a different direction. Then me and the girl, Carla Coccina, got written out and the director got replaced. It was the guy who directed The Lion King.
Was it because you were talking too dirty?
Owen Wilson: Maybe talking too slow.
What was the most embarrassing part of the movie?
Owen Wilson: Anything that involves dancing, I don't like dancing, especially in this movie where we really had to cut loose. That was embarrassing.
What kind of car do you play in Cars?
Owen Wilson: It's a made-up car.
Do you have a love interest?
Owen Wilson: Yeah, I do. It's Bonnie Hunt is the voice of the girl. It's out next summer.
Wedding Crashers is a hilarious comedy with a great cast! You won't want to miss a minute! The film is rated 'R' but that's the genious of the writing of Steve Faber and Bob Fisher. Go see this movie, you won't be sorry!