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The Brothers Grin
It worked.
They bottled it and sold it, and sold it.
The Wilsonian Doctrine
  "I always had the sense that he's an underutilized, unvalued resource," Ivan Reitman says of Luke Wilson, above, who stars in the director's latest, "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." (By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post) |
In Wilsonbrother Land, the guy gets the girl, but not always the girl he started out with. Sarah Jessica Parker falls for this. Anna Faris falls for this. Kate Hudson falls for this. The Wilsonbrother has some last-minute epiphany about it all. A recurrent theme is Love Is Funny and Sometimes Ya Just Don't Know.
"I don't give it a lot of thought," Luke Wilson says. "I mean, in the last couple of years, I have. I guess it goes back to the 'Legally Blonde' and 'Charlie's Angels' thing, that there's a kind of pattern there, but the honest truth is I took basically every movie I got offered for years, just 'cause I like to work, and I learned on each movie I worked on, and those were the roles that came my way." He could quit doing those parts, but why? He'll turn 35 in September, and as of now, there aren't a lot of scripts where someone has thought of him as a husband, or a dad. Next he'll be in director Mike Judge's "Idiocracy," a futuristic comedy, and then a thriller with Sarah Jessica Parker called "Vacancy." He'll also play Bobby Ewing in the "Dallas" remake that starts shooting this fall.
"I always had the sense that he's an underutilized, unvalued resource," director Ivan Reitman says of Wilson. "I think it's just by virtue of his good looks that he's gotten to be 'the guy' in a lot of chick movies, where he's the kind of straight guy to the colorful, kooky girl that's in the movie. I wanted to give him the opportunity to rock a little more in a comedy. He's the real deal, he's certainly as funny as his brother Owen. His comedy chops really are born of the same DNA."
Reitman met Wilson when he was producing the 2003 hit "Old School" -- the one where Ferrell, Vaughn and Wilson start a fraternity for the latent and misfit. (A sequel is still in the works.) Reitman actually thinks Wilson has just enough Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart in him to remain with us for a long time: "There's this long line of actors who become icons for America and they all have a kind of boyish, everyday quality. The kind of guy you want as your friend, or the man you want as your lover," he says. "There's just something so goshdarn charming about that, which is what Luke is."
A generation ago, Reitman was drawn to a different kind of shlub, the '70s-style funnyman, back when he was directing "Ghostbusters" and "Stripes" and "Meatballs." Then, the epitome of cool and funny was Bill Murray, or Belushi and Aykroyd.
Among other things, the Wilson brothers could be read as a variation on that. It's what happens when you take little boys to a particular twin cinema in Dallas for a matinee; they grow up and work forward from "Animal House" (which Reitman also produced). Luke remembers where he was when he saw Reitman's earlier films:
" 'Ghostbusters' I saw in '84, so that's like, sixth grade, and I saw it at the U.A. Cine on Yale in Dallas. I was with my friend Bunky, and Owen. And 'Stripes' I saw in Massachusetts in the summertime at this theater in Belmont. Again with Owen, and a few cousins. And 'Animal House,' my dad took me and my brothers to that at the Preston Royal Theater in Dallas. . . .
"I like that Ivan wants to know what we think is funny, like he's watching to see what we would joke about," Wilson says. "In a great way, [Reitman] is like an older coach working with younger players who have a different mentality. I just think it's a good quality, as opposed to being stuck in a way of saying that what was funny back then would be just as funny now."
Wilson seems aware that his comedy style -- and his brother's -- has a sell-by date. Somewhere out there are a couple of exurban, cut-up brothers who have no business seeing R-rated movies, and they will come along and destroy today's Wilsonbrother mojo -- or reinvent it, at least. "I hope they don't sneak in," he says. "I hope they go with their parents, and pay."
Triple Threat
There is a steady girlfriend. She's not a secret, but she's not a celebrity. He says she works in a clothing boutique. Wilson can't imagine how two movie stars manage to keep a relationship going. (Drew? Gwyneth? Exactly.) There is a dog, and his name, either ironically or super-totally-ironically, is Brother. Wilson plays a lot of golf. He hates not working, so he works a lot. And when he's not working, you'll often find him at his brother Owen's pad.
