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hot and brothered
March 14, 2005 The Toronto Star
Hot and brothered
Wilson brothers unveil their first feature film at South by Southwest festival

Luke, Owen and Andrew worked well together to make Wendell Baker Story
PETER HOWELL

AUSTIN, Tex.—The Brothers Wilson had no human rivalries making The Wendell Baker Story, a loose-limbed comedy about a charismatic fraud artist that launched the 2005 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
There was no star trip by celebrity middle sibling Owen, 36, the shaggy blond with the perpetual grin, who seems to be in every second movie these days, especially those starring Ben Stiller and Bill Murray.
There was no auteur posing by younger brother Luke, 33, an actor in his own right, who seeks triple-threat credibility by adding writing and directing to his advancing renown.
There was no look-at-me angst by oldest (and hairiest) brother Andrew, 40, the occasional actor, first-time co-director and hitherto complete mystery in stories about the talented Wilson boys from Dallas.

Andrew and Luke co-directed The Wendell Baker Story, which Luke also wrote and stars in. Owen plays a supporting role as the bad guy of the film, which was shot in Austin and vicinity.

They all got along like a house on fire, except when it got around to deciding what to do with Luke's dog, who just happens to be named Brother and who had movie-star ambitions of his own. In The Wendell Baker Story, Brother plays Sonny, the devoted pet of Luke's title character Wendell, a small-time counterfeiter with big-time ambitions, who ends up running a seniors' home.

"I didn't audition him," Luke says proudly, scratching Brother on the head as the pooch wanders into a hotel interview suite, perfectly timing his entrance. "I just gave him the job."

The brothers did audition 30 dogs before Luke pulled rank and resorted to canine nepotism. "He rammed Brother down my throat!" Andrew moans, not looking like he's joking. And here the Wilsons had just been talking about how well they get along, both as brothers and as filmmakers.

"That actually was one difference that Andrew and I did have," Luke allows, his Texas drawl seeming to hang in the room. "He was saying, `Brother is insane! He's too neurotic. He couldn't do it.'"

Brother is neurotic? Can this be the same placid mutt that we see here before us, a brown as Texas dirt, contentedly nuzzling anyone who proffers an outstretched hand and a smile? The same Brother who had padded down the red carpet at the Paramount Theater the night before, accompanying the Wilson Brothers and their photographer mom Laura to the SXSW premiere?

"I was wrong," Andrew concedes. "Brother does do a good job in the movie. But he is very neurotic. He's an odd dog."

Nepotism notwithstanding, there were practical reasons why Luke wanted to hire his dog for his first film that he both directed and wrote. The production budget was a thrifty $8 million (U.S.), scraped together from various U.S. and foreign sources.

That's not a lot of money for a production with a large cast that includes, besides Luke and Owen Wilson, such familiar faces as Will Ferrell, Kris Kristofferson, Harry Dean Stanton, Seymour Cassel, Eddie Griffin and the fast-rising Eva Mendes, who plays Wendell's erstwhile girlfriend. Shooting was scheduled for just over month, and going over budget just wasn't an option.

"We were conscious of knowing that we didn't have time to fool around, like having a trainer or a dog that wouldn't do stuff. So I just ended up saying, `Well, we might as well use Brother,'" Luke says.

He took a similar attitude toward enlisting his brothers. He's worked with both before, famously in the films Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums made by Owen's film-school pal Wes Anderson. But the three had never been this involved in a project before, and neither Luke nor Andrew had ever directed before.
Luke says he didn't feel confident enough to both star in the movie and to direct all of his scenes by himself. So he called upon Andrew to assist him.

Owen loyally signed on, even though he was being handed a rare role as a genuine bad guy, playing evil head nurse Neil King at the Shady Grove retirement hotel, where pension cheques and patients have both been going astray.

"I was surprised to see the way the movie was edited," Owen says at a press conference earlier in the day, smiling as he gets ready to spin some whimsy. "Because the way it was pitched to me was that I was kind of the hero of the piece. I was a little disappointed that I didn't really have the audience on my side."

Luke has a quick rejoinder. It's just payback for some of the roles written for him in all those Wes Anderson movies.

"He always has me kind of playing nut cases," Luke says. "Or guys who have to go into hospital for exhaustion. But I just thought Owen could do a really good and funny job with that. It's one of those characters that could have been a little too broad. But Owen did it and came up with good things."

So maybe the Wilson Brothers are more like real, squabble-prone brothers than they let on?

Owen admits "it's a very difficult position to be in" as the middle child in life and in filmmaking.

"I felt like both Luke and Andrew were kind of directing me," he says. "Although Andrew was probably talking to me more about my character. But I would notice that Luke was kind of whispering stuff to him."

Which one was the toughest director? "Andrew actually seems the most easygoing," Owen says. "Luke can be sort of tightly wound. But Andrew can snap. And he did actually, at one point. With the pressure of the movie, he could sometimes lose it a little bit."

There was more pressure than Luke expected when he began writing The Wendell Baker Story to pass the time on the set of My Dog Skip. He made that movie with producer Mark Johnson, who also produced this one, but neither the success of My Dog Skip nor the continuing popularity of the Wilson Brothers could open doors.

"Mark Johnson and I shopped the script around for over a year and met with tons of people," Luke says.

"I just never wanted to get involved with people who said, `Yeah, we'll give you some money but we want to develop it.' I was tempted, but I just never wanted to go that road. To be stuck at Miramax and have some other guy take it over and rewrite it. I thought, `I'd just rather not make it than have somebody own it.' That just made me paranoid."

The business problems aren't worked out yet. The Wendell Baker Story doesn't have a distributor yet, and when a question is asked whether they're close to finding one, Andrew quips, `Do you know anybody?'"

But the Wilson Brothers have high hopes that they'll do well on the festival circuit, helping them get a distribution deal.

At least they got the film made, and they're still talking to each other. They have to, since they all live within hailing distance of each other near Hollywood. And they've got their mom keeping a close eye on them, as she was during the press conference, beaming from the back.

"We see each other every day, so I guess we get along," Luke says. "But it's not like it's any honeymoon or anything like that."

Nobody has a bone to pick, except for Brother — Andrew bought him a steak dinner to make amends.

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