11 February 2016
Newsdesk
Actor Owen Wilson often finds his stomach hurting with laughter while speaking of his personal failings with friends Ben Stiller and Wes Anderson.
The 47-year-old star has worked on 13 movies with Ben, including new release Zoolander 2, and his bond with filmmaker Wes was cemented decades ago, when the pair were roommates while studying at the University of Texas.
And Owen tells British newspaper The Independent when the trio get together for a meal, the conversation topics are typically painfully hilarious.
"The stuff that we tend to laugh at, our own failures and shortcomings, that we can see in each other, or ourselves, that kind of thing is funny," he shared.
Owen has experienced true personal pain in his past, as he was rumoured to have attempted suicide in 2007, but the star never suffered alone, as his close friends were always nearby to lend support.
Owen has known Ben since the mid-1990s and they were so close from the instant they met, it seems as if their friendship has remained pretty much the same over the years.
"I don't know if the relationship has developed over time," he noted. "It's a little like these characters (in Zoolander). There isn't a big arc. From when we first became friends, walking around New York, I think that we are still sort of laughing at the same things and our dynamic is still pretty similar."
Owen reveals Ben was a fan of his before they became friends. Ahead of their initial meeting, the 50-year-old Tropic Thunder star wrote Owen a letter praising him for Bottle Rocket, a 1996 crime comedy that Owen wrote and starred in.
"I think it was when he saw Bottle Rocket," the star recalled of how he and Ben first got into contact with each other. "He wrote me the nicest letter, saying how much he loved the movie, which meant a great deal, because no one saw Bottle Rocket, and saying that he hoped we might work together on something, some day, and that sure came to pass."
