Is Rebel Wilson Related to Owen Wilson?
Owen Wilson and Rebel Wilson are both famous comedic actors. They both have blonde hair, and they were born not quite 12 years apart. And they have the same last name. They’ve even appeared in the same film franchise. Does that make Loki‘s Owen Wilson and Pooch Perfect‘s Rebel Wilson related? Let’s look at their lives and careers, and we can find out.
Owen Wilson grew up in Texas
Owen Cunningham Wilson was born in Dallas on November 18, 1968. His two brothers, Andrew and Luke, are also actors. While attending the University of Texas, Austin, Wilson became friends with Wes Anderson and the two wrote a screenplay, Bottle Rocket. Passed along from a family friend to various producers, the two eventually received $5 million to turn their screenplay into a feature film. It only grossed $1 million, according to IMDb, but it was enough to make Wilson and Anderson move to Hollywood and bunk with the other two Wilson brothers.
Wilson quickly garnered roles in films such as the Cable Guy, Anaconda, and Breakfast of Champions. Eventually, he and Anderson wrote another film, The Royal Tenenbaums, which Anderson directed, and Wilson starred in along with his brother, Luke, Gene Hackman, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Released in 2001, the film grossed $52.4 million at the box office, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
Wilson and Anderson earned Academy Award and British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award nominations for Best Screenplay. Other leading roles came in Starsky & Hutch and Marley and Me. Wilson took on a more serious role in the 2011 Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination. Most recently Wilson has been cast as Mobius M. Mobius in the TV adaptation of the Marvel Comics character Loki, for which the show is named.
Rebel Wilson is from Australia
Rebel Melanie Elizabeth Wilson was born on March 2, 1980, in Sydney, Australia. Her birth name is Melanie Elizabeth Bownds. She has two sisters and one brother. She trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People and graduated from the University of New South Wales before moving to New York where she studied at Second City, a premier comedy club and school of improvisation, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
Moving back home to Australia, Wilson started writing and appearing on stage. She soon got cast in television roles and comedy films. In 2008, she moved to Hollywood. She quickly got hired for CBS’ Rules of Engagement before landing in films such as A Few Best Men. Her breakout role came in the 2012 film Pitch Perfect followed by Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015, and Pitch Perfect 3 in 2017.
Wilson then returned to Australia to appear in the TV show Les Norton. She returned to the states to star alongside Anne Hathaway in The Hustle and the screen-adaptation of Cats with Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift, both in 2019. She is now hosting ABC’s new dog grooming competition show, Pooch Perfect.
Is Rebel Wilson related to Owen Wilson?
They are indeed both blond. They also each appeared in at least one of the three Night at the Museum films. Owen Wilson played Jedediah in all three films. Rebel Wilson appeared as Tilly, the night security guard at the British Museum, in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. But are they related?
Nope. Our first clue is that Rebel Wilson changed her last name from Bownds to Wilson, so she isn’t truly a Wilson. She and Owen Wilson were born some 8,500 miles apart, although that wouldn’t prevent them from being related. Rebel Wilson also told Wired that while she loves Owen, the two are not related.
Just how many Wilsons are there? Wilson is the 313th most common surname in the world, according to Forebears. There are approximately 1.7 million people with the last name of Wilson, so it is clearly just a coincidence.
