If you had a superhuman power,
I bet that being invisible is right up there.
But yeah, wanting to just, sort of-,
I think that feeling that you have as a kid
of wanting to blend in and fit in,
it seems to be pretty universal with kids,
unless you're a very strong person.
And that continues sometimes into being an adult.
You know, it actually didn't end up being behind the scenes
because then we used it in the movie when I give-,
Julia gives me her manuscript and then I give her a present,
and then when she opens it.
That was something from behind the scenes,
but luckily you got to see the reaction to it there in the movie.
He wasn't supposed to give me a present in the scene.
- I was supposed to present him-, - Or that present.
But were you supposed to give me any present?
- No, no. - You're just such a giver.
Well, I just-,
Remember how excited I was that day? Like, 'I have an idea.'
(laughter)
That was pretty funny, it was pretty funny.
I think yesterday,
that nice man whose birthday it was that came in and talked to us,
he put a smile on our face for the rest of the day
and he told us such a sweet story.
Yeah, about being in school,
and there was a classmate that had been in an accident
and been slightly disfigured. - And he was new, as a senior.
And the guy reached out to him 20 years later.
40 years later. I'll just keep adding the true elements.
Saying that he had always appreciated this guy's kindness to him
and it had always meant a lot to him.
Because he was the only person that had been kind to him in senior year.
Yeah.
So 40 years later, he reached out to this man to say,
'It still means something to me to this day that, that year,
you were the one person who was truly kind to me.'
I think we were all in tears at the end of it.
It was so sweet.
It's such a great thing, what Isabel says in the movie,
so maybe you would say some version of that.
It's hard to fit in, how does it go exactly?
When you're born to stand out.
Yeah, that Via says to Auggie,
'It's impossible to blend in when you were born to stand out.'
But that's so hard to feel when you just feel like
you're this big in a classroom of giants, or whatever the feeling is.
- It's so hard. - I guess to talk about your own-,
I would talk about, first of all, 'I feel the same way sometimes,'
just so the person knows just how typical that is, to feel that way.
My introduction to Wonder was just reading the script,
but you had actually been-, you'd read the book, gotten the book.
You'd read about it in the New York Times
and then gotten the book to give it to one of your kids.
He's listening to me when I'm talking.
- Keep going, and then what happened? - Gotten it for one of your kids,
and then, the way life gets hectic, somehow it got put on a shelf.
And then a couple of years later, you see the book and you're like,
'Oh gosh, this is that book.' - It wasn't a couple of years.
'I don't quite remember it.'
'Let me read it to make sure it's appropriate
for the age that my kids are now.'
You read it over a weekend and just loved it,
and on Monday announced to the family that,
'I think I've got a great new book for us to read as a family.'
- This is so good. - And then read it out loud.
- You guys read it out loud together? - Yes, we did.
- Not in one sitting? - Not in one, no.
And everybody-, it was one of those ones
that just generated a lot of dinner conversation
because people would be like, 'Oh, I felt this way.'
He's absolutely-, I'm thinking it and he's saying it.
This is incredible, let's do this all day. Okay, keep going.
And then what happened?
And then you called your agent and you said,
'I don't know, I'm sure some things are already happening with this
or maybe it's already been made,
but if it hasn't been, I would love to throw my hat in the ring
because I'd love to play the mother.'
Yeah, and then the next thing, it started to get rolling, right?
That is 99.3% accurate. Well done, Owen Wilson.
My dad read to us before bed every night,
and I think it's just one of the great universal cuddle times.
- Would he make up stories too or always read stories?
I think mainly read. Like, read books that we were ready for
but not necessarily ready to, as readers, take on.
And it was just a special cosy time.
It's just a nice way to head into dream land, I think,
with the sound of your parent's voice,
though my kids do say, 'Mom, just your normal voice please.'
'Don't do voices, okay? Just read it,'
which is really disappointing, yeah.
Well, Owen's face, I think the clock is ticking on the-,
(laughter)
- I shouldn't have said that. - 45 more minutes.
- Oh, we should speed things along. - Until it strikes twelve.
No, I think it's true, though, and it's sweet and it's wonderful.
I think all your life experience on your face, ultimately,
I think, for both of us, shows a happy life.
I think we're lucky people and, yeah, it's true.
My mom worked with the photographer Richard Avedon for ten years
on this In the American West project,
and he said to my mom about that people get the face they deserve.
That could sound kind of chilling or sound really good,
but what I thought that he meant is that sometimes
your personality just comes through with your expressions,
the way that sometimes you're just drawn to a person
just because you just feel, 'God, that person seems really-,'
there's just something, their energy seems really good,
and vice-versa.
If you're a crank, the neighbourhood crank,
those faces tend to reflect that also, right?
(laughter)
I think all families are special,
and some that have these incredibly focused people
in their family to take care of,
I can't imagine what that's like.
We've made our attempts and we have created this story about it,
but I think all families really do make attempts
to do the best they can with what they know,
and just love each other as deeply as you can every day.
I think the one thing about the crippling of the world today
that is the positive I see in it
is that you do understand, sadly, on a near-daily basis,
how quick, quick as a wink, it can change,
and just to hold a little tighter
and love a little more loudly in your family,
because the days are short.
See, they're two very different questions, aren't they?
Because I was going to say, 'We're incredibly cool parents,'
but I don't know if the five children we have between us
would necessarily second that emotion.
It would depend on the day, maybe.
That does seem to be part of being a kid
is that growing up you have to, at some point,
start to roll your eyes a little bit at your parents,
and sadly, with me, it's already begun at age six, I'm getting that.
But I think I'm a pretty cool parent.
The key message? God, there's a lot of good ones.
I would hope that people would be entertained
the way I was when I read the script,
and that was just moved by the story,
and then also about just family as a source of strength
for people in their lives.
And obviously, you know,
relying on people's kindness and generosity of spirit.
You have to be careful with that, obviously,
because I'm the middle of three
and sometimes you do feel like your parents had favourites,
or have favourites.
- Because they do. - Because they do, yeah.
I actually came across a note that my dad had written
saying, 'Luke is my favourite.'
'There, I've said what the other two believe,
but he's my favourite not for the reason they think he is.'
'He's the favourite because he's always available to go do stuff
and the other two are off,
have already begun with their friends and doing their own lives,'
and Luke was still around to, like,
'Sure, I'll go down to the office on Sunday.'
- That's sweet that he explained it, though.
Yeah, it was really nice. (laughter)
- But I know it still hurts. - Yeah, it does.
It is easy to say no.
It just, sort of, falls into one a year,
but it's not a mathematical equation that I'm trying to stick to.
But fortunately, I have found things here and there
that hold my heart enough to want to participate in them,
so that's my good fortune.
I don't know that it factors into the decision
but when you work on a movie like this,
this will be one that I'll be happy for my kids to see and go to.
Yeah, so it's definitely-,
yeah, this one I'll be proud to have them go to.
I think one finds that one's children
aren't necessarily interested in one's filmography.
(laughter)
Because perhaps one's children want to go see Cars 3.
(laughter)
But they do want to see this because they loved the book
and, like any lover of a great book,
of course you want to go see the movie.
- So this is a sure thing. - Yeah.