While Hoot may not be Wilson’s first film aimed at the family audience, it's definitely different from his usual choice of project. Normally Wilson’s cast as the perfect boyfriend or in more adult-themed comedies. Hoot’s all about protecting cute owls and doing what’s right. There’s not a love interest in sight in Hoot and the humor is about as G-rated as possible.
The Appeal of a Family Film: “Well, I've done My Dog Skip so that was kind of in the same vein, but that was one thing that sort of drew me to this. I had this thing about when I saw movies as a kid, I never sat there and went, 'Oh, there's that actor.' You just kind of watched it with an open mind, but not that they're not critical. So yeah, I just got such a nice reaction on My Dog Skip that it was like, 'Yeah, it's nice to do a movie with no swearing and no sex scenes, one that everyone can see.' It seems kind of like an old-timey movie. This is like only the second movie like this besides something like Legally Blonde or something that.”
Getting Hooked Up with Hoot: Luke Wilson didn’t know producer Jimmy Buffett or writer/director Wil Shriner before signing on to Hoot. “I don't know how they came to me,” admitted Wilson. “I just got a call one day saying that Jimmy Buffett was doing a movie from a Carl Hiaasen book, and I mean, that right there sounded interesting to me. They were both people that I was a fan of.
I went out and got the book that day and read it and really liked it a lot. Then I got the script. You always kind of worry that they're going to do a good job with the script and just sort of adapting it, but I don't know how they settled on me. I think that it was just one of those things where someone suggested me. I agreed to do it before I even read the script just based on Carl Hiaasen and the book.”
On Developing His Character: “People have mentioned Barney Fife to me, but mainly it's all right there in the book,” said Wilson. “I have to say that I've never met a policeman this bumbling. I would see the policemen who worked on the movie looking at me and I said to them, 'Hey guys, this is not how I see police officers who I have the utmost respect for.' But they would see me kind of driving or doing a scene where I was sort of messing something up, and I just wanted them to know that this wasn't how I thought of them, that this was how the guy was written.
There was no one specific, but just from reading the book you got a real good sense of him. There are always little scenes and thoughts and ideas in the book where they just don't have enough time in the movie to get them all in there, but it helps when you just kind of do the character and sort of know him a little better.”
Tooling Around in a Squad Car and Parking Enforcement Scooter: Luke Wilson’s driving skills were put to the test in Hoot. “There were some really bad wheels in real life on that squad car. You had to go from drive up to reverse and back to drive. I was supposed to doing it real quickly and hitting the tree back and forth. You can see the crew going, 'Is this guy really that bad at driving to where he can't even drive badly?' I would just get real uncomfortable. I would just be like, 'Hey guys, this car is real messed up. It's not me.'
Then that little scooter was terrible. They couldn't get it started half of the time. They were always dragging it down the street. That was another thing. I would be trying to do lines thinking, 'Don't let this thing go out.' The guy would say, 'Look, you can't let this die because if it dies it won't work for the rest of the day.' So the director would be talking to me and I would be like [revving it up]. I was like, 'No. I'm listening.' 'Why are you doing that? I'm trying to talk to you and you're revving the engine.' I was like, 'I can't stop!'”
The Real Stars of Hoot – The Burrowing Owls: “I didn't even know if they were real. I had to ask one of the artists. I said, 'Are these actually real? Are there owls that really live on the ground?' ‘Yep. There are.’ I thought that Carl Hiaasen had made it up. I thought that they only lived in trees.”
Wilson did get the chance to verify for himself that the owls do in fact actually exist. “You know what? I got to work in two scenes with one of the owls. That's when I thought that people might think that they were fake because just the way it moved around. Its eyes during the scene I did at night, I thought to myself, 'That looks so fake with its robotic little movement.' They're a perfect shape and their feathers are just so… I don't know if they did use fake owls for any of this stuff. I wondered the same thing myself, but the scenes that I did there was a real owl there.”
Page 2: The Message of Hoot and Mapping Out His Career
