Owen Wilson has found himself in a much happier and peaceful place after years of mental health struggles.
The Oscar-nominated actor reflected on his journey while promoting his new Apple TV+ series, Stick, in which he plays a washed-up professional golfer seeking a second chance after hitting rock bottom.
"We can all sort of look back at bad things that happen, where you’re like, 'Yeah, without that bad thing, then I don’t get to this good thing,'" Wilson told CBS Morning. "And so that idea of rock bottom, again, just reminds me of times in my life when I’ve had struggles, how much I needed people — family, friends. So I think that sort of is reflected in this show."
Just like his Stick character Pryce Cahill, Wilson understands the pressure that comes with success. The 56-year-old has starred in some of the most commercially and critically successful films of the past 30-plus years, from Wedding Crashers and Meet the Parents to Cars and the Night at the Museum franchise.
"Early on, you’d make something like, 'Wow, if this doesn’t do well. I don’t know what I’m gonna do,'" Wilson said about his projects. "It just felt like so much was riding on stuff, so much pressure to kind of do well and succeed. I do kind of feel, yeah, a little bit more sort of peace… taking time to smell the roses."
Wilson pointed to various studies that suggest people become increasingly happier after age 50. He confessed he was initially skeptical of those findings, but is now a believer.
"You hear those studies that say the happiest time in people’s lives [is] after 50. As a kid, I was like, I don’t know if that’s gonna be true," he said with a laugh. "I really had a hard time believing that. But here, I do find myself… I feel pretty happy, pretty content."
Wilson spoke candidly about his mental health struggle in a 2021 interview with Esquire, explaining how his older brother, Andrew Wilson, helped him recover after his 2007 suicide attempt. According to the cover story, Wilson recalled his brother moving into his house and "rising with him each morning." Andrew Wilson also wrote daily schedules for his little brother, which made his day-to-day life seem manageable at first, "and then, at some point, a long time later, actually good."
"I’ve been in sort of a lucky place of feeling pretty appreciative of things," he told the outlet. "I know everything’s kind of up and down, but when you get on one of these waves, you’ve gotta ride it as long as you can. I’ve just felt — yeah. Feeling pretty grateful. Well, grateful’s one of those words that get used all the time. Appreciative. Of, you know, stuff."