Star of Vancouver-shot Stick Owen Wilson talks golf, gambling and the Grouse Grind

For a few months last summer, there seemed to be daily Owen Wilson sightings in the Lower Mainland.
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Photos of Wilson riding his bike, hiking the Grouse Grind, or out enjoying a meal were everywhere. The Wedding Crashers, The Royal Tenenbaums and Midnight in Paris star was in Vancouver filming his new 10-part series Stick, which premiers on the streamer Apple TV+ on June 4.
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'I felt like people sort of would almost go, 'Oh god, there he is again',' said Wilson during a Zoom interview with his Stick co-star Judy Greer. 'It certainly felt, by the end of five months, that it wasn't, you know, how it felt in the beginning. When people are a little bit excited you're there.'
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As for the Grouse Grind, Wilson said he was a regular on the challenging hiking trail, clocking his best time of 53 minutes just before the series wrapped shooting last September.
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'I don't know if there's a more beautiful place, you know, certainly in the summer,' said Wilson about Vancouver. 'I was so happy we shot there, because for a while it was going to be in Atlanta, which is nice. But Atlanta in the summer, it's hot, a totally different experience.'
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'I've worked there so much over the years. I love it,' said Greer (Ant-Man and The Wasp, Adaptation). 'A great crew. Everyone I've ever worked with there from small-budget things to big-budget things — everyone in production there is so talented.'
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In Stick, Wilson plays Pryce Cahill, an over-the-hill, ex-pro golfer whose career prematurely missed the cut 20 years ago. After his marriage to Amber-Linn (Greer) fails and he gets fired from his sports store job, Pryce discovers young-gun golfer Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager) and manages to convince the troubled 17-year-old and his single mom (Mariana Treviño) that he can help him make it to the show. Pryce convinces his former caddy and longtime friend Mitts (Marc Maron) to come along for the ride. Well, actually supply the ride in the shape of a motor home, to ferry the newly formed rag tag team of misfits toward golf greatness.
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'Someone mentioned it reminded them of The Wizard of Oz, about this group of people who were travelling together that all had an empty space that they needed to fill. A hole they were trying to fill, something they were trying to get. And they were going to be together and try to get it,' said Greer. 'I thought that was really, really beautiful.'
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While the story could have used any sport, show creator and showrunner Jason Keller chose golf because it offered him a slate upon which to draw the human condition.
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'A lot of people are struggling, you know, with emotional baggage,' said Keller over Zoom. 'When I see golfers, especially at the elite level, out there alone on a golf course, that's what I see. I see someone who is very cut off from everybody around them, struggling with their mindset, hoping to sort of get it right on the golf course. Both those worlds kind of seem to fit together.'

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