In his first interview since he was hospitalized in August for what police reported was an “attempted suicide,” actor Owen Wilson sat down to chat with director Wes Anderson. The talk between the longtime friends and colleagues will be posted on MySpace TV at midnight tonight as part of the website’s Artist on Artist series.
There are pairings like Mos Def and Al Gore and Iggy Pop and Bam Margera, but none has the same pop culture gravitas as this actor/director couple…that is if Wilson delves into his recent, publicly troubled personal life. ###
Gawker probably captured the headline best:
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Owen Wilson will grant his first post-suicide attempt interview tonight—to director Wes Anderson. The chat will be posted at midnight on MySpace. Because blubbering in front of Barbara Walters is so 2005!
If Wilson does get up close and personal, it’s the type of interview that you’d think would call on Walters, Oprah, King, or some late-night talk show host. And you’d expect we’d be watching it on our TVs. The fact that the talk is airing on the web, produced for the web, and not intended for simultaneous or later release to television shows just how much internet TV has evolved and how it’s beginning to hit the mainstream.
The web has been host to simulcast events, exclusive previews and shows, presidential announcements, debates, and discussions, but we’ve seen nothing yet that would command this type of mass media and pop culture attention choose the internet over TV.
It’s fitting that such an event would come from a Hollywood name that’s already experimented with alternative distribution methods, but even if Wilson doesn’t tell all to cyberspace, someone soon will. It’s not long before the next object of celebrity misfortune works the website circuit instead of the talk show circuit, and we start to see the events unfold in real time through URLs like www.justin.tv/britneyspears.
