DALLAS, Aug. 24 (Wade Sheridan) — Actor Owen Wilson revealed that his father, Bob Wilson is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease during an interview Thursday.
While promoting his new film “No Escape”, the 46-year-old star spoke with Dallas Morning News about how his father has influenced his new role and how hard the illness has been on his family.
“I’s been a rough thing,” Owens told the outlet, “it’s one of those things where if somebody had ssaid 10 years ago, when my dad and I were joking around, having a putting match, that this is the position your dad’s going to be in, where he basically needs 24-hour care, you’d think, ‘Gosh, I won’t be able to handle that. That’s just not possible'”
“You just have to do your best to deal with it. You’ve got no choice but to accept it. And then, you sort of still look for the things to be grateful for,” he added.
Now a father himself, Wilson admits to being able to relate to what his father went through as a parent and how he could channel those feelings into his new film No Escape, an action adventure about an Austin businessman struggling to transport his wife and two young daughters out a foreign country whose government is being toppled in a coup.
“It’s about a father trying to protect his kids and doing everything he can. That was very relatable, something I could imagine. Obviously, we never had anything like that,” he says, alluding to the violence present in No Escape but now he says he understands the fear on his father’s face when something would happen to Wilson or his two brothers.
‘There’s a lot of stress inherent in being a parent,” Wilson says. “And worrying about your children and wanting them to be OK When they’re born, you feel this love you’ve never felt before. If they were in danger, you’d just do anything that you could to help them.”
“No Escape” hits theaters Aug. 26
