Some 'Dupree' In Owen Wilson's Life

If Randy Dupree seemed somewhat familiar to Owen Wilson, it wouldn't be surprising.

Wilson says Dupree, the freeloader and unwelcome, horrible houseguest he played in the comedy You, Me and Dupree, reminded him to a degree of his real-life brother and family dog.

Wilson is hot at the moment, coming off the hit "Wedding Crashers."

He plays Randy Dupree, the best man to Matt Dillon's character, Carl Peterson, who marries Molly Peterson, portrayed by Kate Hudson.

He's Dillon's best friend, but winds up as the newlyweds' worst nightmare.

They're getting ready to live happily ever after, but Dupree is the ultimate slacker who can't hold a job and can't hold a place to live, and ends up living with them.

"Although I'm not really like one of these, like, jaded kind of cynical slackers, Dupree is sort of like a free spirit, and he has sort of his philosophy, has this kind of enthusiasm," Wilson told co-anchor Harry Smith on The Early Show Friday. "It's a little bit like when you kind of like get a dog sometimes. You bring the dog home, and it's kind of tearing up everything."

A dog such as a Dalmatian his family once had, named Nutmeg who, he says, his "parents couldn't stand for the first two years of Nutmeg's life. There was a little bit of nutmeg in Dupree.

"(Nutmeg was a) free spirit. Didn't like to be on a leash. Would tear up my mother's laundry when she'd have it hanging in the backyard.

"But we all came to love the dog."

Wilson says, "There was like a time, before Matt Dillon signed on, that I was thinking that maybe I would play Carl, because I definitely identified with that feeling of kind of having somebody, you know, overstay their welcome a little bit, and being a little bit like Luke."My brother Luke was a little bit of a Dupree for me. Yeah, he stayed with me for a year, even though he had his own house less than a mile away. I'm not kidding. I don't know why he was there. I guess because I had food in my refrigerator."

Wilson is also credited as a producer of "Dupree," but downplays his involvement on that end, explaining to Smith, "The writer, Mike LeSieur, kind of came to me and told me the idea, and I thought it was funny, so it was more a function of me being involved from early on that I got that credit, rather than me being a real producer."

He also recalled the day Lance Armstrong was on the set, doing a cameo, but says, "Kate (Hudson) kind of stole a little bit of his thunder that day, because that was the day she was in this very skimpy bikini, and she looked amazing."

But Wilson was also impressed with Hudson, the person, adding, "She has this kind of warmth, like I would kind of kid her because it's like, the first couple of days, I was getting her laughing all time. And I'm like, 'Wow, I'm really at the top of my game,' and then I realized she's like that with Matt Dillon, she's like that with the caterer, she's like that with the Teamsters, and you don't feel so special.

"And then I started accusing her of being charm monster. She like wins everybody over."