Like his character, Patrick Wilson gets chance to lead

You may have seen Patrick Wilson in HBO's 'Angels in America,' but 'The Alamo,' in which he plays William Travis, is his first big movie.

By Chris Garcia
American-Statesman Film Writer

Posted: April 9, 2004

In separate interviews, Billy Bob Thornton expressed a blend of jump-at-it exuberance and businesslike cool about playing Davy Crockett in "The Alamo"; Jason Patric, all in black, sucked a lemon wedge as he pushed through a thicket of rancor towards Hollywood to find a single, slender sunbeam of OKness about playing Jim Bowie; and Patrick Wilson wagged his tail like a puppy that's just been picked from the litter over landing the part of William Travis.

Wilson knows "The Alamo" could be his breakout, the role that tattoos him into the minds of moviegoers the world over. The actor, 30, exudes greenhorn gratitude when he says, "It's a very small window where you can be one of the leads in a big Hollywood movie and not be famous."

When that window opened, in he jumped, despite a busy schedule. Director John Lee Hancock called while Wilson was both starring in a play and shooting the HBO production of "Angels in America."

Wilson is pretty sure that his role as the Mormon conservative Joe Pitt in "Angels" got him noticed. It helps that he shares the screen with Al Pacino and Meryl Streep under director Mike Nichols, says Wilson, an animated guy with sharp blue eyes and uncomplicated all-American features.

His vanilla looks serve him well as Lt. Col. William Barret Travis, the 26-year-old commander of the makeshift, mostly volunteer Texian troops hunkered down in the surrounded Alamo. Travis appears an underwhelming candidate to lead the men into battle — Patric's grouchy Bowie outright rejects him — but Wilson shapes an affecting character arc as Travis lives up to heroic expectations. His Travis is the most complete character in the movie.

Wilson didn't just pop into showbiz. He's been acting, singing and dancing in musical theater for years, snagging three Drama League Awards and various nominations, including a Golden Globe nod this year for his turn in "Angels in America." On Broadway he starred in "The Full Monty" and "Oklahoma." Entertainment Weekly put Wilson on its 2001 "It" list and People named him one of the most eligible bachelors of 2000. At the recent world premiere of "The Alamo" in San Antonio, Wilson, who wasn't as well known to the crowd as household-name celebrities like Thornton and Dennis Quaid, stunned the audience with an emotional rendering of "God Bless America" before the movie. Next he'll be seen as Raoul in Joel Schumacher's screen version of the musical "The Phantom of the Opera."

It was Broadway to the boondocks when Wilson moved to Austin for five months last year to film "The Alamo" in rustic Dripping Springs. The film was shot entirely on location, mainly at Michael Corenblith's magnificent 53-acre Alamo set, which stands on endless dust and brush. The actors went through weeks of training for horseback riding and handling black powder.

"You really felt like you were living there," says Wilson, who's used to imagining locations on stage.

Where he really lived during that time, though, was a tony air-conditioned loft in Austin's Warehouse District. Like so many others, he developed a crush on the city.

"I love 'Keep Austin Weird.' It took me a few months to figure out what that was about, but I really dig it," Wilson says. "Everywhere you turn, there's something. There's a bat colony! What kind of town is this? Put it this way: I went from there to London and, no offense to London, but it isn't Austin."

cgarcia@statesman.com; 445-3649