Rocketing to Obscurity

On Sunday, I met a woman whose last name used to be Dignan. She got divorced and is named something else now. So having a movie brain, I started to wonder. Did this woman know she had the same last name as the main character in "Bottle Rocket" --- the first movie starring Owen & Luke Wilson that was shot in Richardson and Dallas by then first time director Wes Anderson? I didn't say anything about it. And then I asked her about her sons. The oldest one's name is Stephen Dignan and he lives in New York and currently employed as a "free spirit" whatever that means. We talked about his high school years, and since he's fairly close to me in age, I asked who his friends were. Then she mentioned that Owen Wilson was one of his friends, but in a matter of fact instead of a name-dropping way. And sure enough, he was in the mix during the filming of Bottle Rocket. They wanted to film part of the movie in the woman's house, but apparantly Dad was out on that. And yes, the inspiration for character Dignan was this woman's son, she says. He got a bit part in the movie. Because I'm not the trusting sort I looked up the credits for this 1996 movie. Sure enough, the part of "Rob" is played by Stephen Dignan.