Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson - on a mission

By: Maressa Brown

One has the brunette 'fro going on, the other a shaggy blonde 'do. Give them a couple of guns, some tight jeans, hot cheerleaders, and these guys are ready to fight crime. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson were recently able to talk shop, the '70s and oh, yeah, a little bit about that new movie, Starsky and Hutch, with The Celebrity Cafe.

Stiller, only ten years old when Starsky and Hutch debuted on television, expressed his commitment to pleasing the original show's fans as well as new audiences.

"I think part of what we were trying to do was make a movie that we would enjoy seeing," he said. "I remember the show. We approach[ed] it from really loving the original. People who have actually seen the show are a tougher audience to please because of the preconceived notion of the TV show [but] we were surprised that people who didn't know the show enjoyed it as much as they did."

Stiller also felt he had to live up to the precedent set by the series' original actors, Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) and David Soul (Hutch).

"I watched as many of the episodes as I could as we were shooting," he said. "I thought [Glaser and Soul] were so great on the show and I think the basis of the show's success is their chemistry and how cool they were."

Owen Wilson agreed that he and Stiller wanted to replicate the buddy bond that made the TV show a success.

"[Glaser and Soul] had this natural chemistry," Wilson said. "Hopefully, the fact that Ben and I have worked together a lot and are friends in real life [helps]. We have our own rapport that helps the movie."

Despite their brotherhood, Stiller and Wilson may have grown at least slightly sick of one another on the set, thanks to the movie's costuming.

"It was a little nightmarish to ... see Ben wearing those tight jeans every day," Wilson said. "I actually enjoyed my clothes but it was a little tough to watch that."

Nonetheless, the 21st-century Starsky & Hutch duo enjoyed the perks that came with flashing back to a more relaxed era.

"I think it was fun to try and [have] the not-politically-correct attitude those guys had, be a cop and be a tough guy," Stiller said.

Wilson agreed that it was a positive change of pace to do a film set in the decade that gave birth to outrageous social experiences like Studio 54. The movie's Ken Hutchinson noted that what he most looked for in the Starsky and Hutch script was a "three-way kiss scene," said, "It was kind of a looser attitude toward relationships and the way men and women interacted."

Tight jeans, big hair and all, the duo was able to create their own brand of tough; the result is a likeable comedy appealing to the tastes of two generations.

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