When I first saw this Esquire cover, my first thought was “the Butterscotch Stallion rides again!” Owen looks really good, no doubt. He’s 52 years old and enjoying some kind of unexpected, unplanned career renaissance. Personally, I don’t think he ever really went away, but the younger people have truly just “discovered” Owen because of Disney+’s Loki series. They had no clue that he was considered one of the hottest and most in-demand actors for years, I guess. This time is different – Owen is older and wiser and he’s gotten a lot of distance from the Hollywood machinery. He lives full-time in Maui and apparently maintains a hands-on relationship with his two sons from previous relationships.

The Esquire profile is overwrought and overwritten, but I’m left with the impression that there is still something deeply off-beat about Owen. Not in a bad way and not in a good way. He’s very loose and chatty and unaffected, but there does seem to be some kind of undercurrent of something melancholic, just out of reach. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

On doing press for Loki: “They asked me a lot about—‘It sounds like you had to be convinced to do this.’ I don’t know where they’re getting that. That isn’t true. The director just called me and told me the idea, and I wanted to work on it. But somehow what seems to be in their press notes, maybe, is that I know zero about the MCU. I don’t know a ton about it, but I know- [he pauses] – Actually, yeah, I probably don’t know that much about it. I kind of know about Iron Man. I’ve seen Aquaman. He’s swimming in jeans. No one can swim in jeans! That was my argument with the kids about Aquaman.”

On the SiriusXM channel that plays eighties music exclusively. “I sometimes can’t listen to that, because it’s too heartbreaking. I would listen to it driving home, and it was like, I can’t take this song right now. I listen to, I think it’s channel 73, 40s Junction or something. I love that.”

On Midnight in Paris: “I remember talking to someone before doing it and saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if this was like a Vicky Cristina Barcelona, one of those Woody Allen movies? Like a good one?’ And I remember sitting through the screening at Cannes next to Rachel McAdams and thinking, Well, it’s definitely not one of those! What a disaster. But then it has been one of those! So it’s strange, isn’t it? That you can’t process something like that while you’re doing it. Because now I can see it and go, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s good!’ ”

He appreciates where he is in his life: “I don’t know. I’ve been in sort of a lucky place of feeling pretty appreciative of things. I know everything’s kind of up and down, but when you get on one of these waves, you’ve gotta ride it as long as you can. I’ve just felt—yeah. Feeling pretty grateful. Well, grateful’s one of those words that get used all the time. Appreciative. Of, you know, stuff.”

On fatherhood & his own childhood: He has two young sons, ten and seven, by two different former partners—everyone lives nearby and gets along, and Owen has the boys on a single-dad schedule. The other evening, he was trimming the younger one’s fingernails, and the boy was getting upset and saying, “Don’t go below the line!” and Owen was saying, “Just relax!” and the whole scene was fraught with tension. Afterward, Owen said to his son, “What do you say?” and the boy said, dutifully, “Thaaank youu,” and then muttered to his brother, “for nothing.” Owen heard it. “It’s funny how we get cast in these roles, because it seems like just yesterday I was the one muttering ‘for nothing,’ and now I’m the person in this role. Once you’re an adult, you think childhood was so innocent and beautiful, but you forget.”

On death: “As a kid, there’s a lot of things that you think about. Death—that kind of landed with me when I was about eleven. And I don’t remember ever talking with my parents about it. Although I do remember one time saying to my dad—and I remember exactly where in the house—saying, ‘I worry about dying,’ and seeing my dad turn away and catch himself. And I was surprised to see that reaction. But who knows, maybe that was part of why I said it.”

[From Esquire]

There’s more personal stuff in there, and he talks a little bit about what happened after he attempted suicide, how his brother Andrew came to live with him and Andrew set up a daily schedule so at least he would have that structure to fall back on. He just mentioned that memory in passing during the interview and that little detail broke my f–king heart. It just feels like that’s part of the undercurrent too, the deep well of sadness he carries with him in addition to all of the other, happier parts of his life. I also didn’t know that he’s that involved in his sons’ lives, so that’s cool. I’m glad for him. And that part about how little he knows about Marvel was hilarious.

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Photo and cover courtesy of Esquire.