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Wilson gives audition tips to aspiring actors at film fest

The Associated Press

Actor Patrick Wilson, who grew up in the Bay area, said he'd love to make a movie here.

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By WALT BELCHER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 1, 2009

Updated: 05/01/2009 10:40 am

Actor Patrick Wilson had planned to stay through the weekend but his wife actress Dagmara Dominczyk, who is pregnant with their second child, wasn't feeling well and needed him back home in New York.

"I think everything will be fine but I'm going; we'll be back later this year," he said in a telephone interview on the way to the airport Thursday evening.

Wilson, a success on Broadway and in films, was in St. Petersburg this week to take part in the annual Sunscreen Film Festival. He says he tries to come back at least three times a year to visit his friends and family.

Wilson, 35, son of WTVT, Channel 13, anchor John Wilson and singer Mary K. Wilson, grew up in Pinellas County. His brother, Mark, also is an anchor at WTVT. Brother Paul is a public relations and marketing specialist who is promoting the Sunscreen Festival.

The star of Broadway shows such as "Oklahoma!" and "The Full Monty" walked the red carpet at the BayWalk Muvico 20 Wednesday night for the festival's opening event, a screening of "Passengers," a supernatural thriller starring Wilson and Anne Hathaway.

The film had been set for a September 2008 debut but the distributor Sony apparently had little faith in it and unloaded it in only 165 theaters in October 2008. "I'm proud it and I want people to see it," says Wilson who plays a survivor of an airplane crash who has a romantic relationship with Hathaway's character.

He says he was happy to be a part of the Sunscreen festival. "This is home and I want to help the local film industry," he says, adding that he would like to film a movie here.

The Sunscreen Film Festival continues through Sunday. For more information go to http://www.sunscreenfilmfestival.com.

The graduate of Shorecrest Prep School in St. Petersburg and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh apparently was influenced by his parents' love of music and theater. His mother and father perform at various concerts in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.

During an acting workshop on Thursday, Wilson coached and advised aspiring actors on how to audition for films and television. "The big thing now is putting your audition on video," he says. "Especially for actors in Florida who need to impress casting directors in New York."

Wilson says he auditioned for dozens of roles that he never landed before he established himself. After roles in films such as "Phantom of the Opera" and "The Alamo" and the award-winning HBO miniseries "Angels in America," the film offers came to him.

Up next, he co-stars with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman in the romantic comedy "The Baster" currently in production in New York. "The Baster" centers on a neurotic and insecure man (Bateman) who finds out his best friend (Aniston) wants to have a child through artificial insemination. He surreptitiously replaces her donor's semen with his own and is then forced to live with the secret that he is the child's real father.

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