Actor Wilson's background doesn't add up

Actor Owen Wilson has revealed how he was expelled from school for cheating in a maths exam.

The star, who next appears with Jackie Chan in Shanghai Knights, tells America’s Parade magazine how he and two of his friends stole answers and cheated on the test.

Wilson got caught and when he wouldn’t tell the headmaster who else was involved, he was expelled.

He says: “I got called into the headmaster’s office and he handed me a geometry problem and told me to do it.

“When I couldn’t, he pointed out that I had just completed a similar one on the exam.”

Wilson says he was “completely indifferent” about school but his parents were supportive even though his father Robert was on the board of directors of the prep school he was told to leave.

He says: “I know how hard it was for him. But he didn’t think it was right to name names.”

Wilson, along with his friend Wes Anderson, won a best original screenplay Oscar for writing The Royal Tenenbaums. Anderson directed the quirky movie which Wilson starred in alongside Gene Hackman and Gwyneth Paltrow.