Owen Wilson Reveals His Dream Costar Is Nicolas Cage: 'I've Loved Him in So Many Movies' (Exclusive)

Owen Wilson has nothing but praise for ‘Shanghai Noon’ costar Jackie Chan, plus Rachel McAdams in both ‘Wedding Crashers’ and ‘Midnight in Paris’

The roster of talent Owen Wilson has worked with onscreen is about as starry as any Hollywood insider could hope for. But there’s one actor he has yet to count as a scene partner.

“I love Nicolas Cage,” Wilson says when asked for his dream costar. “For some reason that just pops to mind.”

Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE prior to SAG-AFTRA’s labor strike launch, the Zoolander star adds that he’d jump at the chance to collaborate with Cage in some way: from 1997’s Face/Off to last year’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, “you know, I’ve just loved him in so many movies.”

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Wilson, 54, appeared earlier this year in the Bob Ross-inspired Paint. He next stars in Disney’s upcoming Justin Simien-directed The Haunted Mansion as Kent, a priest — the first time he’s played one and not, he admits with a characteristic smirk, a typical role considering his oeuvre.

“I don't think I'm an obvious casting choice for a man of the cloth,” he teases of his character, withholding more details ahead of the July 28 release of the film, which costars Rosario Dawson, LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jared Leto and Jamie Lee Curtis.

“But,” he adds, “for this sort of concierge-style priest who's got his exorcisms and his other sort of bag of tricks for dealing with the supernatural — and he's a little bit of a salesman where you're not quite sure if what he's saying is totally accurate — that sort of character, I think I am comfortable playing.”

In addition to Cage, Wilson tells PEOPLE he’d be open to a repeat collaboration with an old costar. “I love Jackie Chan,” he says. The two combined action, buddy comedy and Westerns onscreen in 2000’s Shanghai Noon and 2003’s Shanghai Knights, then reunited briefly in 2004’s Around the World in 80 Days. (A sequel in the Shanghai series has been in development for years, with director Jared Hess attached in 2016.)

“That was a great example, kind of early on, of someone who's such a big star, what a hard worker — and just no attitude,” Wilson says of Chan. “And then just so collaborative, completely open to us coming up with stuff. I think that that's certainly what made the [Shanghai movies] fun for me to do. And then hopefully fun for people to watch, that sort of playfulness that he and I had together.”

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Wilson is also quick to praise Jennifer Aniston, costar of 2008’s Marley & Me, plus Rachel McAdams, who played his onscreen romantic partner in not one but two movies. In 2005’s Wedding Crashers alongside Vince Vaughn, he remembers McAdams as “a great actress,” but it was during 2011’s Midnight in Paris that he saw the full extent of her talent.

“Her character that she plays in Midnight in Paris is obviously very different,” he says of McAdams’ dismissive Inez, who is revealed to be cheating on her fiancé. “It’s really funny to me that she could be so good — somebody who's Canadian, so naturally polite — can be so good at playing a character who isn't that.”

The Haunted Mansion is in theaters everywhere July 28.

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