CuzWILSON Show Premiere: The Fascinating Connection of People, Places, and Things Named Wilson

Foreign.

I am so excited to welcome you to the very first episode of the Cuz Wilson Show.

We're going to talk about people, places and things named Wilson.

You're probably thinking, are you going to mention Wilson?

You know the volleyball from Castaway, right?

Of course I am.

Since this is my first episode, you bet I am.

And who am I?

I'm your host.

The one and only.

Oh, wait, the one of many.

Kenny Wilson.

But you can call me Cuz.

That's what I call my cousins so I don't have to remember their first name.

Now, even though the volleyball is a thing for every episode, we're going to cover all three topics of people, places and things named Wilson.

We also throw in a few mini segments between those topics just for fun.

But no commercials.

We just have more goodies about Wilson's.

And towards the end, we'll even include Wilson's in the news from the last few days or Wilson's in sports from the last week.

There's so many Wilson's in the news every day.

We're not going to just fill up the podcast with people in the news.

We'll put a few more in our weekly newsletter which is called the Cuz Buzz.

And you can sign up for that free online@CuzWilson.com.

there's one thing about me that I'm a computer nerd.

Of course, nowadays I use AI tools to scour the Internet to find stories about Wilson's.

I use another AI tool called NotebookLM to combine all that information and create a story or a conversation for you.

And the stories they tell are narrated by a man or a woman, or sometimes both.

I call them Larry and Mary.

You know, for the L and the M. For NotebookLM, that's not their official names, that's just what I call them.

Don't worry, I'm gonna mix it up some.

This particular show is a solo hosted show.

Next week's show will be an interview show.

And sometimes we'll have co hosted shows.

Now, of course, when I do interviews and I do co hosted shows, those are going to be real live Wilson's.

Trust me.

I'll start off with the volleyball.

And that covers our thing named Wilson.

But I have a challenge for you.

See if you can guess who our focus will be for the people topic and then see if you can guess where we're going to go for a place named Wilson for our place topic.

Here we go.

We are tackling probably the most famous inanimate object in movie history has to.

Be Wilson from Castaway Exactly.

And our mission here is to dig into the production notes, the screenwriter's own story, and correct a pretty big misconception about where Wilson actually came from.

Right, because everyone has that image of Tom Hanks screaming at a volleyball.

Wilson.

We all know the line, but what if I told you the very first Wilson, the one that sparked the whole idea, wasn't a volleyball?

That's the core of it.

This story really starts with the screenwriter William Royles Jr. And his, let's call it extreme research.

He went full method actor, didn't he?

Oh, absolutely.

He had himself stranded deliberately for 10 days in the Sea of Cortez.

He wanted to feel that, you know, that crushing physical and psychological weight of being alone.

Wow.

Okay, so he's out there really breaking.

Down, and that's what happened.

He hit a wall.

He described it as this metaphysical need for companionship.

He just needed to talk.

And that's when something washed ashore.

Yep.

An artifact from civilization.

But here's the twist.

Everyone gets wrong.

It was a Wilson branded soccer ball.

A soccer ball.

Not a volleyball.

Not a volleyball.

The character of Wilson was born from a soccer ball that washed up on a beach.

So wait, if the entire idea, the authentic moment of inspiration came from a soccer ball, why is he a volleyball in the movie?

That seems like a strange detail to change.

It was a purely practical technical problem.

Really?

Yeah.

So Wilson's sporting goods, they initially sent the production a bunch of soccer balls, but when the props department tried to create that iconic bloody handprint face, the paint just wouldn't adhere correctly to the soccer ball's material.

You know, that harder sort of vulcanized rubber, it wouldn't stick for filming.

Oh, okay.

So they had to pivot.

They had to.

They asked for volleyballs instead.

Specifically 60 custom made ones with the logo on only one side.

The synthetic leather texture on a volleyball was just perfect for the paint and the distressing they needed.

So Wilson the character, came from despair, but Wilson, the movie prop, came from paint.

Friendly synthetic leather.

Pretty much.

And once he was on screen, his function was just so crucial.

He was Chuck Nolan's psychological anchor.

He was the way Nolan could talk his plans out.

Right.

It let us, the audience, in on his thinking.

Exactly.

It's how we understand the plan to build the raft or his calculations about the search area.

Without Wilson, it's just a guy being silent on an island for an hour.

Tom Hanks even said he started hearing Wilson's voice in his head during filming.

That's incredible.

And that emotional connection translated into this just massive Cultural and commercial phenomenon.

And it was completely unpaid product placement.

Wilson Sporting Goods paid nothing for what's now considered one of the best brand integrations in film history.

It totally took the brand out of the gym and into like global pop culture for sure.

I mean, in 2001, Wilson won the Critics choice award for best inanimate object.

He's the only non human to ever get one.

And people still buy the replicas, right?

Thousands.

They sell something like 20 to 25,000 of them every single year, even now.

But the value of the originals, yeah, that's just staggering.

Oh, it's astronomical.

One of the main screen used props, one of the really distressed ones from late in the film sold at auction.

For how much?

Over US$311,000.

What for a volleyball?

That's.

That's more than a Ferrari.

More than a very nice Ferrari.

So we've gone from a random soccer ball found by a writer during a breakdown all the way to a six figure collector's item.

It's an amazing journey and it leaves you with a really fascinating thought.

Considering that this object, which really represents four years of human suffering and desperate loneliness, sold for over $300,000, it raises a question for you to think about.

What is the extreme financial value we place on an object of despair?

Tell us about our own collective human need for companions.

That was pretty cool, wasn't it?

I bet you didn't know half that stuff.

But before we move on to the people topic, keep in mind that some of our listeners are under 30 years old or they live in another country or they may have never even seen that movie.

I have a link in my show notes where you can go to watch the movie.

Speaking of show notes, I put most of them on our website@cuz wilson.com that's C U Z Wilson.

Or in other parts of the world it's c u z wilson.com.

the link is on the menu bar at the top of the page or it's on that little three line.

We call them hamburger menus on your mobile device.

Now here's a kind of a fun thing to do while you go to cuz wilson.com show scroll down a little bit until you see the wall of Wilson's.

I used icons to separate a lot of the different Wilsons that have achieved some really cool things in life.

Some of those in the past, some of them are still achieving them now.

Right at the top there's one that says automotive.

If you click on that, you'll see that there was two different automobile manufacturers Named Wilson.

I bet you didn't know that one of them was in the uk, but one of them was in the United States, right up the shoreline from Niagara Falls in Wilson, New York.

But since they were just up the street from Niagara, that's the name they gave to one of their cars.

Okay, this might happen a lot because like most podcasters, I have ADD and I chased that squirrel a little bit too much.

Sorry, where was I?

Where was I?

Okay, it's time for the People topic.

All right, did you guess who we're going to spotlight for the People segment?

If you said Rita Wilson, you are correct, you win a new Wilson Niagara car.

No, they stopped making that in 1904, so never mind.

Yep, it's Rita Wilson, and she's been Tom Hanks wife for more than 35 years.

And she also has a star in Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

That's just a couple stars down from Tom's star.

I thought that was pretty cool.

Some people might say that Rita is just as popular, and some might say she's even more diverse in her talents as Tom.

Tom, start nodding your head yes.

Well, Rita was actually born with the name Margarita.

Not just Rita, but Margarita.

But when she was four years old, her father changed his name to Alan Wilson after a street name in their neighborhood.

So Rita took the end of her first name, Rita, and she took her father's name, Wilson, and she created her professional name.

You know, it's amazing, the effect of a street sign that has your name on it.

I drove by one that had my name on it, which Wilson, but it kind of almost had my son's name.

His name is Cortland.

When he was a child, we call him Court.

The street is Wilson Court, and it says Wilson ct.

So that's kind of a.

It's kind of special to me.

When I first saw it, I stopped my car, turned around, got out, took pictures of that, and sent it to my son.

It was fun.

You can find that photo on our.

On our website under the More tab at the top.

And then you scroll down for Cuz pics.

There's another photo on there that is kind of cool that I want you to look at, but I want really, I want you to send me some photos or pics that has Wilson in it.

Maybe a building or school or a lake or someplace you've been or something that means something special to you.

And I'll.

I'll put it under the Cuz pics section.

Well, now it's time for us to talk about Rita.

Wilson's career, and it is a doozy.

Today's mission is, I think, a really fascinating one.

It is.

We are analyzing the surprisingly calculated, decades long career of Margarita Ibrahimoff, better known.

As Rita Wilson, of course.

Exactly.

We're tracking her evolution from an actress, you know, starting on shows like the Brady Bunch way back in 72, to becoming this self determined executive and a successful singer songwriter.

And it's really a case study in professional reorientation.

What's so interesting about her is this ability to see potential where other people just saw, I don't know, niche appeal.

She was willing to take these huge.

Risks, major financial risks.

Yeah.

On projects that were culturally specific, but somehow had this universal resonance.

Okay, let's jump right into that producer acumen then.

We have to start with My big Zach Greek Wedding.

What was the key moment there?

Well, what's so crucial is that she saw Nia Vardalis.

One woman stage show.

Just a small stage show, a tiny.

Stage monologue, and she was the driving force behind turning it into a film.

That's a massive risk.

And the gamble, I mean, it paid.

Off spectacularly paid off is an understatement.

A $5 million budget that ends up making 368.77 million worldwide, that's not luck.

That is a kind of counterintuitive belief in the material.

And she did it again.

She didn't invent the ABBA musical Mamma Mia.

But she saw it on stage in.

London and was smart enough to snap up the rights almost immediately.

She then served as a producer on that huge 2008 hit and the sequel.

So this strategic vision, it seems to all culminate in her going fully independent.

Yes, exactly.

I mean, she was the CFO of Playtone, but then in 2022, she establishes her own company, Artistic films.

A clear professional declaration.

Absolutely.

And its very first project, a man Called Otto, immediately made waves with that huge Sony deal.

That $60 million acquisition deal wasn't just a business win, it was validation.

It proved her standalone commercial authority in the industry and, you know, outside of her established network.

Okay, so if we follow that thread of professional independence, then this is where it gets really interesting.

The pivot to being a singer songwriter.

A total left turn right.

Was this another calculated risk or just a passion project?

It seems it began around 2005 as a real moment of self inquiry.

Her asking herself, what do I want?

But the real license, the permission came from Bruce Springsteen.

He told her something that I think is so profound.

He said, creativity is time.

Independent.

Wow, that's a powerful statement.

It gave her permission to just ignore all the industry timelines about when you're supposed to start something new.

But let me ask you this.

How much of that success for albums pretty quickly was because of her massive network?

Oh, that's the strategic genius of it.

She absolutely leveraged her contacts to bypass years of, you know, artistic struggle.

So the collaborations with people like Willie.

Nelson, Willie Nelson, Keith Urban, these high profile duets, they instantly accelerated her credibility.

It got her acceptance in the country and Americana spaces much, much faster.

And at the same time, her acting choices were changing.

She starts to move away from that warm, kind, nurturing mother type.

Exactly.

She deliberately broke that mold, which led to these really nuanced parts.

Like Lois in the Netflix comedy Too Much.

And even more chillingly, her role in Steven Soderbergh's thriller, Kimi oh, Natalie Chowdhury.

She played that corporate manager with this fun, false empathy that was just used to suppress misconduct.

It was a masterful subversion of her public Persona.

Let's end with maybe the most actionable takeaway here, which came from a period of real personal crisis for her.

Her201's breast cancer diagnosis.

Yeah.

It became this huge public health platform.

And the insight here is just paramount.

She got an initial pathology report that said no cancer.

Right.

But she trusted her gut, her instinct, and she sought a second opinion.

And that second opinion correctly identified invasive lobular carcinoma.

It's an aggressive form that the first report just missed entirely.

That is.

That's a life saving decision.

She continues to stress that getting a second opinion is, quote, critical to your health.

And it's not just talk.

That commitment is long term.

She and her husband have been honorary co chairs of the Women's Cancer Research fund for over 20 years.

It's advocacy that's rooted in, you know, deeply personal experience.

So Rita Wilson's entire journey from producer to singer really shows that these pivotal career moves aren't restricted by time or who you used to be.

She turned a health crisis into public service and creative yearning into a whole second act.

That's pretty inspiring.

It is.

So the challenge to you is what is the biggest, most fulfilling career pivot you could make?

Knowing that, as Bruce Springsteen reminded her, creativity is time independent, that's something worth a deep dive on your own.

Thank you for that review.

But wait, there's more.

Less than a month ago, of the time I recorded this episode, the 2025 CMA Awards aired.

The CMA is country music association for their industry.

It was solo, hosted by Laney Wilson.

And during the night, she racked up three more major awards.

She's got several over the years.

Then Gretchen Wilson and Stephen Wilson Jr.

They also won some awards.

Even Rita Wilson was there.

And she introduced superstars Reba McIntyre, Lainey Wilson and Miranda Lambert for a song they did.

I've got a link in the show notes so you can actually see when Rita Wilson was doing that.

I think they should have called it the CMA Wilson Awards Show.

There's so many Wilsons.

It was all over the place.

It was so cool.

Loved it.

Okay, now it's time for the place topic.

Now, it might have been a little obvious for you who the people topic would be.

And you probably guessed it was Rita.

But you don't have a clue where a place named Wilson is.

And as Justin Wilson in Louisiana would say, I guarantee.

So since you don't have a clue, I'll give you some.

It's part of the smallest continent on Earth.

There are no permanent buildings or people who live there, but you can camp there in luxury.

It's only about five acres, and that's about two hectares in metric.

Hey, squirrel.

There was a Hector Wilson who was an actor in wizard of Oz.

Okay, sorry.

Sorry about that squirrel.

Here's another.

Here's another hint.

It's in a reef that is longer than if you were traveling from Boston to the southern tip of Florida.

Here's one.

There are 36 islands in the world with this name.

There's also one in Antarctica.

Well, that hint was a little bit obvious.

Of course.

It's Wilson Island.

And this Wilson island is in the Great Barrier Reef off the eastern coast of Australia.

And the reason I chose this island is because Wilson was stranded on an island.

But the main difference about this island, you would want to be stranded on this island, at least for a weekend.

Today we are going somewhere really special.

A tiny speck on the Great Barrier Reef called Wilson Island.

Hmm.

And what?

First things first, because I know people get this wrong.

It's a coral K, that's C a Y, but it's pronounced key.

Exactly.

Like a key for a door.

And that's our whole mission today.

We're looking at this island as a sort of case study.

A case study for what exactly?

For an extreme version of low volume, high value luxury.

I mean, it's all built on a foundation of really rigorous conservation.

Okay, so paint the picture for us.

It's tiny, right?

But it's minuscule.

Just 2 hectares, which is about 5 acres.

It's about 80 km off the coast from Gladstone.

And you can only even get there by boat from another island, Heron Island.

So it's remote and exclusive, I'm guessing.

Incredibly, it's adults only.

And get this, there's a maximum of 18 guests total.

18 on the whole island.

That's it.

Just nine permanent tents.

You can actually, you know, book the entire island for yourself if you want.

So they call this glamping, right?

Glamour camping?

Yeah, but this is pretty next level glamping.

They're called reef safari tents and they're tucked away in this beautiful pisonia forest.

And inside, it's not exactly a sleeping bag on the ground.

Not at all.

We're talking king size beds, premium eco linen, really nice pillows.

But the key thing is what's not there.

No phones, no television.

So the luxury is the disconnect.

That's the whole point.

The soundtrack is just the ocean and the birds.

It's intentionally disconnected.

Okay, but what about the amenities, the practical stuff?

You can't have nine tents with nine separate plumbing systems on a sensitive cay like that.

You can't and they didn't.

They have one central separate amenities building with six private spaces.

It's a deliberate choice to minimize the footprint.

That's a bold move for a high end resort.

It is, but it allows them to invest in other things, like service.

When you arrive, you're literally greeted on the beach by your host and a dedicated chef.

A chef is waiting for you on the beach?

Yeah, waiting right there for you.

Everyone gathers in the central building called the longhouse, and the chef comes over to discuss, you know, any dietary needs.

Dinner is like a big communal dinner party.

That sounds amazing.

And I imagine the food is a big part of the experience.

Oh, absolutely.

Locally sourced produce, incredible seafood, it's all part of that high touch service model.

Right, but this all happens within a really strict environmental framework.

It's a national park, isn't it?

It is.

It's a marine national park.

Green zone.

Which means a very strict no touch, no take policy.

No fishing, no collecting shells, nothing.

And I read about a mandatory closure.

Yes, this is the most extreme part.

Queensland National Parks forces the entire resort to shut down for two months every year from February 1st to April 1st.

Two months.

That's a huge financial hit.

Why?

For the wildlife.

It's to give the marine birds, and most importantly the threatened turtle populations, total peace and quiet for their nesting and breeding cycles.

We're talking green and loggerhead turtles here?

The very same.

So during nesting season, the rules are just incredibly strict.

No lights on the beach.

After dark, absolutely no flash photography.

You have to stay still and low and keep your distance at least 10 meters away from any turtle you can.

You do not interfere.

Which brings up a really interesting point about the hatchlings.

Okay.

The rule is you must let them make their own way to the water.

You cannot help them, even if they look like they're struggling.

That seems counterintuitive.

Why not help them?

It's because of a biological process called imprinting.

That first difficult walk from the nest across the sand to the water is literally creating a map in their brain.

A map?

A navigational map.

They are imprinting on the unique magnetic signature of that specific beach so that decades later, when they're mature adults, they know exactly how to get back to that same spot to lay their own eggs.

Wow.

So by not helping them.

By not helping them, you're guaranteeing the future of the island as a rookery.

That single unprotected struggle across the sand secures the entire ecosystem for generations to come.

That is an incredible thought.

The entire future of this luxury destination depends on the struggle of a baby turtle.

Now, does that sound amazing or what?

You can visit their site@wilsonisland.com.

well, when I went to wilsonisland.com one thing that really popped out to me right there on their tagline.

They actually refer to Wilson island as a castaway in style.

Isn't that cool?

Now, normally, this is where we would start our last segment, which is news and sports.

We spot a lot of Wilson in the news in the last seven days and a Wilson in sports in the last seven days.

And then we put more of each in our Cuz Buzz newsletter.

But since this is the First Wednesday of 2026, I made a list of the Wilson achievements for the entire 2025 year.

And this list is huge.

It would take way too long for me to read them all.

Might get a little bit boring if your name isn't Wilson.

So I'll just put it on my homepage and you can go there.

And then next week, this segment will be the news in the sports segment.

And now we have a couple of bonus mini segments.

One is the question of the week.

What other US President besides Woodrow Wilson had Wilson in his name?

The answer is going to be in the Cuz Buzz newsletter, but you'll probably look it up online.

So, no, I'm not going to tell you it's going to be in our Cuz Buzz newsletter and you'll just have to see in the next mini segment is our Uncle Willie joke.

Willie only Tells dad jokes.

Uncle Willie made a snowman in his front yard and he made some little baby snowmen next to it.

Willie said they are his snowman's children.

I need you guys to send me some dad jokes so I can blame you instead of you blaming me.

Okay, next week's next Wednesday's topics in our people topic.

I've already had an interview with a genealogist and guess what her last name is.

Duh, it's Wilson.

Well, the cool part is she's from the country where our name had its beginnings and she already had all this information.

It was really cool.

You're going to love it.

On the place topic, it's a place named Wilson Town.

It's in Scotland as well.

And if you think about Scotland, one of the things that comes to mind usually is the Scottish kilt.

So the thing we're going to talk about is the Scottish tartan.

I didn't know what a tartan was until the genealogist told me about it.

But anyway, one of the first companies to make tartans in Scotland was the Wilson family.

So it's pretty cool.

You're gonna love it.

It's pretty neat.

So now, before we go, I need a favor.

And this one does not involve money.

You know how everybody says at the end, you know, hit the like button and the follow button.

That way you'll be reminded when we have a new episode that comes out.

But I have a special request.

You see, social media won't let me advertise to someone named Wilson.

I can advertise to golfers or underwater basket weavers or something, but I can't just send out an ad to let all the Wilsons know that we have a new podcast.

If you liked the idea or the concept of this podcast, I need your help getting the word out to other Wilson's.

If your last name is Wilson, tell your family about it.

You could also just simply put our website in a post on your social media accounts.

Most of the time if you just put the website, it'll come up and give you a logo and a link to our website.

If your name is Wilson, that will catch your eye.

Okay, now I just want to say thank you for putting up with me for this very first podcast.

And until next Wilson Wednesday, go out and make your cousin proud.

See you, cuz.