{image_2} Actor Patrick Wilson, son of Mathews native Mary Kathryn Burton Wilson, is starring in the new film “Midway,” about the World War II battle that took place six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. He plays Rear Admiral Edwin Layton, an intelligence officer. The movie opened in theaters last weekend.

Mary Kathryn Wilson said she and her husband, John, attended the Hawaii premiere of the film in mid-October as guests of their son. She said the movie “is a good historical lesson” and she thought Mathews residents might enjoy it because “the Navy is deeply rooted” in the county. 

While in Hawaii, said Wilson, the family toured Pearl Harbor, the museum, and the Battleship Missouri, also known as the Mighty Mo. Wilson said she recalled as a child that Captain G.C. Hudgins of Mathews was “summonsed by the Navy to take the Mighty Mo out to sea during Hurricane Hazel.”

“It was the ‘talk of the county’ at the time,” she said.

In addition, she said that her husband’s father served as a gunner on the Missouri, “so it was a special privilege to have this tour.”

Wilson said that her paternal grandparents were Mathews natives whose farm was a land grant from England. She was a graduate of Mathews High School and an organist at Christ Church. She moved to Richmond to attend VCU, then married and moved to Norfolk, where Patrick Wilson was born. The family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, when her husband was offered a job there.

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Patrick Wilson moved to New York and had a successful Broadway career, receiving Tony Award nominations for “The Full Monty” and “Oklahoma!” He had a major role in the television miniseries “Angels in America” and had his own television series, “A Gifted Man.” He has also had major roles in a number of movies, including “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Big Stone Gap” and “Aquaman.”

While many of her son’s 40-plus films might not be of interest to everyone, said Wilson, “this film is one for the masses.”

The movie was filmed in Hawaii and Montreal by noted German director Roland Emmerich. Among the most well-known actors in the film’s large ensemble cast are Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid and Mandy Moore.

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