While promoting his latest film, “The Musical,” on the episode of “Chicks in the Office” that aired on September 23, Rob Lowe talked about the path his career and personal life have taken over the years.
The producer and star of “The Musical,” a new dark comedy set in a high school, told People that as a teenager he was “like a little adult.”
“I was just a very young careerist,” he says.
Playing a high school principal alongside a young cast in “The Musical,” Lowe says, “took me back not only to the time when I was a young actor on a set for the first time, since for many of them these were their first roles, but also to the school plays I had been in so many times at their age.”
The aspiring actor was, in his own words, “definitely that little theater kid.”
The “Cool” Kids
So the move from the Midwest to Santa Monica High School was almost as much of a shock as what would happen later, when Lowe landed his film debut in the 1983 movie “The Outsiders.”
“I remember moving to Malibu and just being stunned by the ‘cool’ kids who showed up late with sand in their hair because the surf was up,” he jokes.
“The idea of skipping school to go smoke weed on the beach blew my mind, which was used to the Midwest…,” says the host of “The Floor.”
“I was auditioning all the time and I was really, really dedicated from a young age, and that did not go over well at all with the ‘cool’ crowd at Santa Monica High School.”
An Impressive Debut
However, things turned around when being a “scrawny theater kid,” as Lowe puts it, led him to “The Outsiders.”
The actor made an impressive debut alongside several future movie stars: C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, and Tom Cruise, all directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
“Overnight, with one single event, everything changed, and I went from not being on the list of popular kids to having girls break into my house and steal my underwear,” he recalls.
“The Outsiders,” adapted by Kathleen Rowell from S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel, also marked a “youth explosion in film and television,” notes Lowe, who was nominated for an Emmy for “The West Wing.”
“There was no Nickelodeon, none of that existed. So the idea that you could have a career, or God forbid become famous, as a kid was foreign, even in Los Angeles. So people didn’t understand what I was trying to do.”
It Was an Incredible Time
Lowe, who is now 62, grew up in Dayton, Ohio, where he performed in summer theater productions before moving to California after his parents’ divorce. “I had a nice little theater résumé for an 11- or 12-year-old,” says the actor, who got his first professional job in a production of “Sherlock Holmes” in Ohio.
Although the actor married Sheryl Berkoff in 1991, the ’80s were a period when he was single and trying to find his footing in both his career and his personal life.
“It was just an incredible time,” Lowe said. “It was an incredible time to be in show business. It was an incredible time to be making movies. It was an incredible time to have fun. It was an incredible time to be single. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
“In all of human history, if I could live in any era, that would be it,” he said.
“Better Than You Could Dream”
“Chicks in the Office” host Maria “Ria” Ciuffo said the ’80s were an era she would have liked to live in, to which Lowe replied: “It was better than you could dream.”
“It was better than you could dream,” he repeated. “No social media. No phone cameras.”
Lowe recalled the times he made plans to go out at night with friends and didn’t know if they would show up, since they had no way to reach each other.
“The uncertainty that created was wonderful,” he exclaimed.
“I’m Grateful”
The movie star believes that fame is now a “burden” for young stars and that they don’t “have fun” the way he did when he was starting out in cult classics like “The Outsiders” and “St. Elmo’s Fire.”
Lowe, who is now the father of sons Matthew, 33, and John Owen, 30, grew up in Dayton, Ohio, before moving to California after his parents’ divorce.
“Until I was 26, I devoted all my time to my career,” he told People in 2022. “From 26 on, I’ve been investing in myself: in my spirituality, my recovery, my marriage, my family. A lot of that was, excuse me, f***ing hard. And nobody has a perfect life… but I’m grateful for all of it.”
Back in Theaters (Again and Again)
“The Musical,” directed by Giselle Bonilla and written by Alexander Heller, also stars Will Brill and Gillian Jacobs. The film is now playing in theaters.
Lowe’s upcoming projects include the film “The Third Parent,” which premieres on January 22, the comedy-drama “My New Friend Jim,” and a romantic comedy starring Cameron Diaz.
