by Rob Lowe
I didn’t go to college. At seventeen, I left home to go on location for my first movie. The first private space of my own wasn’t a dorm room; it was a hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I didn’t have to navigate a brand-new, totally foreign ecosystem of fellow students and faculty; I was thrown unceremoniously into a strange group of actors and crew members. And I had the knowledge that for good or bad, it would all be over in three months, not four years. Now, for the first time that I can think of, I have no personal life experience to draw from to guide my son. My first and only college experience will be through him.
Unloading in front of the Gothic-style dorm, the welcoming upperclassmen do crazy, exuberant dances and grab boxes to help. These are the RAs of the dorm, the first bit of much new collegiate vocabulary I will learn along with my son.
He and I leave Sheryl to do her masterwork in his corner, hardwood-floored room. She will handle the important groundwork of his comfort for the next year. I will handle other issues: finding the best pizza, finding a gym where he can continue jujitsu, the purchase of a bicycle and where to stash it. Sheryl’s immaculate and detailed renovation is an OCD and maternal-love-fueled epic poem of logistics and labor, so Matthew and I have plenty of time to explore and just spend time together.
I’m surprised at how little we say to each other, and how good that feels. There is nothing we are withholding and I know that our “being current” with each other, as the shrinks would say, is a result of years spent in each other’s company. Not just dinner or good-nights or drop-offs; it’s time coaching his teams, being in the stands, on fishing boats, in the water surfing or diving, watching stupid television, being home on nights when he is with his friends and talking smack with them, standing up to and getting in the face of teachers, parents, other kids or anyone who so much as thought about treating him badly.
We put in the time together; we built this thing we have of comfort and love. And now, as we both prepare to let go of each other, it is paying off. That evening, even though his dorm room is ready he says, “Dad, I think I’ll just stay with you and Mom tonight.” I catch Sheryl’s eye; this time, it’s hers that are moist.
The next morning, after all of the freshmen file out of the massive and imposing chapel after convocation, Matthew shows his first signs of uncertainty. The president’s speech was an ode to the incoming achievers, “the most highly accomplished” class ever accepted in “the most competitive year” in the school’s history. It took this elegant ceremony, in a setting both beautiful and intimidating, among a sea of strangers, some of the best kids our country has to offer, for Matthew to realize the stakes. He did it. This is real. He is here. This is happening.
“Dad, what if it’s too hard for me here?” he asks me later, sitting on his fold-out bed back at the hotel, looking more “fresh” than “man.”
“You came from a very tough academic school with great grades. You took the tests, you got the scores, you did the hours and you did the travel and extracurriculars. You made it happen. No one else. This won’t be any different. This school chose you because they know you can succeed here.”
“None of the other kids look scared at all,” he says, and for the first time I can remember since he was a baby, I can see his eyes welling up. I want to reach out and hug him, but I don’t. Instead I look him in the eye.
“Never compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.”
He nods and turns away.
“I think I might take a nap.”
“Sure, I’ll wake you in a while,” I say.
He curls up in a ball, like he used to. I unfold a blanket and cover him, tucking it underneath, rolling him in it, like a burrito.
* * *
The students who populate the university are impressive. These are the ones who didn’t dumb it down to be cool, the ones who were unabashed about learning and loved doing it. Anyone feeling anxious about the future of our country should spend a couple of days on our college campuses. These kids are studs.
Matthew meets friends quickly, a great group of freshmen from all over the country.
“Dad, they all can’t believe I left Southern California. They all want to go there.”
“This is exactly how you will get to live in Southern California if you want to. You will earn it here,” I tell him at a good-bye dinner Sheryl and I have put together for him and his new pals. He nods in his solemn way.
After dinner the gang plans on going to one of the local nightspots. “Dad, you gotta come!” He insists, and I know, like me, he is playing to delay the end of the evening. I leave before sunrise in the morning.
Sheryl will stay later (I have to be back at Parks and Recreation by noon to shoot a full day) and she urges me to go. “Do it. He wants to be with you. I’ll drop you off.”
But at the hot spot it is wall-to-wall kids, easily a couple hundred of them, raucous and spilling out into the street. I know I can’t wade into a group like that unnoticed. Matthew knows it too.
“Honey, I can’t go in there,” I say as everyone piles out of our rental car.
“I know, Dad.”
We lock eyes for the tiniest beat. I want to see what, if anything, he will say. His new “bros” are already striding to the club and he doesn’t want to be left behind. This is the college good-bye I’ve heard so much about and dreaded so deeply.
I close in to hug him, but he puts just one arm around me, a half hug.
“Peace,” he says, a phrase I’d never heard him use until he said the same thing to his little brother in the driveway.
Then he turns on his heel and strides away. From his body language I know he won’t turn to look back; I know why and I’m glad.
I watch him until I can’t see him anymore, until he’s swallowed up by his new friends and his new life.
* * *
Our house is not the same now. Sheryl and Johnowen and I, overnight, have a completely different dynamic. Quieter, gentler, deeper in some ways that I cannot understand. Matthew’s dog, Buster, has stopped eating, which is maybe not a bad thing considering his weight issues. I had a five thirty A.M. call on set the next day and I used it as an excuse to sleep in Matthew’s room. I told myself I did it to have some quiet to get to bed early.
My children have always made me feel. They have always taught me, changed me, always for the better. I hope I have been the best dad I could be and that I have succeeded more than I failed. Having them in my life turned me into a man. Now, with my long-distance longing and worry, covered by electric excitement about the future for Matthew, I realize that saying good-bye to him has turned me into a boy.
And now, we will both grow up.
With my favorite Patriots fan.
The 99 Percent
I love acting. I love what I get to do for a living. It’s one of the greatest blessings of my life. I never lose sight of the fact that so many work at jobs that are merely that—jobs—that so many put in their efforts mainly so they can go home and do what they really want to do. It’s much easier for me to get up at four thirty A.M. to go to a job I’m passionate about than it is for some to go to a job they are indifferent to.
However, as the British would say, I very much enjoy “taking the piss” out of my line of work. It’s not that I don’t value my industry, it’s that oftentimes we have it coming. I’m sure there are more than a few examples of tomfoolery in show business in these pages but it’s because I have such an affection for my fellows and the knowledge that sometimes we all could be better, both as performers and people. I’m never more aware of this than when I see one of my own performances or replay an interaction with my friends, family or coworkers and think, “I can be better than this.”
I want to live up to my heroes. It’s well-known that there’s always someone better than you are: more talented, more famous, richer, smarter, better looking. Someone is always doing something better than you are and being better rewarded for it. There isn’t a person on earth who isn’t part of this 99 percent i
n some fashion. But I never feel envy; I’m not resentful or jealous. I don’t begrudge the elite. I worship at the altar of the elite. These are not folks to vilify or use as political fodder. For me, these are the North Stars to be used as guides to the places I still hope to go. They are my inspiration.
It would be great to live in a culture where a genius like George Lucas doesn’t have to inoculate himself against criticism of his making a huge profit selling Star Wars to Disney by announcing he is “giving most of it away” to charity. It’s not our business what he does with the rewards of his genius, whether it’s four dollars or four billion dollars. What matters is: He came from nowhere, no one handed him anything and by the power of his mind he built an empire that brought joy to millions. He has earned the right to answer to no one.
I am an unabashed fan of earned, deserved success.
Sure, when I read Jerry Maguire I thought, “I would kill in that role!” But to see my old pal Tom Cruise in the scene where he goes from being “the master of the living room” to the naked vulnerability of “you complete me” makes me want to weep, not out of envy, but because he is a man fulfilling his potential. When someone is blessed with “their moment” and crushes it, it’s deeply moving for me. Seeing Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago revealing herself as a world-class song-and-dance woman or discovering a new face like Christophe Waltz asking, “Are you harboring enemies of the state?” in Inglourious Basterds turns me back into that little boy who fell in love with the movies. And in today’s jaded, bottom-line-minded world, I’m grateful for it.
One of my wife Sheryl’s big movies as a makeup artist was Glengarry Glen Ross, starring her client Al Pacino. I came east to visit her and sat one day in the shadows to watch. All the lions of the screen were there: Al, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey and Alan Arkin. But the scene to be filmed that day was one where their characters were all to be schooled by a young interloper from the head office, to be played by my friend Alec Baldwin. Now, Alec can carry his own water, and he had plenty of experience and success coming into this day, but I don’t care who you are, if you are doing a three-page monologue where it is incumbent on you to outshine a murderers’ row like that group, there are no guarantees.
I chatted with Sheryl, had espresso with Al and then pulled up to an apple box in the shadows to watch Alec shoot the big scene.
What I witnessed was one of the largest beat-downs an actor has ever delivered. Alec’s “always be closing” sequence in Glengarry Glen Ross would become iconic. The writing was breathtaking and the right actor was there at the right time; he had only to execute, and he did. I had hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
Al and the greats seemed appropriately stunned, although no one overtly noted the ass-kicking Alec had just delivered. (Although I thought I noticed one of them doing a less-than-perfect job of covering his professional jealousy. And it shows in that actor’s performance in the scene.)
The writing and the acting on that day continue to inspire me. My line of work, like most jobs I’m sure, can sometimes be demoralizing, maybe even a little boring. But whenever I’m feeling “over it,” that maybe I’ve been at this for too long and it’s all a little bloodless, I know what to do. I go to YouTube and type in “Alec Baldwin, always be closing speech.” And I’m fifteen again, in love with movies, with acting and feeling the full throttle of my abilities and passion to use them. I’m ready to walk through walls again.
When I was approached by Ridley Scott’s company to play JFK in Killing Kennedy, one of the reasons I said yes was my hunch that playing one of my heroes would be a deep source of inspiration. And I was right. All of the weeks spent dissecting his famous voice, the endless hours watching obscure archival footage, hoping to find a clue to his character, a toehold to climb over the barrier of his almost impenetrable iconography and find the mortal man inside, was sheer bliss. It was humbling and exhilarating to be given the opportunity to bring him back to life for a brief, shining moment. And I didn’t want to screw it up.
There is nowhere to hide when you are playing Kennedy in a movie called Killing Kennedy based on the bestseller of the same name that will be plastered on every billboard, nine stories high in Times Square, marketed throughout the world and shown in one hundred seventy countries. If you are bad in the role, a lot of folks will know about it. I guess I’m practical enough to be aware of that but experienced enough to forget about it. Big stakes don’t mean you develop or play a role any differently. It’s impossible to play “a martyred hero.” But it is possible to play a man.
I looked for the human details. I found he wore reading glasses but hated being photographed in them. He nervously took them in and out of his breast pocket, which is why you often could barely see his scrunched-down pocket square. I wore his cologne (Jockey Club) and I figured out his very particular body language and distinctive walk. I learned to flout the fashion police by buttoning both buttons on my two-button suits, like he always did. Like a vampire, I sucked every ounce of obscure (obvious traits aren’t really useful) info out of the public record and into the building of my interpretation of the man I have admired for so long.
That the performance was well received and that Killing Kennedy was a ratings success is obviously gratifying. Ironically, it also earned me a Best Actor nomination from my peers in the Screen Actors Guild alongside Sheryl’s old client, Al Pacino. But what I think about going forward isn’t the results, however positive. What inspires me is that I can still be moved by the mysterious and ultimately unknowable process of discovering a character. In my fourth decade of doing this, I can, sometimes, if the circumstances are right, get that giddy, awestruck, trembly feeling as an actor when the lightbulb goes on and I have an “Aha!” moment. It keeps me wanting to stay at it.
When you can no longer be moved and inspired by greatness (or worse, don’t know it when you see it), it’s time to pack it up. If you can’t marvel at the beauty of Yosemite Valley or of K. D. Lang and Roy Orbison singing “Crying,” if you aren’t humbled by the west wall of the Lincoln Memorial, aren’t buckled by the language of his second inaugural inscribed there, “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” you are already dead. When the color guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or the tones of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello no longer speak to you, you can no longer be reached.
There is always something new to be discovered; every year brings a crop of new moments to inspire. Tastes can’t remain complacent, eyes need to stay on the horizon. I hope I will always have moments where I can fall in love with new world order—Sacha Baron Cohen creating Borat or the rise of EDM.
I feel like I’ve scored a few points of my own over the years and will continue to do so, but I can only dream of approaching the transcendent moments of my fellow actors. Of George Scott in Patton: “God help me, I do love it so.” Streep in Out of Africa (off camera, in voice-over no less!): “He was not ours, he was not mine.” Of Redford in The Natural: “I love this game.” Of Bill Holden in Network: “Because I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning.” Of Streisand when she first sees Hubbell in The Way We Were. Of Ray Liotta in Goodfellas: “I’m not going to jail, Karen! Ya know who goes to jail . . . ?” Of the greatest of all time, Paul Newman, in his closing argument in The Verdict. Of Daniel Day-Lewis abandoning his boy in There Will Be Blood and Demi’s single tear in Ghost.
Most of us, the 99 percent of us, will never, ever, even come close. But my heroes keep me wanting to try.
Finally meeting my hero, Robert Redford, at the 2014 Golden Globes, where we were both nominated.
Rehab
As I remember it, my first taste of alcohol came at the hands of my father, somewhere around the age of five. I’m confident on the timing, as he and my mom were no longer in the same rooms beyond that age. But I can clearly see them, in our living room on Aberdeen Avenue in Dayton, setting up for what was probably a fondue party. I was ready for bed in my feetsy pajamas, baby blue, with a teddy bear logo. I probably wanted a
sip of whatever it was Dad was holding. I’m fairly positive I knew it wasn’t a “pop,” as we called soda, or a glass of milk with ice, which was the drink we usually shared on hot summer nights watching the lightning bugs from the screened-in porch.
It was beer, probably Stroh’s, as a few years later, that brand would become my favorite. In a move that I’ve come to know says so many things about my temperament, I didn’t gingerly explore this new beverage with a dainty sip; I took a full swig. I practically chugged it. Although today I know why, then I did not. I remember it tasting both terrible and amazing. Then I vomited all over our living room floor.
I wonder if my dad remembers any of this. I wonder, too, if maybe this faded moment is similar to the kinds I have now with my own sons, where they are convinced of a story’s veracity while I am not. Sometimes my boys tell me tales of our times together when they were small and I have no idea what they are talking about. Sometimes vice versa. It makes me appreciate that we all have our own points of view, dissimilar abilities to see facts clearly and unique personal narratives. And that in the end, one’s personal reality is the only one that ever really matters. I remember my last taste of alcohol as well. It was sometime around four A.M. on May 10, 1990.
This is what happened in between, and what is happening now.
Teenage drinking is the bane of my existence. All of them do it, I did to excess and in the living rooms of Europe, it’s sanctioned. Everyone copes with underage drinking differently; our societal standards are all over the road. Any college freshman will tell you that it is common knowledge which bars enforce the drinking age and which ones do not. Some parents let their teens drink from time to time; some are as shocked by that concept as they are when their kids get caught doing it in secret anyway. It all seems like a complicated math problem that everyone solves differently, with answers that don’t match, most of them being flat-out wrong. Having a sip of beer at five didn’t make me abuse booze later in life. Not drinking until you are of legal age doesn’t guarantee you won’t become a drunk. A drinking career seems to be formed by a mysterious combination of genetics, personality, environment and mind-set.