by Rob Lowe
I turn the car radio on. I need to relax; with each level of audition the pressure has built. I try, but I’m not hearing the music. I’m not even hearing the rain. I look down at the scenes. I look once, twice, and then again. Each time I make more mistakes, forgetting lines I knew just hours ago. I look up into my rearview mirror but I see no reflection. In five minutes, I’ll be reading for Francis Ford Coppola and I’m starting to choke.
A bunch of sixth-graders had the idea to make The Outsiders into a movie. The kids at Lone Pine Elementary School in central California wrote a letter to the biggest, most famous director they could think of, petitioning him for his services. Although the book was (and still is) required reading in middle schools across the country, Coppola had no idea of its existence, let alone the massive built-in following of The Outsiders. The book began as the high school English project of a Tulsa teenager, Susie Hinton. She wrote a spare, moving, and authentic story of teen alienation and want of family. Set in the 1950s in the slums of Tulsa and following the orphaned Curtis brothers and their gang of “Greasers,” the book (as well as the movie) was the forerunner to cultural youth sensations like Harry Potter and Twilight. In fact, when young Susie changed her name to S. E. Hinton in order to hide her gender and to ensure young male readers and old male editors that she could handle the subject matter, somewhere in England a very young Miss Rowling may have taken note.
The guard at the Zoetrope Studios gate directs me to stage 5 and hands me a map. “Go right on Marlon Brando Way. Follow it to Budd Schulberg Avenue and it’s just next to the commissary.” I wonder why I’m reading on a soundstage and not in an office. I look for a place to park and run through the scene again in my head. My nerves are threatening to unravel all of my preparation. I try to quiet these inner voices that are telling me that my success so far has been nothing but a fluke, but they are gaining strength and I can feel it. I park the car and jog through the rain to soundstage 5. I can’t believe what I see. There must be twenty-five other actors huddled under the overhang at the stage door. A lot of them are famous, some of them are dressed head to toe in full Greaser regalia. Most of them are smoking and all of them look older than I do. It’s like the Screen Actors Guild version of the prison yard. Posing, fronting, and intimidation. I look for a friendly face. I see Emilio Estevez wearing an almost ridiculous pompadour.
“Dude! What the fuck is going on?” I ask. A reading for a director is supposed to be a low-key, private meeting. This looks like a public cattle call with every important young working actor in the universe.
Emilio, ever the old soul, smiles and shakes his head. “Hey, it’s Francis.”
Working for Coppola had almost killed Emilio’s dad. The stress, the hours, and the heat of making Apocalypse Now had given Martin Sheen a heart attack in his midthirties. He barely survived, and it changed him. Martin, usually full of life and laughter, was strangely quiet on the subject of all of us competing to work under the great master. In fact, he rarely speaks of Apocalypse Now or Francis at all. But for his sons and their friends (as well as film fans worldwide) it is the stuff of legend: Francis replacing Harvey Keitel supposedly because the actor bitched about not having a trailer; Martin flying in on a day’s notice for a ninety-day shoot and staying for 360 days of shooting over the course of two years; Brando showing up so fat and bald that they could only shoot him in shadow and making Francis read Heart of Darkness aloud to him in its entirety before he would begin shooting; hurricanes threatening lives and destroying sets; the Thai military pulling all the jets and helicopters to quell a coup; Dennis Hopper electing to live (and party) in the jungle with the natives instead of staying at the hotel; Playboy Bunnies being written into the film on a whim and wrecking a marriage or two in the process; sickness everywhere; a tapeworm poking its head out of Martin’s driver’s mouth, gagging the man until he pulled the wiggling, pulsing worm out of his own body on the side of the road; dark tales of stunts gone wrong and actors being asked to do dangerous and reckless things. But to watch Eleanor Coppola’s own recollections in her brilliant and frightening documentary Hearts of Darkness is to suspect some of the legends are true.
The stage door opens. Another group of actors emerges from the soundstage. They all look bummed, out of it. One guy, though, has a huge, toothy, wolflike grin. He whispers to Emilio and me, “Francis sent these guys packing, but he asked me to stay.” Emilio gives a high five to his buddy, a new young actor from New Jersey who has been staying at the Sheens’ house while he auditions in L.A. “Fucking Francis, I mean the guy is unreal! He just sent ’em away! Said it right in front of everyone!”
I start talking to the kid from back East. He’s open, friendly, funny, and has an almost robotic, bloodless focus and an intensity that I’ve never encountered before. His name is Tom Cruise.
It will be survival of the fittest for all of us. We will need to intimidate, dominate, and crush our competitors for these roles of a lifetime. But there’s no reason why we can’t try to stay friends while we do it.
“What part are you reading for?” I ask Tom.
“Christ, up until today, it was Sodapop, but Francis has everyone switching parts and bringing us all in and out while everyone watches everyone else! I just got done reading Darrel.”
“But you’re not old enough to play Darrel,” says Emilio, mildly panicked.
“That’s what I thought. Plus I hadn’t prepared that part,” says Tom.
The three of us stand under the overhang, out of the rain, trying to calculate how the various age pairings Coppola is trying will affect our chances. If Darrel, the oldest part in the movie, is played by Tom Cruise, I’m screwed.
“Okay, next group!” a man says, ushering us into the darkness of stage 5. And for the first time, I can hear the blasting sounds of Italian opera …
* * *
Francis Ford Coppola won his first Oscar in 1971, as the screenwriter for Patton. He then took a dime-store pulp novel and, despite countless attempts to have him fired, created The Godfather, giving us Pacino, reintroducing us to Brando, and winning the Oscar for Best Picture. He made its sequel in an era when to do so was considered a shameful, soulless, explicitly commercial folly. Godfather II made history by being the only sequel to also win Best Picture, a record that remains to this day. He mentored his young protégé, George Lucas, through his breakout, American Graffiti, after having used George to shoot pickup shots on the first Godfather. Like Lucas, Francis deeply distrusted Hollywood and lived and worked in San Francisco, away from the bullshit and the schmooze. And like Lucas, when massive success came, he created his own personal fiefdom, filled with murderously loyal counterculture artistic geniuses. The Zoetrope group made its own rules and broke them at will. It was the center of the bull’s-eye in the nexus of artistic achievement, prestige, controversy, and mystery.
But as Tom, Emilio, and I take our seats along with the twenty or so others on stage 5, Zoetrope Studios is fighting for its life. Time magazine has just put Coppola on its cover for a story about the cost overruns on One from the Heart, his latest movie, a groundbreaking special-effects-filled musical meditation starring Nastassja Kinski. Financial power plays are everywhere, with Chase Manhattan Bank threatening to shut Zoetrope down and foreclose on the studio. Francis’s artistic/financial high-wire act is the biggest story in the entertainment industry.
Our chairs are against the walls of the soundstage. There are too many of us, though, so some actors sit on the ground. The only light is an illuminated area in the center of the floor, which appears to be exactly the size of a boxing arena. A table and four chairs have been set up in the light. Just beyond, in the shadows, I see Francis for the first time. He is wearing a beret and fiddling with a state-of-the-art video camera, recording everything. On the table next to him is an old-style record player. My tastes run toward Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, so I’m a little foggy on the genre of extremely emotional Italian music emanating from the turntable. Francis has an assistant with hi
m, no one else, and she turns down the music.
Francis walks to the edge of the illuminated area and looks out at us. No small talk, no introductions. He gets right to it. “Hi. I thought we’d all get together today and sort of run through things,” he says casually, as if auditioning while thirty of your competitors watch is the most normal thing in the world.
“Some of you may be asked to play different roles than you have prepared and some of you won’t. This is really just an opportunity to explore the material,” he says mildly. Explore the material? Is he serious? I look over at Tom Cruise. The only “exploring” he’ll be doing here today is to try to find a way to bash my brains in and take my role from me. And from my perspective—right back at him! This may be an abstract artistic exercise for Coppola, but for every single one of us young actors huddled in the darkness, this day will be the difference between continuing the struggles of our daily lives and seeing those lives changed forever.
Francis points for three actors to step into the light. “Say your name into the camera and what role you are reading for,” he instructs.
Quietly I ask the actor next to me how long this has been going on. “I’ve been here five hours already,” he says. The chosen actors face the Sony prototype video camera, which looks to me like something from The Jetsons.
“Hi, I’m Dennis Quaid. I’ll be playing Darrel.”
“Hi, I’m Scott Baio and I’m playing Sodapop.”
“I’m Tommy Howell and I’m Ponyboy.”
They take their places around the makeshift “kitchen table set.” Francis turns up the opera. They start the scene.
They are good. Quaid is doing it all from memory and he’s a major guy and he will be tough to beat. The Tom Howell kid, I’ve never heard of; he looks like a baby and is so low-key it seems like he is not even trying. But he also seems real, there’s nothing forced about his performance. Baio is a huge TV star on Happy Days, so if Coppola wants stars, he’s got a shot. He was also terrific in Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone with Jodie Foster.
Like everyone else, I’m watching, judging, looking for any edge I can find to help my own audition when I’m finally called.
I run through a matrix of possibilities. Do I play it from memory, like Quaid? If I do, Francis may think I’m so prepared that it’s a final performance with no room left for improvement (or his direction). But being “off book” also shows nerve, craft, and dedication. Do I stand on it emotionally and really crank up the conflict that’s there to be exploited in the writing? Or do I play it understated, withholding something? When great actors do this (like Pacino as Michael Corleone) it’s riveting; when lesser actors do it, it’s dull. I watch Tommy Howell—it’s clear he is in heavy contention for Ponyboy—and he stays in first gear almost all the time and never “pushes.” I consider my biggest dilemma, one that every actor at any level struggles with; at the end of my big scene, I have to break down and cry. How much is too much? And behind that unanswerable question is the one that makes any actor’s heart stop—what if I can’t cry on cue?
And that’s all it takes. In that one nanosecond of doubt, I feel the blood rush to my head, and my chest begin to tighten. I don’t know if I can cry during the scene but I sure as hell could cry right now. In the lit arena the actors are killing it, knocking it out of the park. When they finish, another group takes over, and another, and then another. No one flames out. No one sucks. It is unheard-of to actually sit and watch your competition, and there’s good reason for this protocol: it makes the pressure almost unbearable.
I’m getting more unnerved by the minute. An hour goes by. I watch a stream of the elite enter the set; the guy who starred in Caddyshack; the blond kid from On Golden Pond. A young actor with big teeth and curly hair reads Ponyboy; people are buzzing about the supersecret movie he stars in about to come out from Steven Spielberg called E.T. I look over at Tommy Howell to see his reaction to this guy’s reading. Tommy is stone-faced, cool as ice.
“How old is that kid?” I ask Emilio.
“Tommy Howell? He’s fifteen.”
There’s a commotion at the stage door. The storm has stopped, the sun’s come out, and its blinding light streams in as a man dressed like a homeless person enters. He has long, filthy hair, a three-day beard, and ripped, stained Mad Max leather pants. He is also on roller skates. Francis makes a beeline for him and they huddle in the corner.
The other actors point and whisper, “That’s Mickey Rourke!” says one of them.
“Who?” I ask. I’ve never heard of the guy, but he is being worshipped like the love child of Laurence Olivier and Jesus Christ.
“He’s the next James Dean,” someone says. All around there are nods of agreement.
“Really?” I say, looking over. “He sure as shit looked a lot better in Rebel without a Cause.” We all chuckle quietly, beginning to bond over being thrown together into this extraordinary pressure cooker.
It’s getting late, nearing 4:00 p.m., and I’ve been waiting and watching for hours. Francis seems to be tiring; he no longer swaps guys in and out like hockey players changing lines on the fly, he’s now reading names off a list.
“Rob Lowe? Is Rob Lowe here?” he asks, squinting into the darkness.
Adrenaline explodes in my chest.
“Um, yes. Hello, I’m here.”
“You’re playing Sodapop,” he says, without looking at me.
I walk into the glare of the lights. I’m blinking, trying to focus. I’ve been sitting in the dark too long; I’m disoriented. I can’t see Francis or the camera or the other actors watching but I can feel them, just beyond the light, compressed into an omnipresent being.
My heart is a jackhammer. It sounds like someone is running up a flight of stairs in my head. Something is wrong. I remember the problem. I have forgotten to breathe. I try to exhale slowly so no one sees me do it. I’ve got to mask my discomfort and cover my nerves at all costs. The other actors gather around me. Tom Howell is Ponyboy and a guy named John Laughlin from An Officer and a Gentleman plays our older brother, Darrel.
“Why don’t you guys take a moment and begin when you’re ready,” says Francis. I’ve got the first line of the scene, so it will be up to me when we go. I look the other actors in the eyes; we’ve never met, never even said hello. Now we will be the Curtis brothers, now we will manufacture the memories, the relationships, and the rapport of these characters’ lifetimes, in an instant. I’ve got my pages in my hand; they’ve been there since I sat in my Mazda in the rain. But I let them fall to the floor. I will go from memory—let the chips fall where they may. I know this fucker cold. I won’t let the fear overtake me, not now, not today. I say a quick prayer: “Keep it simple. Keep it honest. Let it rip.” I start the scene.
I’ve never agreed with the conventional wisdom that “actors are great liars.” If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be “actors are terrible liars,” because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What’s called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary.
I know nothing about being an orphan. I wasn’t alive in the 1950s. I’ve never been to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I’ve never met a Greaser. But I do have brothers whom I love. I know what it means to long for a parent who is no longer in the family. I have met my share of rough kids and have felt that I didn’t belong, and when I remember my old gang of friends back on Dayton’s north side, my personal truths provide enough emotional ammunition for me to play Sodapop Curtis.
Like a skater approaching the point in his program where he has to land a triple axel jump, I know the moment for my “breakdown” is coming up fast. I’m trying to stay “in the scene,” not stand outside of it, up in some corner, looking down in judgment like the characters in an episode of Bewitched. But part of me can’
t help it, the stakes are too great and I know if I don’t land this jump, I mean really stick it, this audition is over and, with it, practically, my career as an actor.
“I hate it when you two fight,” I say, beginning the final speech. “It just tears me up inside.”
I look at Tommy Howell. I don’t know him from Adam, but I see his eyes are moist. That’s all I need, that tiny peek at humanity and empathy from a fifteen-year-old stranger. It sets me off. Behind it, the pressure and the nerves and the stakes, and the need to be liked and accepted and chosen, build into a wave that I cannot stop if I want to. The emotions explode. At the end of the scene, Howell and Laughlin and I are huddled in the glare; they are holding me as I weep.
* * *
After the audition, I hear nothing for weeks. No phone call comes in to my agents. I know I shellacked it in my reading, but after Francis sent the other actors back to the shadows, he asked me to read a different part, the role of Randy the Soc (it’s pronounced “Soshe”—more than a few actors had their tickets punched by calling them “Socks”). It’s a small part with one big speech but I can see that physically I would be right for it. I pray that I’m still in the running for Sodapop. Other than Ponyboy, Sodapop is the most coveted role in the movie. The part is huge, romantic, and, with the big breakdown scene at the end of the movie, unforgettable. I’m worried I’ve lost it.
I spend all my free time four houses down at the Sheens. Cruise is still camping out in the guest bedroom, but neither he nor Emilio have heard about their auditions either. We work out, play hoops, call our agents, call up girls, hide our booze from Martin, hit baseballs with Charlie and Chad, anything to try not to lose our minds with anticipation.