Stories I Only Tell My Friends

by Rob Lowe

  I drove my new family home so carefully that you’d have thought I was carrying nitroglycerine. I mean, we could’ve walked faster! As so many couples in so many places throughout the ages have done before us, Sheryl and I began the magical journey of raising our child. And I couldn’t help but think of my father and my mother. I felt a gratitude to them and a new kinship. I could see now that they were just as I was: doing the best they could, full of apprehension and full of love, with no directions to follow. And yet, I also swore allegiance to the common refrain: “I won’t be like my parents were with me.”

  * * *

  Stephen King’s The Stand was one of my earliest favorite books. Part of the fun of a successful career are moments when you can think things like, What if you had told me when I was thirteen and reading The Stand that I would one day star in the miniseries?

  Holding Matthew, I watched the series as it aired over four nights on ABC. I hadn’t done network television since Thursday’s Child, over a decade ago, so there was plenty of media attention focused on this classic and oft-tried adaptation. The Stand surpassed all expectations, delivering historic ratings. I was glad that so many people saw my work as the deaf-mute, Nick Andros, and I loved getting to know Gary Sinise and the great Mr. King, who is as nice and influential as he is prolific. But it was on location for my next movie, Frank and Jesse, that a totally new frontier opened for me: writing. The movie was a Western about the adventures of the outlaw Jesse James and his brother, Frank (played by my great pal Bill Paxton). I was producing with my old friend from Oxford Blues, Cassian Elwes, as well as starring. But the script was a mess, and with it I began what was to be a series of uncredited rewrites. There is no excuse for pedestrian dialogue, particularly when there is a great history of Western vernacular. Night after night, Bill and I would watch Ken Burns’s The Civil War and pluck out odd 1860s colloquialisms to use the next day. With the director, Bob Boris’s, blessing, I was also able to stage a few scenes. The sequence where Jesse James kills a bank clerk is pretty cool, and it got me thinking about one day directing myself.

  Returning home from location in Arkansas, back in the L.A. traffic, I had an epiphany. I needed to get my family away from the crowds and the chaos (which was great when I was single), to a place where they could be out of the media spotlight. I didn’t want Matthew to grow up in a “company town,” where all roads led to the entertainment industry.

  Sheryl and I had always loved Santa Barbara, with its old-school elegance and diverse crowd. Yes, the people were decidedly more square, and much older than my circle in L.A., but I was ready to move away from anything too hip or too current. (I will now use a phrase I hate because I can’t come up with one that says it better: I had “been there, done that.”) We found a wooded acre with a cozy house and said good-bye to L.A., where I had lived since 1976. I had not one friend in Santa Barbara when I moved there. Again, I followed my heart and stayed out of the results. We’ve lived there ever since.

  * * *

  Sherry Lansing, the president of Paramount, has a private jet waiting for me at Santa Barbara airport. As was becoming standard, my deal to do Tommy Boy had gone south and only at the last minute had Bernie Brillstein gotten it on track. So now, with shooting twelve hours away, I board the Gulfstream IV for a comfy red-eye to location in Toronto.

  The movie itself was Lorne’s idea. “I want to do a movie about you and Chris Farley as brothers,” he said one day on the tennis court.

  “That’s a funny visual,” I replied, thrilled that Lorne was building a potential movie around me.

  As with Wayne’s World, he wanted help anchoring the film, since his comedy leads, Chris Farley and David Spade, had never made a movie. And while it’s a little bizarre to be the wise movie veteran at thirty, I don’t mind being the guy they call in such circumstances. And once again, I’m able to contribute beyond acting. In my first meeting to discuss the script, I tell the writers about the midwestern tradition of “cowtipping” and it becomes one of the movie’s big sequences.

  Chris Farley is one of those people whose presence causes you to remember where you were when you first laid eyes on him. Not yet famous, he was standing by the Porta-Potties at Lorne’s wedding, squished into a loud, ill-fitting seersucker suit. Now, a few years later, he is the new It guy on Saturday Night Live, the latest heavy-set, giant personality à la his idol John Belushi.

  “He is my hero,” Farley says again and again. “I want to be just like him.”

  And by the time Chris’s brilliant and short career is over, he will have gotten his wish.

  But now I’m sitting with him and David Spade at Barbarian’s Steak House after a long day on the set. Not surprisingly, Chris is a guy of huge appetites. The man has a shot of espresso before every close-up. Not before every scene, but every take. And so I shouldn’t be taken aback by his order at our dinner. But as Spade and I stare in disbelief, Farley eats two giant porterhouse steaks. On the table are those old-school, iced individual squares of butter. Chris places an entire square on top of each bite of both his steaks.

  Finally, I can take no more.

  “Chris! What the hell!” I say, as he places another cube on top of another mouthful.

  He giggles like a baby. “It needs a hat!”

  Tommy Boy is a hit and remains a favorite among teenage boys, who approach me to this day. It’s a movie with smarts and heart as well, and like Wayne’s World is as good or better than a lot of comedies of that genre made today. It also contains what might be my most-quoted line in movies: “Did you eat paint chips as a kid?”

  Chris and I remain close until his death. As he struggles with his demons, I work to help him find his way. Like me, Chris has a distinct public image and knows that it is merely a fraction of who he is as a human being, much less as an actor. And like me, he wants to move beyond this obvious and lazy pigeonholing. The “Fat Guy” and the “Pretty Boy,” as it turns out, have a lot in common.

  Unfortunately for Chris, he is unable to develop the muscle needed to say no to those who want him to remain the Funny Fat Goof. And, even though the concept of the movie makes him feel debased, he takes the Fat Goof role in Beverly Hills Ninja for a fortune, and is never the same. Within a year, he will go like his idol, dead from a drug overdose at the age of thirty-three. For me, it is a stark lesson that if you can’t get honest with yourself, if you can’t look yourself in the mirror, no matter how much money they pay you, or how much you are lauded, you are literally putting your life at risk.

  * * *

  I think most self-employed parents lose a bit of their drive when they have a newborn in the house. With the birth of my second son, Johnowen (Sheryl wanted Owen, I wanted John), I was way too fulfilled and happy as a young dad to keep the career accelerator pushed to the floor. In Santa Barbara, out of the rat race, Johnowen was the piece of the puzzle that completed the life I had always wanted but never imagined. Turns out I wasn’t going to be the Warren Beatty character from Shampoo, the cool, happening lady-killer at the center of the world (albeit a lonely one). I was instead just like most American men. In love with my wife, living in a normal town, and blessed beyond imagining with two precious, beautiful, and inspiring babies. The midwestern boy was back!

  And after a string of workmanlike projects (some quite good, some quite bad), I was looking for a way to stop filming on remote locations and to build a different career where I wouldn’t miss out on my kids growing up.

  I began to branch out, and to do more writing. I wrote and directed a short forty-minute movie for Showtime called Desert’s Edge. A harrowing black comedy, it was well received by critics and put me on the list of young writer-directors. I now spent my days talking to studios about directing instead of acting. But as my pal, mentor, and fellow actor-turned-director Jodie Foster wisely told me, “By the time material gets to a new director, all of the big directors with great taste have had their shot at it, all that’s left is crap. You’ll have to write your own material.” I
took her advice and got to work. But like the mafia for Michael Corleone in the awful Godfather III, the life of the actor kept “pulling me back in.”

  One afternoon Mike Myers hits a drive down the fairway. I shank mine to the rough. As we drive around looking for my errant shot, I’m making him laugh with a unique imitation I’ve been doing for years. Mike gets out his cell phone and calls his muse, his wife, Robin.

  “Listen to this! Rob, do that impersonation for Robin,” he asks.

  I take the phone and do my Robert Wagner voice.

  “Hullo, how ya doin’,” I say, doing my best Hart to Hart.

  I hear Robin laugh on the other end of the line, always a good sign.

  “How funny is that!” says Mike. “He sounds just like RJ!”

  We find my ball, finish our round, and I think nothing more about it. Two months later Mike calls.

  “I’m sending you a secret script. I want your opinion. It’s called Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.”

  Sitting at my favorite Italian restaurant, I read it. It’s vintage Mike. A totally fresh concept, with inspired characters (most of whom Mike will play) and odd but hilarious jokes. And on page 14, I read the following screen direction: “Young Number Two (as played by Rob Lowe) enters Dr. Evil’s lair.”

  Mike has taken my golf-course joke, made it a character, and, in case anyone had other ideas, wrote my name into the script!

  “You maniac!” I tell him later. “You want me to do my little impression as a character?”

  “Yes. Just like you did Arsenio Hall on Saturday Night Live. You will nail this.”

  The shoot is a blast. Mike insists that music be played between takes. Whereas Coppola preferred opera and Elvis, Mike leans toward ’70s dance music like “Car Wash”; to this day the opening hand claps remind me of the shoot.

  With Austin Powers, Mike Myers is a true auteur at the height of his powers (no pun intended). Watching him play Fat Bastard, Dr. Evil, and Austin Powers and craft on-the-spot lyrics to his Dr. Evil rap version of “Just the Two of Us” is possibly the most fun and unquestionably the most hilarious time I’ve ever had on a set. He’s making magic and everyone knows it. And I get my turn when I open my mouth as young Robert Wagner, and the crew assumes the real Robert Wagner is actually standing off the set and I’m lip-synching to him!

  Mike can also be a great collaborator, and one day as we are shooting in the hollowed-out volcano lair, I have an idea. “Mike, how about if I get pissed at you and try and stand up to Dr. Evil. Maybe you end up bouncing the big globe off my head and taunt me like Robert Duvall in The Great Santini.” He loves the idea and we shoot it immediately, ad-libbing the dialogue. It stays in the final film and is one of my favorite scenes.

  The Spy Who Shagged Me is a monster success. By far the biggest movie I’ve ever been a part of, it cements my foothold in comedy.

  To celebrate, Mike and Robin join Sheryl and me at the Canyon Ranch resort. When we visit the Myerses in their room, Mike asks Sheryl if she thinks the room is up to par.

  “No. I don’t like it.”

  “Why not?” asks Mike.

  “Too much foot traffic outside,” says my wife, who knows about these things.

  “‘Foot traffic’! I love you, Sheryl,” says Mike, howling. “You sound like Lovey Howell from Gilligan’s Island!”

  So, the rest of the trip that’s what he called her: Lovey. And the name stuck. I call her that to this day.

  One night, all sugared up on low-cal chocolate pudding, Mike gives me some advice.

  “Rob, you have great stories. You’ve seen so much and can write, you have to do a book.”

  “I never thought of that. I don’t know,” I say.

  “You can and must. I’m never wrong about these things.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, I’ve been following another mentor’s advice: As Jodie Foster suggested, I have just finished writing my first screenplay, Union Pacific. After my agents send it out, I get a call from Bill Paxton. Bill has done many movies for his longtime friend James Cameron, and he has an urgent message for me.

  “I gave Jim Cameron your script. He read it and wants to talk to you about it!”

  “Holy shit!” I say. Bill tells me that James will call me in ten minutes.

  Union Pacific is a road adventure in the vein of Deliverance. Two brothers, looking for the Last Great American Adventure, ride the rails like the heroes of Kerouac. But they get in way over their heads in the underground network of modern-day train hopping and come up against a vicious killer preying on the disenfranchised who populate this strange world. As a railroad special agent closes in, our heroes must confront the killer as they are all trapped on a runaway train.

  The script has attracted some fans and I have been talking to a few of them about setting it up for me to direct, including Paula Wagner at Tom Cruise’s company and Lawrence Bender, the producer of Pulp Fiction. But James Cameron, having just made Titanic, is in a whole other league. He truly is “the king of the world.”

  I pick the phone up on the first ring.

  “Rob, it’s Jim Cameron.”

  Cameron is generous with his praise, and when I hang up, I feel like I could retire and be artistically fulfilled forever. “Look, I read a lot,” Jim says to me. This is special, you are really onto something. Let me know what you do with it.”

  After days of thought, I come up with a plan, because when you get cold-called by James Cameron, you have won the lottery and you had better cash that ticket. Jim is an auteur; he is unlikely to direct someone else’s material. And he rarely produces movies he doesn’t direct. So what am I left with, other than an amazing and generous show of support for my script, from the business’s most powerful man?

  Then I remember another larger-than-life director, John Huston, who delivered a stunning acting turn in Chinatown. I wonder if Jim would ever want to act? Union Pacific has a prominent villain part, much like Huston’s (any other script similarities end there), and so, gathering my nerve, I call Cameron back.

  “Hey, Jim. Would you ever consider starring in a movie?” I point out that, like Huston, he is now an icon and if he wanted, he could parlay that into yet another artistic experience, as both Sydney Pollack and François Truffaut did at certain points in their careers.

  Having started his career in the art department (with Bill Paxton) with famed low-budget producer Roger Corman, Jim has worked at and mastered every possible job on a movie crew. Except for one.

  “I’d like to know more about acting,” he says, and my heart leaps. “Can we do a screen test?”

  I bring a skeleton crew to Lightstorm, Jim’s production offices. We set up in the large screening room. We will do two scenes and see how we feel about moving forward. As I work on the lighting setup, I wonder if anyone would guess that Cameron would take this kind of time to support a fledgling young director.

  Like any actor worth anything, Jim comes prepared. He knows his lines and asks good questions. We work for about an hour or so. He has a tremendous presence (as all leaders do) and, above all, is just so game. I would love to work with him in any capacity, regardless of who’s directing who.

  “I’ll look at the footage and then come show it to you,” I say, thanking him.

  “Oh no, no, no, no. I believe an actor should sublimate himself before his director. I’ll come to you.”

  A few days later, in Santa Barbara, we watch the screen test and talk. I tell him he was really good.

  “I don’t know,” says Jim. “But I want to know more about what actors go through. Maybe I should give this a try.”

  We agree that I will move forward with setting the movie up and, when that happens, we will decide.

  “This could be really cool,” he says on his way out. “My next movie after Titanic’s gonna be four actors in a hotel room for the entire picture.”

  I spend weeks talking to producers, financiers, and my producing partner on the movie, Gale Anne Hurd. It’s always one
step forward, two steps back. There’s not enough action for the studios (it’s not expensive enough), and the indie crowd feels it has too much action (too expensive). Union Pacific will die of promise, the most dreaded thing you can be in Hollywood today: a middle-range-budgeted script with real action but also with real characters.

  I thought I was going to direct a movie with James Cameron. He thought he was going to make his next movie about four people on one set, for a tiny budget. Instead, he wouldn’t make another movie as a director until Avatar. I also felt my acting career had stalled. I was rarely offered anything that energized me, although I worked constantly. And in spite of my setback on Union Pacific, there was clearly some traction for me as a writer-director. I began to mentally transition away from the life I had always known and worked so hard to achieve. I began to develop material, take pitch meetings, and otherwise begin down my new path as a filmmaker. But, as they say in sobriety, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

  It’s one of my agents, Tiffany Kuzon, on the phone.

  “I’m sending you a script for a TV pilot. I don’t know if it will get on the air, it’s been on the shelf for a year already. I don’t know if you want to do a TV series, I don’t even know if you want to act anymore.”

  “C’mon. I’ll always want to act.” I chuckle. “I just need it to be of some quality.”

  “Well … this script’s pretty damn good,” says Tiffany.

  “What’s it called?”

  “The West Wing.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Written by Aaron Sorkin. Well, that’s a good sign. I’m sitting down to read this would-be TV pilot script and I remember Sorkin’s name from the movie Malice, a thriller I read a few years ago. I loved its big, snappy speeches (Google “Alec Baldwin, I am God” and you’ll get a delicious taste) and had lobbied for a role to no avail.