The Outsiders Bts Tea From Rob Lowe's Book: Part 1 (casting)

the outsiders bts tea from rob lowe's book: part 1 (casting)

okay i am reading rob lowe's autobiography and taking notes on anything the outsiders related! this first part is some personal background as well as the casting for the outsiders.

i know some of this is already common knowledge about their audition process but i thought rob had some interesting insights/ways of describing it so thought i would share. 😁 also i am recording every word he says about matt dillon because that's my man

ch 1-8: early life and acting idrc

at 15 rob gets a role in a tv sitcom, "a new kind of family” - this is when he first starts being seen as a teen idol, he's only 15 and getting fan mail from men in jail asking to see him shirtless :( and girls chase him around and basically jump him, they steal his shoelaces (?) he writes a lot about how he hates this ear piercing scream of teenage girls

he moves to santa monica and becomes friends with the LA actors crowd, mostly through his high school - he’s friends with the sheens and penns, robert downey jr, emilio estevez

charlie sheen is a freak and sometimes wears a bulletproof vest to school and is a huge conspiracy theorist but we knew he was a weirdo

but the tv show flops and he has trouble landing acting gigs for a while, he feels like a has been at 17, thinks of doing something else with his life, is ready to go into usc

in december 1982, he’s told he can audition for the outsiders - it’s basically his last chance

ch 9: the audition process part 1

LA auditions: tom cruise, emilio estevez, tommy howell

every male actor in hollywood between ages of 15 and 30 were being asked to audition

coppola didnt even know the outsiders existed until one middle school liked the book so much that they petitioned it to be made into a movie and he was like okay

rob says s.e. wrote the outsiders set in the 50s? maybe a writing mistake but i think that’s so funny if he actually thought it was in the 50s this whole time

rob sees emilio at the soundstage for the audition among 25 other actors, the audition is nothing like he's seen before, emilio is wearing a ‘ridiculous looking pompadour’ and rob asks him wtf is going on, emilio is like “hey what can i say it’s francis” - his dad genuinely almost died of a heart attack working for coppola on apocalypse now

side note the filming process of apocalypse now is absolutely INSANE - sickness everywhere, a tapeworm coming out of martin’s driver’s mouth at one point, playboy bunnies were just written into the film etc

everyone is leaving the auditions miserable except for this one guy who comes out all happy, telling rob and emilio that francis sent all the actors away except for him - rob describes him as friendly and funny but having a robotic, bloodless, focused intensity (tom cruise btw)

francis keeps switching everyone’s parts and having them read each others parts in front of the other actors

tom reads for sodapop randy darry and dally!

rob reads for sodapop and randy

emilio reads for sodapop and darry

the auditions have this insane setup of a table with a small light and 4 chairs in the middle of a dark room, everyone who’s not in the scene is circling around watching- he describes it like a boxing match

he says tom looks like he wants to bash his brains in and steal his role from him

1st lineup: dennis quaid as darryl, scot bayo as sodapop, tommy howell as ponyboy

tommy is so lowkey he doesn’t seem like he’s trying, but also seems very real and authentic, he looks like a baby

tommy is stonefaced and cool the entire time he’s watching others, they can’t believe he’s only 15

mickey rourke comes in and rob says he looks dirty and homeless lol francis worships him

2nd lineup: rob and tommy play their respective roles with john laughlin as darry

robs entire career lowkey rests on the soda crying monologue, he’s only able to cry because he sees tommy’s eyes water for him (aw)

francis gets mad at some of the actors for pronouncing soc as sock LOLLLL

the role of sodapop is most coveted after ponyboy, it’s supposed to be huge, romantic, with the big breakdown scene at the end - he will bring this back later i assume with how he was upset about it being cut

NYC auditions: matt dillon, ralph macchio

they fly to new york for the next round of auditions

on the flight together rob tommy emilio and tom are ‘working a cute stewardess for alcohol’ lol and become friends - this is like the LA squad

the new york actors make up the other group which is kinda fighting for roles against this LA group, they’re tough, intense, serious

the actors stay at the plaza hotel and they’re told they need to share rooms

as soon as tom hears this he calls his agent and rob literally does an impression of him “uh paul? they’re making us share 😠” he is certain this is not right and wants this fixed asap, he’s already a diva

the boys go out to times square and get super drunk

next morning is what rob calls the east coast vs. west coast acting brawl (screentest time)

rob’s impressions of the other actors below:

matt dillon

matt is already a huge teen idol, he’s pretty intimidated by him

he’s reading the part of dallas - “and by reading i mean reading, he’s holding the entire script with his eyes locked on the text” - idk what he means by this i thought this is what they’re supposed to do.. whatever

after a while he puts it down and is paraphrasing completely, adlibbing, making up dialogue while the other actors try to keep up with him

he can’t tell if francis told him to freestyle it or not - if so, he’s got the part locked in and if he didn’t, then matt dillon has “dangling, clanking, scary big elephant balls”

ralph macchio

he recognizes ralph because they were competing for a part in ‘eight is enough’

describes him as a tiny kid, bro is 21

he says it’s clear he’s the front runner for johnny

ralph says him and matt have only been reading for their respective parts and have been doing so for days (together btw) (it’s clear the dally-johnny dynamic is very important to francis)

this is very interesting to me!!! how everyone else was so in between parts and matt and ralph were just. locked in from the start. and paired.

tom comes in and is asked to do sodapop, he is nailing the breakdown and rob’s like ‘i’m done that’s it’ - he is a force to be reckoned with

then tom stops in the middle of the scene!! and says “this just isn’t working for me i’m sorry”, francis lets him try again but it doesn’t hit so that’s how he loses the role basically

rob does the scene and crushes it

that’s all for chapter 9, no one is casted yet. the only greaser not mentioned at auditions at this point is patrick, i assume he will get to that + diane lane + others in the next part though, and it’ll also cover the dynamic between the cast once they already get the roles

pt 2 coming soon hopefully some more juicy stuff 😋