About to walk away from Hollywood, in 1982, Rob Lowe went for one last audition: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders, which had every aspiring young actor jockeying for a role. The rest (from St. Elmo’s Fire to The West Wing and, now, Parks and Recreation) is modern matinee-idol history. In his soon-to-be-published memoir, the star relives the competition among his L.A. posse—the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Sean Penn, Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, and Tom Cruise.< pclass="caption" style="width:300px">< b>BUFF AND HUMBLE Rob Lowe poolside at his home in Montecito, California.

There are plenty of dedicated, talented actors destined for jobs they hate, chasing in vain a dream that will never come. Soon I’ll have to start thinking about college and possibly reconsider my life’s direction. I’ve had just enough success to keep me chasing the dream, but not enough to ensure a career. I promise myself I won’t be one of the deluded ones, being the last to know that my moment didn’t come, and that I should’ve hung it up long ago. I’m going to be 17 soon. Am I already a has-been? Luckily, I’ve made some great friends despite the time I’ve spent on my career. Jeff Abrams and I follow Magic Johnson’s arrival in L.A. and shoot hoops whenever we can. Jeff’s a huge Bjrn Borg fan, while I’m a Connors man, and we spend hours on the tennis court, attempting to learn the new “topspin” forehand. Along with Chris Steenolsen and Josh Kerns, we hang out and steal booze, go to beach parties and on road trips in Josh’s gigantic hand-painted “road beast”—a 1969 Impala. Good students and serious about school, we are hardly pro-level hellions, but we have some fun.

A vicious winter storm sends driving rain into the streets in front of Francis Ford Coppola’s personal movie empire, Zoetrope Studios. Thunder and lightning crackle as I hunker down in my Mazda, parked just outside the front gates. In my hand I have the five-page scene I will be reading. I have it memorized now; anyone would. This will be my fourth audition for The Outsiders. Originally I met with Janet Hirshenson, the casting director, who was seeing every male actor in Hollywood between the ages of 15 and 30. She has been good to me in the past, and even though I have never gotten a job on her watch, she has brought me back whenever she felt I might be right for a part. After I made it past Janet, I read for the film’s producer, Fred Roos. Fred cast Francis Coppola’s early movies as well as George Lucas’s. Among the actors whom Fred Roos helped bring to fame were Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, and Al Pacino. He was intimidating as hell, his face betrayed absolutely no emotion. I didn’t know whether he loved or hated me, but he kept bringing me back.

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 librarian and kids at Lone Star 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 1960s in Tulsa and following the orphaned Curtis brothers and their gang of “greasers,” the book (as well as the movie) was the forerunner of youth-culture 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 assure 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 Five 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 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 Five. I can’t believe what I see. There must be 25 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 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 mid-30s. 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; Martin flying in on a day’s notice for a 90-day shoot and staying for more than 230 days of shooting; Brando showing up so fat and bald that they could shoot him only in shadow and making Francis read Heart of Darkness aloud to him in its entirety before he would begin shooting; typhoons threatening lives and destroying sets; the Philippine military pulling helicopters to quell a civil war; 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, wolf-like 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 them 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 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. “O.K., next group!” a man says, ushering us into the darkness of Stage Five. 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 co-screenwriter for Patton. He then took a pulp novel and, despite countless attempts to have him fired, created The Godfather, giving us Pacino, re-introducing 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, soul-less, explicitly commercial folly. Godfather II made history by being the first sequel to win best picture. 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 20 or so others on Stage Five, 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, Francis’s 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 him, 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 30 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, Baio’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 begins 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 super-secret movie he stars in about to come out, Steven Spielberg’s 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 15.” 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 four 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 eye; 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 early 1960s. 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 to play Sodapop Curtis. Like a skater approaching the point in his program where he has to land a triple Axel, 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 15-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 I cannot stop even if I wanted 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. < b>Casting Brawl

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 Francis sent the other actors back to the shadows and asked me to read a different part, the role of Randy the Soc. (It’s pronounced “soshe”—from “socials.” 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 has heard about his audition, either. We work out, play hoops, call our agents, call up girls, hide our booze from Martin, hit baseballs with Charlie and my brother Chad—anything to try not to lose our minds with anticipation. I have settled on U.C.L.A. as my college (in part because Francis is a graduate). If I don’t get a part, I will enroll and study film. I’ve been toying with following my dad into law or pursuing marine biology. But in the end my heart is stuck on reaching people with stories on film. If I can’t be in front of the camera, I’ll be behind it. Finally my agent calls. “Do I have the part?” “No.” My heart sinks. “But they want you to fly to New York and read again.” I can feel the blood coming back to my face. I’m still alive in the Outsiders sweepstakes. “What part am I reading? Soda or Randy?” I ask, holding my breath. “Both.” I try not to be disappointed that Randy is still an option. “Pack up. You leave day after tomorrow.” I put down the phone. It rings in my hand. It’s Emilio. “Dude, did they call you? Are you going to New York?” “Yeah! I made it. What about you?” “We’re going, too! Me and Cruise!” “What parts?” “I’m going for Soda, Randy, and maybe Darrel, depending on ages,” says Emilio. “What about Cruise?” I ask. “Soda, Randy, Darrel, and Dallas.” “Holy shit,” I say. This thing is clearly still a wide-open free-for-all. I hang up, excited that my friends are among the chosen. We are competitors, and it will likely come down to one of us versus the other. And if it does, we will try to blow each other out of the water with zero regrets on all sides. But until then, it’s down to the Sheens’ Gilligan’s Island pool to celebrate.

On the plane we sit with the other two “L.A. finalists,” Tommy Howell and Darren Dalton. Together we try to predict who will get which role. We also find a cute stewardess and work her relentlessly for alcohol. It’s a night flight with lots of empty seats, so it feels like we own the plane. By the time we land we are connected like a less dangerous, teenage, show-business version of Easy Company’s band of brothers. We are all thrown together by fate, required to work together to achieve a goal that will be a highlight of our lives. Along the way any one of us could fall. You don’t want it to be you, but you don’t want it to be your new brother either. There is also a group waiting to knock us out entirely, the “New York” actors. Their reputations precede them—tough, intense, serious hard cases. We make our plans to battle them, to come out of this together, leaving the others in the dust. We are the L.A. Greasers. After surviving the three-day, 30-hour battle at Zoetrope Studios, we feel like Hollywood’s finest. We check into the Plaza hotel. I am taken aback at the luxury and spectacle of the lobby. Last time I was in New York, Dad and I stayed at the Sheraton. The front desk tells us we will be sharing rooms. In a flash, Cruise is on the phone to his agent, Paula Wagner. “Paula, they are making us share,” he says. He is certain that this is not right and wants it fixed A.S.A.P. The rest of us are staggering around like happy goofs, but this guy’s already showing traits that will make him famous; he’s zeroed in like a laser—all business and very intense. “O.K., then. Thank you very much,” he says like a 50-year-old businessman getting off the phone with his stockbroker. “Paula says it’s fine.” After sorting out our rooms, we decide to pile into a cab and check out the sights. “Forty-second Street,” someone says. The cabbie’s eyes widen as he turns to look at the group squeezed into his backseat—a 15-year-old, a 17-year-old, and the three “adults” weighing in at around 19 years old. “You boys sure you want to go down there? Ani’t nothing’ but women and trouble to be found there.” “Yes, we’re sure!” we howl and laugh, banging on the Plexiglas divider like animals. We are all seriously dragging the next morning as we arrive at “Zoetrope East.” Any effects of our long night are mitigated by the growing tension of the East-Coast-versus-West-Coast acting brawl that is moments away. This time the auditions are called what they actually are: screen tests. And unlike at the L.A. audition, the group is much more select, maybe 15 guys in total. We lounge together in a giant loft-like waiting area in some dingy office building somewhere near Broadway. I’m freezing—having little travel experience, I have not packed correctly for New York in the winter. It does’t help that I’m jet-lagged and hangover. I find a spot on the floor next to a radiator and take a nap (to this day, when I feel too much stress I want to fall asleep). “Dude, wake up,” says Emilio, banging me in the ribs. I try to clear my head as I roll up off the floor. “Francis wants us in the studio.” It’s a small, hot space. The basic setup is exactly like L.A., except for—inexplicably—Carl Simon, wearing a sort of catsuit, curled up in a corner. I also recognize Matt Dillon, already a huge teen idol and the star of S. E. Hinton’s first movie adaptation, Tex. It hasn’t come out yet, but it’s supposed to be good. Matt is in front of the camera reading the part of Dallas. And by reading, I mean reading. He is holding the entire script, eyes locked on the text. After a while, however, he puts it down and begins paraphrasing. Soon he’s ad-libbing completely and making up dialogue while the other actors try to keep up. I don’t know if Francis asked him to freelance like this or not. If he did, then clearly Matt has got the part locked up. If he didn’t, then Matt Dillon has dangling, clanking, scary-big elephant balls. Next up is a tiny kid I competed against a few months back for a part on the hit TV show Eight Is Enough. It came down to the two of us for a new starring role they were adding to that show. We both went to the network reading in a boardroom packed with stone-faced executives in business suits. He came out on top. Now he’s reading the part of Johnny, the tortured, doomed Greaser. Like Tommy Howell, it is clear that he is the front-runner. When he’s done, I call over to him. “Ralph! Hey, Macchio! It’s me, Lowe.” Ralph comes over to say hi. “Hey, man, good to see you.” “How many times have you read for this?” I ask. “A lot. Matt and I have been doing this for days.” “Have you read for any other parts?” “Nope. Just Johnny. Matt too. Just Dallas.” I see Francis looking around the room. “Rob? Rob? Can you come read the part of Randy?” This is what I was afraid of. I feel like I might pass out. “Um, sure. Uh, no problem,” I manage. I quickly look over the scene. If I do well now as Randy, Francis might want me for that part, opening up Soda to one of the other finalists who have been on the periphery until now, like Tom Cruise. Maybe I should tank the reading, I think briefly, but knowing I’m incapable of it.

I finish playing the scene at full throttle. I’m praying I don’t get this part. No one wants to be a Soc in a movie about greasers. It’s 110 degrees in this sweatbox of a studio as Tom Cruise is called to the floor. Now I have real issues; he’s giving my role a try. He begins Sodapop’s big breakdown scene at the end of the movie. I watch him and think, That’s it, I’m done. He’s clearly a force to be reckoned with and is more focused and ambitious than I ever thought about being. (And that’s saying something.) But then … Tom has stopped. Stopped the scene! Right in the middle of the monologue! A hush falls over the room. “Um, I’m sorry. Um, I’m really sorry,” he says, looking directly at Francis. “This just isn’t working for me.” Holy shit! Not working for him? I thought Francis Ford Coppola was the judge of what works and what does’t. There is a low murmur among the actors. Francis lets him try again. When he’s done, I know the Cruise-missile threat has passed. “Rob, give Soda a try, please,” Francis asks blithely. But I know that right now, right here, in this moment, a life-changing part is mine for the taking. What Francis is really asking is: Rob, do you want this part? I do the scene and crush it. The answer is yes. Yes, I do. A suspenseful two weeks later, it’s official. I’m offered the part of Sodapop Curtis, the romantic, sweet-natured, loving middle brother. Tommy Howell surprises no one by getting the lead role of Ponyboy, and Matt Dillon fulfills expectations by getting the role of the tough hood, Dallas. My instincts proved right about Ralph Macchio: he will play the tragic mascot, Johnny. The other roles remain uncast. I’m elated. It does’t seem real. I’m going to make a movie. And in my first movie, I have one of the starring roles. My first director will be one of the greatest who ever lived. And not only did I survive one of the longest, most competitive casting searches in years, I was one of the first to be cast. I celebrate with my family. I contact U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. and tell them I won’t be enrolling. I start to think about what it will be like to be away from home, on my own for the first time, while we shoot on location in Tulsa. I also am anxious for my new brothers-in-arms, Emilio, Tom, and the others with whom I bonded over the last few months. They are all still hoping to get one of the remaining roles, but so far they have heard nothing.

I have no idea what to expect. My apprehension is probably similar to what any 17-year-old feels as he packs for freshman year at college. But in that case you could ask your dad, “What do I need to know? What advice do you have?,” and Dad tells you. But obviously I can’t do that, as no one in my family has any experience in this new world. So I walk down to the Sheens’ house, looking for Martin. We crack open the vanilla Häagen-Dazs and I ask him every question I can think of. He is gracious and patient; I am vulnerable and a little scared, but excited. By the time we finish our ice cream I feel more prepared for what I might encounter. I thank him. At the door he stops me. “One last thing … ” “Sure, Martin, what is it?” “Don’t let Francis make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” I consider that last, unsettling piece of advice as I jog back home through the gathering fog, to pack. I am on the cusp of something and I feel a mixture of emotions: I’m proud, scared, cocky, insecure, anxious, and confident, all at once. And, truth be told, after the long, adrenaline-filled audition process, I’m also feeling a little let down. (I will later learn this is a hallmark of alcoholism; we call it the Peggy Lee Syndrome. You reach a goal you’ve been striving for, only to feel “Is that all there is?”) If I’m going to make a career of this, I will have to sort myself out. My bare feet are hurting slightly as I trot down our driveway. Chad and my half-brother, Micah, are playing horse, and my mom is calling us all into the house for dinner. A wave of homesickness rises up, but I haven’t even packed a suitcase. Looking down, I notice a tiny cut with some blood on my right foot, and I realize I am going to have to build up my calluses.

There are giant praying hands outside my airplane as it descends into Tulsa. The massive sculpture at Oral Roberts University seems to be sending a message. My future is at hand. It is unknowable. It is an adventure. I don’t know where it will lead, and I might as well pray! I’m flying alone. Tom and Emilio were offered parts at the last minute and are driving out in Emilio’s pickup. Tom is playing my best friend, Steve, and Emilio, Two-Bit Matthews, another of the Curtis brothers’ circle of friends. The Sheen family’s complicated history with Francis runs so deep that, before he accepted the role, Emilio literally put the script under his mattress and “slept on it.” The plane comes in for a bumpy landing on an afternoon in the beginning of March 1982. It’s about two weeks before my 18th birthday. The Tulsa Excelsior sits smack in the middle of downtown. This will be my home for the next 10 weeks. At the front desk I’m handed a new shooting script, a crew list, an envelope with a wad of cash—the per diem—and a key to Room 625. “You are right next door to Tommy Howell and across the hall from Mr. Macchio. Welcome to Tulsa,” says the man behind the counter. I look up and recognize Diane Lane coming through the revolving door of the lobby. At only 16, she already seems like a legend. She has starred with Laurence Olivier (in A Little Romance) and been on the cover of Time magazine. Oh, and she may be the prettiest girl on the planet. She will play Cherry Valance, the queen Soc. Too shy to introduce myself, I watch as she breezes by with her chaperone. With all the teen testosterone on this movie, she’ll need one! I head up to my room, which is very plain and very simple—a desk, a small refrigerator, and two twin beds. But to me it’s the greatest setup ever. It’s like my own first apartment—and in fact it is. I’m out of the house, away from my parents, living on my own, and because I’ll be 18 in a week or so, for the first time I have no guardian. This new sense of freedom is powerful enough to knock me to my knees, right here in Room 625. “Hey, man, is that you?” I recognize Tommy Howell’s voice as he unlatches the door to our adjoining rooms. “We did it,” I yelp as we hug in celebration. “Man, I am so glad you got Soda,” he says. “Thanks, man. Who’s with you? Do you have a guardian?” I ask Tommy. “No, it’s just me!” I’m a little taken aback. Tommy is just 15, but I ask no questions. “Put your shit down—let’s go eat,” he says. I throw my suitcase in the corner, and we head for the elevator. It stops on the fifth floor. “Hey, guys!” says Darrein Dalton, a tall kid who got the part I was praying I wouldn’t get, Randy the Soc. “Why aren’t you on our floor?” I ask. “Dude, our floor is Socs only. We have these amazing suites, free room service, gym privileges—it’s so cool!” “Yeah, Francis wants us segregated,” Tommy informs me. “He’s given them more per diem, better rooms, and these embossed-leather script binders.” “Aah, I see—he’s trying to create a class system on the set, trying to make us Greasers jealous,” I say. “Well, it ain’t working,” cackles Tommy. “If anybody’s jealous, it’s them about us, since the Greasers are the fuckin’ stars of the movie!” Tommy and I laugh and high-five, busting Darrein’s balls. On The Outsiders, ballbusting will become a fine art.

Returning from dinner we come upon an amazing spectacle. There must be 50 girls about our age congregating in the Excelsior lobby. I remember the body language and the low-level hysteria from being mobbed once in Riverside and I recognize them right away as fans. But of whom? At that moment, Matt Dillon saunters past and the girls sway en masse like willows in a spring breeze. “Um, hey. What’s shakin’?” asks Matt in his patented, laconic cool-guy fashion. It’s a little hard to hear him, as he’s carrying a gigantic boom box that’s playing some obscure songs by T. Rex. None of us really know Matt well; we are the L.A. group, after all, and he is the embodiment of the “New York actor.” He is already well established as a fledgling matinee idol and, more important, has Tulsa wired from starring in the movie Tex, which he shot here six months ago. He knows the rub on all the levels. We crossed paths at the New York auditions, but now we make our introductions in earnest. Matt is funny, wry, and has a sort of jaded charisma that none of us possesses. As we talk, the girls twitter and whisper in the background. “Aaah, man, I’m tired. See you at rehearsals,” he says, hoisting his boom box to his shoulder. He crosses to the elevators and passes the gaggle of fans. Then something remarkable happens. He stops dead in his tracks and whispers to a pretty brunette. She listens for a beat, then turns to the four girls she’s standing with and whispers something to them. Matt fiddles with the volume on the boom box. The girls caucus for a total of four seconds, till the brunette leaves her friends behind and joins Matt for a walk to the elevators. He puts his free arm around her. At the last second, just before they enter the elevator, she turns back to look at her friends. Her expression is one I’ve never seen before. It’s like she has a thought balloon over her head that reads: “Holy shit! How lucky am I?!” Matt yawns, and the elevator doors close. The entire transaction takes less than 45 seconds. So that’s how it is, I think, and take note. Matt fuckin’ Dillon. My hero.

Rehearsals begin the next morning in an abandoned elementary school. The classrooms are used as the film crew’s production offices, the auditorium/gymnasium as our rehearsal space. I’ve never rehearsed anything but a play, and there is no real rehearsal in television. Since we are playing two of the three brothers at the center of the film, Tommy Howell and I are already beginning to connect in a way that will hopefully pay off emotionally later when we need it in our performances. We stand in a corner of the musty, dirty gym with Tom and Emilio, who pulled an all-nighter driving from Point Dume. “Who is playing Darrel?” asks Cruise, who had auditioned for the part of the eldest Curtis brother. “We still don’t know,” says Howell. It’s been a bit of a soap opera, the search for this last actor in the Outsiders puzzle. “I heard they offered it to Mickey Rourke but he turned it down,” Emilio says. “I heard he turned down all the parts,” says Ralph Macchio. Someone proffers up a tidbit that Fred Roos has pulled the casting rabbit out of the hat by finding an actor who never auditioned with us in L.A., a much older guy who did a movie where he danced around on roller skates. “What’s this guy’s name?” I ask. “Patrick Swayze,” says Emilio. Minus the mysterious Mr. Swayze, who will arrive later, the entire cast begins what will end up being over two full weeks of rehearsals. Only years later will I learn that this lengthy, luxurious warm-up was due to the collapse of the movie’s funding. While behind the scenes the future of The Outsiders hung in the balance, we blithely submitted to Francis’s unique warm-up process.

On the first day, we read through the script, get haircuts, and have wardrobe fittings. We cut off early, as Francis wants us up by 8:30 in the morning for a meeting at the house we will use as the main set. The next day we pile into vans and are driven into the terribly run-down, desolate neighborhood where 80 percent of the movie will be shot. When we arrive at the small, beat-up two-bedroom home that will be the Curtis brothers’ house, Francis stands in the weed-filled dirt yard, waiting. “Hi, guys. Gather round,” he says in his relaxed, earnest, and brainy way. Sometimes Francis sounds a little like Kermit the Frog but with a deeper register. “I want us to meet like this on the spot where we will work, and to be together. I feel like we should do this every day. And now I’d like us all to begin our day with a half-hour of Tai Chi,” he says. I don’t know what Tai Chi is. I look around for a deliveryman. Maybe it’s some sort of Asian takeout—which would be great because I’m starving. But as I scan the horizon, I see it’s just us—Francis and his Greasers—standing around in the dirt. Francis begins swaying and gesticulating in slow motion, almost like he’s underwater. “Tai Chi is the art of energy transformation,” he says. “It builds concentration, strength, and balance. It puts your body in harmony with its environment.” We all form a line and begin to follow his movements, and that’s when I recognize the motions as the ones Martin Sheen did in front of the mirror at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. As the exercises drag on, I think: Martin’s character was in Saigon; my character is in Tulsa. How does a 60s greaser know or care about Tai Chi? But if the world’s greatest living director thinks we should stand on our heads to prepare, we should probably do it.

Patrick Swayze arrives in time for the next day’s rehearsal. He walks into the gym as cool as you want, wearing tight jeans and a tattered, sleeveless Harley-Davidson T-shirt revealing his massive, ripped arms. (This is his uniform, he never changes it, and if I looked like him, neither would I.) “Hi, I’m Buddy,” he says, squeezing my hand with such enthusiasm that it could snap like a twig. The guy is yoked. I mean, he is literally made of iron. He’s very high-strung, amped, and ready to storm the battlements at the drop of a hat. He’s a Texan with a legitimate drawl, so he’s a great arbiter of “Okie” accents. Buddy is also a decade older than the rest of us, and married, so on that level he might as well be a Martian. But that, too, serves him well as the older brother, Darrel, who is farther down life’s road. “Hey, guys, I had a notion that you are all acrobats,” says Francis, entering the gym sipping an espresso. “In fact, I’d like you all to go down the hall for some training,” he adds, heading over to greet Swayze. “You bet, yaaaaawoooo!” hoots Swayze, clapping his hands and yelping like a wolf. I love his enthusiasm. He makes Tom Cruise look lobotomized. The seven Greasers file down the hall to a classroom that has been turned into a rudimentary tumbling room. There are parallel bars, rings, and a trampoline. The only thing missing is safety mats. Instead, someone has placed a bunch of two-by-two squares of Styrofoam on the floor. Swayze immediately takes charge. “I was a gymnast in high school,” he informs us. (His list of previous accomplishments will grow to include ballet dancer, bow-and-arrow specialist, motocross expert, horseman, guitar player, singer, songwriter, construction worker, carpenter, and artist, to name a few.) Along with a local guy from the University of Tulsa, he begins to teach us a standing backflip. I am one of those guys who love sports and the adrenaline rush of a physical challenge, but when it comes to flips, I’m a pussy. I don’t flip. I don’t even dive into a pool—straight cannonball for me. The thought of falling mid-flip onto the ground conjures up images of rolling around in a wheelchair like Raymond Burr in Ironside. No, thanks. Cruise, not surprisingly, is all over it. “How about this!” he says, almost pulling it off without even being spotted. He wipes out, but tries it again immediately. Now Howell and Emilio have their blood up. They don’t want to be upstaged, so they begin digging in earnest. Splaat! One goes down. Thunk! Another hits the deck, making the sound of a side of beef hitting the pavement. Eventually some of the guys figure it out, and then, mercifully, it’s time for our next assignment back in the rehearsal hall.

Francis tells us that we will be shooting the entire movie on video, in front of a green screen in the gym, before we begin real, principal photography. Later he can use new Sony technology to put in any background he chooses. But before we shoot, he asks us to do a lengthy improvisational exercise that culminates with our attempting to go to sleep on-camera. Now, this I can do. When it comes to sleeping, I should be in the goddamn Olympics. “Very good job, Rob,” he says, and I’m thrilled. Diane Lane and the other Socs, led by the teen idol Leif Garrett, arrive to do the big drive-in sequence. The minute Diane enters the room, a competition for her attention commences. Matt Dillon clearly has the inside track and soon we all know that we have no chance. Francis appears to dote on Matt as well—he’s clearly grooming him to be the James Dean of the movie. For his part, Leif Garrett has embraced Francis’s attempt at class warfare. We all like Leif; he’s so jaded from his years as a teen cover boy that he’s hilarious, but he is determined to be superior to us, just like his character, Bob, would be. This, of course, leads to merciless ballbusting. On the day all the Greasers pose for a photo shoot in full costume in the gym, Leif comes to watch. The local kids have been running roughshod through the production offices for days, stealing anything they can get their hands on. (It really is a horribly poor part of Tulsa, and who can blame them.) We are all posed together under the flashing strobe as a production assistant finally goes off and drags a local ragamuffin away for pilfering the candy bars and other goodies that are laid out just off the set. “Keep your goddamn hands off the food, it’s not for you, it’s for the actors,” the assistant yells. “Yeah, Leif, you hear that,” calls Macchio to Garrett, who is standing at the snack table. “Those are for the actors!” Garrett is mortified. A hush falls over the room until we all burst out laughing. I look over, cracking up at Ralph, who now looks a little scared. Flash! Snap! The camera captures the moment. That frame of film will become the poster for The Outsiders.

That night we are divided into groups and sent out to spend the night with “real greasers.” And when I say spend the night, I don’t mean go have a long dinner and hear some stories. We are meant to sleep at their houses! I’d always hated overnights with kids I didn’t know very well. So the thought of bunking with a Hell’s Angel that some production assistant found off the street has got me rattled. “Um, what are the odds they could be murderers?” I ask Tommy Howell. [#image: /photos/56cc4c4dae46dea861df136b]|||||| <a href="/hollywood/features/2010/03/john-hughes-201003">• The legacy of John Hughes, teen-comedy maestro (David Kamp, March 2010) <a href="/culture/features/2007/12/coppola200712">• Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth (Bruce Handy, December 2007) <a href="/culture/features/2009/03/godfather200903">• The Making of The Godfather (Mark Seal, March 2009) Francis has chosen Tom Cruise as my roommate for this adventure. He and I are delivered like two sacks of mail to a slightly tired-looking duplex way outside of town. Tom’s unrelenting enthusiasm for anything, however ridiculous, plus a few hours to calculate the mathematical improbability that these folks are ax murderers, has made me kind of intrigued about our experiment. We are greeted at the door by a middle-aged couple. “You boys must be the actors!” says the man, offering his hand. He is almost fully tattooed. “Yes, sir. I’m Tom Cruise.” “Hi. I’m Rob Lowe.” “Well, come on in, boys,” says the woman, who looks like any other midwestern housewife. Clearly, my darker fears are unfounded, as this couple could not be more welcoming. We share dinner in the tiny kitchen and swap stories about our lives as young actors in Hollywood with their stories of being greasers in the mid-60s in Tulsa. We talk late into the night, until everyone tires. “Well, boys, I better tuck you in for the night,” says the woman, leading us to a foldout bed that Tom and I will share. “Thanks so much, ma’am,” says Cruise, who is always unrelentingly polite and formal with adults or anyone of authority. “See you in the morning,” I add. “You betcha!” she says, shutting out the light. Cruise and I lie there on the bumpy cot, saying nothing. Neither wants to disturb the other’s chance of actually falling asleep in this bizarre circumstance. I’m trying to assimilate all of the information, experiences, and lessons that are hitting me every day like crashing waves. I have made it to this point in life on instinct and hard work. But after a few days on The Outsiders, I know I have so much to learn, and for once my mind won’t go to sleep. I know I’m hardly alone. Other than Matt Dillon and Diane Lane, all of us are just getting started in movies. But I’m competitive, and if anyone is going to come out of this most ready for the future, I want it to be me. Oddly enough, there is something comforting about knowing that my cot-mate feels exactly the same way. “Cruise? Cruise? You awake?” I whisper. “Yeah, man,” he answers. “Me too,” I say, as we both stare at the ceiling, waiting for tomorrow and what will come next.