Rob Lowe is a lover, not a fighter. The 9-1-1: Lone Star actor opened up about when he worked on the 1983 film The Outsiders, and recalled being knocked out by Tom Cruise, one of his co-stars, during a sparring match fight.
During Monday’s episode of The Rich Eisen Show, Lowe dished on filming the acclaimed Francis Ford Coppola movie, and revealed that he, Cruise, and some of the other young cast members would spar in their downtime. “He’s [Cruise] so competitive that we used to box in the hallway of the hotel we were staying at during Outsiders,” Lowe recalled.
“So much testosterone,” he continued. “We’re 18-year-old guys stuck on location. So we would wear headgear, and we’d have mouthpieces in, but we would legitimately spar.”
American actors Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez and Patrick Swayze on the set of The Outsiders, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. (Photo by Nancy Moran/Sygma via Getty Images)
– Nancy Moran / Getty)
Lowe also noted that, at the time, Cruise, was more “jacked” than him, because Lowe was not as focused on working out as the Mission: Impossible star. “Tom is like this beast,” he said. “And I hit him real clean and I rang his bell. And the next thing I knew I woke up and I was coming to on the floor. He like completely knocked me out.”
The former West Wing star said that he thinks Cruise’s defensive instincts kicked in after being punched by Lowe, because “I hit him hard and his eyes went black.” Lowe later joked, “But that’s the stuff we did, that’s what guys do, it’s like Fight Club.”
The Outsiders is based on S. E. Hinton’s book of the same name. The film is set in a small Oklahoma town in 1964 and follows the rivalry between two gangs, which heats up when a member of one ganf accidentally kills a member from the other gang. In addition to Cruise and Lowe, The Outsiders also stars C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, and the late Patrick Swayze.