"Wow, this guy is the real deal"...

Rob Lowe Says Tom Cruise Went "Ballistic" Over Sharing Hotel Room During 'The Outsiders'

In a new interview, Rob Lowe reflected on his time during the production of The Outsiders in the early 1980s. It featured a great story about a feisty 18-year-old Tom Cruise! Get the details below...

He played "Billy Hicks"

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Rob Lowe was among the ensemble cast of the hit coming-of-age film The Outsiders in 1983. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it was an adaptation of the popular S.E. Hinton novel of the same name.

During a recent appearance on Dax Shepard's podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Lowe opened up about his experience as a young actor making the film.

The Outsiders movie: Rob Lowe remembers the production

On Shepard's podcast, Lowe revisited a particular story about Tom Cruise during the casting stage of The Outsiders. Lowe and Cruise were both in their late teens at the time and relative unknowns.

"All of the L.A. people survived the L.A. auditions, and then the hand-picked people had to go to New York to face the New York version," Lowe explained.

"So it was me and Tom Cruise and Emilio [Estevez] and C. Thomas Howell. [It was the] first time I ever stayed at The Plaza Hotel, and we check-in and Tom finds out that we're sharing a room and just goes ballistic," he recalled.

Cruise, it seems, was expecting the A-list treatment of a veteran actor rather than a shared room with a co-star.

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But Lowe looks back on the story with a sense of humour.

"To me, what’s great about the story is, there's certain people who have always been who they are, and that element of them has powered them to where they are today and the rest is history," he said.

"And the notion that an 18-year-old actor with a walk-on part in Endless Love and like a 7th lede in Taps could have that kind of like wherewithal," he added, referencing Cruise's resume at the time.

"I remember going, 'Wow, this guy is the real deal,'" he said. "I mean it made me laugh, it was gnarly. But in the end of it, you can't argue with the results. He’s had his eye on the ball since day one."

In The Outsiders, Lowe played "Sodapop Curtis" and Cruise played "Steve Randle." They were joined by other "Brat Pack" actors including Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph Macchio.