Rob Lowe's late career reflection: “That infamous Tom Cruise was always my nemesis”

Rob Lowe has taken a candid look back at his career and concluded that its course might have been different if Tom Cruise had not claimed some of the biggest roles for which he auditioned.

“That infamous Tom Cruise was always my nemesis,” Lowe told the New York Post. He recalled reading Jerry Maguire and thinking the role would go to Cruise. He had the same reaction while reading Top Gun, certain the film would become a major hit, only to hear the same answer again: Cruise.

The two actors began their careers at roughly the same time and appeared together in The Outsiders in 1983, alongside Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio and Diane Lane. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the film placed both young actors in a similar category: attractive performers with strong Hollywood potential.

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That infamous Tom Cruise was always my nemesis.

Their paths soon diverged. Cruise starred in Risky Business that same year, and the film turned him into a phenomenon. His image dancing in his parents' house in underwear became one of the era's defining movie moments. Top Gun later made him an international superstar, while Jerry Maguire showed, a decade afterward, that he could lead a box-office success and win critical recognition.

Lowe had already begun building a name in television. His first major job came in the 1979 sitcom A New Kind of Family, followed by appearances in ABC Afterschool Specials. Shortly before Coppola cast him as Sodapop Curtis in The Outsiders, Lowe led the 1983 television film Thursday's Child as a teenager awaiting a heart transplant. The performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination.

When Coppola brought him into The Outsiders, Lowe had little film experience but was already regarded as one of the promising young faces of American television. His career later slowed after a scandal, forcing him to reinvent himself, while Cruise went on to secure several of the defining roles of 1980s and 1990s cinema.

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I remember reading Jerry Maguire... and they thought, ‘Tom Cruise.’ I also remember reading Top Gun and thinking, ‘This movie is going to be a huge success.’ And they thought, ‘Tom Cruise.’