Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Rob Lowe

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Ted Danson and Rob Lowe finally sit down after years of missing each other! Ted asks the “Unstable” star about a contradiction he’s spied in his work. Rob tells Ted about his childhood epiphany that took him from Dayton, Ohio to Hollywood, his secret to staying married, his feelings about the Brat Pack phenomenon, and helping others through recovery. Bonus: Ted asks Rob to explain a certain adult phrase to him.   Like watching your podcasts? Visit https://www.youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.

Why would Ted Danson's kids ever want to see the most iconic comedy in the history of television? Why would they ever want to see that? I'm going to play this clip for them. Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes. I really enjoyed talking to my guest today who makes us all actually look bad, figuratively and literally. Not only is Rob Lowe devilishly handsome, and I did clear that with him before I said those words, devilishly handsome. I think he was kind of chuffed, to be honest. He's also been working continuously on TV and film for decades. Think

The Outsiders, St. Elmo's Fire, The West Wing, Parks and Rec, and so much more. Season two of Unstable is up and running on Netflix, which he co-created and starred in with his son. And I suppose we also have a certain kinship besides the devilishly handsome part. He is the host of the very popular podcast, Literally with Rob Lowe, right here on Team Coco Podcast Network. He is really a fascinating guy, and I enjoyed talking to him very much. Meet Rob Lowe. You know what I love about you as an actor? We've never said howdy, maybe in passing. No, I feel like there should have been like a Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, crisscross. Was there one of those in the 80s?

Perhaps, perhaps. There had to have been yeah had to she's become one of our best friends she's the best she's the best astounding she's there's i was very very very close to her during that that time and then tom hayden time during tom hayden time and then i, I was actually at her house and she goes, you know who called me? It's the weirdest thing. Ted Turner.

He wanted to take me out. And I'm like, you should go out with him. And that was the last I saw of her. That was it. Yeah. I wanted to, we'll get into this,

but, uh, you guys probably have done similar environmental stuff. Yeah. Totally. You showed up to the same. Yes. Conference or whatever. Yeah. I remember my favorite one is that um you know when you want to shirt down a nuclear power

plant the two people that are best to do it for sure me and meg ryan i mean you know i mean that will make you rethink your your energy priorities when we show up i know we are so the wrong spokespeople for the environment we're so obviously liberal lefties i just remember it like like it was yesterday it was like so i mean look it was i love doing all that stuff the number one where I think we missed each other was in the famous clean water caravan that it was Craig Zayden and Neil Maron, the great producers. And there was a bus tour through California for Prop 65, which was about cleaning up our water system. And everybody in the planet was on it, but there were two different buses. It sounds like maybe you weren't on either bus. No, I wasn't.

Totally missed that. What year was that? 1986. And we got pulled over for speeding. Well, also because Michael J. Fox and I were smoking pot out of the top of the Greyhound bus roof, and the cop pulled us over,, it was like a clown car. Out came Whoopi Goldberg, Cher, Judd Nelson, Michael J.

Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Robert Downey Jr., Jane Fonda, Danny Glover. And why were you pulled over? Because of the smoke? Well, because we had the top emergency hatch off, Michael and I, and why were you pulled over because of the well because smoke we were we had the top emergency hatch off michael and i and we were smoking pot you know what i love about you i gotta say this right off the bat you are one of my favorite kinds of actors you are uh a character actor in a leading man's body and that to me always kind of delights that kind of slight contradiction

delights me because i never quite know where you're going to go as an actor and that is what makes i think an audience the happiest is when they are surprised and delighted. That's the greatest compliment you could give me. Thank you. That's the way I just aspire to be. I mean, to be a character actor trapped in a leading man's body. That's exactly it. Did you start off that way or were you just thrilled to be leading man and then move into character acting?

Well, I always felt the same way. I think I could be wrong. I don't want to speak for character actors, but I always feel like character actors don't feel like leading men. I never felt like one. I might have looked like one, but I certainly never felt like one. I might've looked like one, but I certainly never felt like one, but I always got leads. It was weird.

I never, I never had the four line part and then the three great scenes and then moved up. I got immediately cast. Um, is that the outsiders or even before that? I did a TV show with the great eileen brennan do you remember eileen yes yes i do um i played her son so i was like handsome son of eileen brennan

raising a family on her own on her own but wait there's a twist there's another family sharing the house remember like every sitcom was that yeah yeah what what year was that what was it called oh it's a scintillating title the title just makes you sit right up in your chair and go i want to watch this the title was a new kind of family oh it was new kind meaning sharing a house together sharing a house together yeah nobody had ever done that before apparently how long did that last we shot 13 they shut us down after six and replaced the other family without ever telling the audience. Oh. And, um, they, uh, so the new family became, um, Janet Jackson and Thelma Hopkins.

The Janet Jackson. The Janet Jackson. And that was your first. That was 15. You were 15 yeah so wait alright back up even more how did you get

were you always wanting to be an actor always and was that once you landed in Malibu no I was I was

raised in Dayton Ohio right and I went and saw a local community theater production of Oliver and there were kids in it you know right and i was like and i was like struck dumbfounded like a bat like if you were doing my life stories

a movie it would be like oh and the light hits me yeah and a total epiphany and that's early for that really i was like eight or nine really really young and i there was a like a flyer a bunch of flyers in the um lobby for a children's summer theater workshop i saw it grabbed it gave it to my mom said i wanted to do this and she was like great and and i never and i never looked back i like I knew ignorance is bliss. I had no idea how hard it was. I had no idea that Dayton, Ohio isn't exactly a fertile ground for actors. Although there was a lot of opportunity, a lot of community theater, a lot of summer stock, repertory theater.

There was the great Kenley players that went through there. I'm surprised they didn't come after you. Because what they did, the Kenley players in those days would take the hottest person on a TV show and they would say, hey, on your hiatus, how would you like to be Henry Hill in The Music Man?

And you'll do Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Flint, Michigan, and we'll pay you 30K a week. And you will, excuse me, suck and fuck your way through the heartland on your hiatus. And I saw everybody come through, Kelly players. Go back to the suck and fuck. I'm not quite sure what that particularly meant. Oh, come now, Ted.

Well, I know what suck and fuck means sorry but how did that come with the thirty thousand dollar uh week salary or whatever it was i i think you just learned everything you need to know about me by the way that when you said suck and fuck i went i'm sorry what do you mean yeah yeah i was a real late developer i know i was like come on now ted um i came very late to suck and fuck they um you you know, and it was the Midwest and you were Fonzie. Yeah. Rolling through Indianapolis on those summer nights. Yeah.

Two matinee shows. Come on, get out of here. I know what was going on. Did you ever do that? I auditioned for John Kenley. I want to do a movie about John Kenley. His life was insane. He brought traveling musicals.

It was his idea to do traveling musicals. Now they do them all the time. And he was a great entrepreneur and super interesting guy. Drove a bicycle around the stage all the time. He was nuts. But anyway, I digress. There was that kind of weird opportunity in ohio and then i moved to malibu and nobody did theater there's no theater in california

so what happened to you so i got an outlet i got an agent didn't know what an agent was um and they told me i needed one and i got a couple of commercials and then I got a new kind of family at 15 and had a TV show on the air and then at a development deal at ABC. Wow. Well, development, a holding deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did a pilot presentation, not even a pilot with Ron Howard directing. And as it was a starring vehicle for his brother clint howard yes and peter breck from the big valley and in those days like i said it wasn't good enough just to have a family

living in a house this was a show about a family of stunt performers who traveled the world with another family who were circus people so you had like people bringing elephants and tigers to cities while i was a young evil kenevil in spandex well clearly this was not a half hour this No. This was an hour single camera. Hour single camera. Nobody ever asked me if I could ride a motorcycle. I couldn't. Did you? No, they had a grip below the frame.

Go, eek, eek, eek, eek, eek. Roll me. I never worked for Ron since. Ron only made 5,000 movies. I'm like, Ron, really? Really? You'd throw a brother a fucking bone. Then I did a bunch of after, remember after school specials? Yes.

Remember they were a big deal. Yeah. Big deal. Not as big as there's something about Amelia big. But the same thing. But the same vibe. You could do it in a month and a half on your hiatus. Yes.

You could go off and do a movie like that. I did one, and I did a Hallmark Hall of Fame. Right. That I think got me a Golden Globe. No, I think it got me a Golden Globe. Yes. It did when I was 15 and a half. Wow.

No, no, no, no. The Golden Globe was, I was later, because it was right after Outsiders. So it was 17, 18, I'm getting into that era and then Outsiders. And then, then I just did movies pretty much to a year. Before Outsider, right before. How was your ego? Was this all heady? No, no.

But dude, I was a nerd. Listen, I, first of all, you understand, I was so pretty that I look like Brooke Shields. So legitimately. Yeah. I was so pretty that I look like Brooke Shields. So legitimately, like Terry Shields literally tried to get us to get married. She, Terry Shields tried to do an arranged marriage. That's her mom. Yes.

Right. She literally, she really did. Um, so, you know, the guys weren't having it. Guys were like,

get, get out of here, Barbie. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? They weren't having any of what I was offering and the guys weren't having it. Guys were like, get out of here, Barbie. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? They weren't having any of what I was offering. And the girls didn't want anything to do with me because I was. Yeah, I was like, I wasn't like a jock.

I liked sports, but I wasn't on the, you know, I wasn't a jock. I was a theater kid. Yeah. So I really was a true in the quad of high school, you know, where it's like the jocks over here, the popular, but I was, I was in the sort of misfit. And so I always felt that way. That's funny. I was, I was not because of, you know, what's your looks and all of that. My thing was I was just totally unconscious. I was like, I went away to school from living in Arizona with my Hopi and Navajo friends.

And then when I went to a prep school in Connecticut and immediately was, that was the beginning of me faking belonging someplace. I faked my way through the entire thing. And I, I always felt like a bit of an imposter, but so mine, my, uh, outsider thing came from having my head in the clouds. I still have my head in the clouds. Yeah. Yeah. But you have, you're talking creative clouds and dreams and imagination. Yes. Yes. 100%. Yeah. Not me. I was just totally out to lunch. Well, you didn't know what sucking and fucking was we've established that i didn't one of my hopi friends when i was 12 said to me or 11

said hey you know we're getting to know each other hey do you do you like to fuck and i went oh yeah had no idea what he was talking about and it took me a long time to figure it out. That's really amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. One other quick little, my friend, my Hopi friend Raymond and I are hitchhiking from town out to where we live in the country, and we get picked up by this, back then you'd call him a hood or something. He had a relayer. A greaser. A greaser, a hot rod and very

cool. And he picked us up and he started talking about his date the night before and offered us this tip about women. What you do, you cup your hand and you give them just a little smack in the butt, right, right there in the center of their butt. Just give them a little smack

and it sends a seismographic quiver to their clitoris and they love it. And we, we were just nodding our head going, oh, yeah.

Wow, thanks. I can, I can promise you you didn't know what a clitoris was. No. I don't think I knew

seismographic quiver either. No. This guy, was he from NASA? I love that you remember that phraseology to this day. Yes. Well, who's going to forget it? Yeah. I'm not.

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This is what we do. Let's talk about your 30-year marriage because that's impressive. That's impressive. I know everyone says this, but it's impressive in this town and this business and what we do for living. Yeah. And also to be, how old were you when you got married? I was 27, 28. By the way, married five blocks from where we sit talking.

But that's rare because people change. People grow up and mature at different speeds and levels and a lot of times that doesn't work out we we change and grew at different levels but i think one of the secrets and i've never it's funny people ask me a lot do i have any tips and it's never occurred to me until you framed the intro to the question the way you just did is even though we would grow at different speeds the other was willing to catch up yeah boy willing i think is one of the key words in a relationship willing yeah and and it sometimes has been my job to catch up with her other times been her job to catch up with me and and and i can go back and look at two or three seminal moments where either one of us had to go, okay, all right, I'm going to show up and figure this out and do the work.

Usually it's me, by the way. I was about to say, I never want that. Mary's never had to catch up with me. No, let's face it. It's always us. I tried to make it equal, but even I couldn't keep that lie going any longer than that. And then the other thing is, you know, I think like, first of all, you may, and I see, I know this just from a 50,000 feet with you and Mary, like you guys are really good friends and same with Cheryl and I. And also we like whatever problem you think you have and maybe you do have them, you go, I'm likely to have the same problem with the next person. So I might as well fix it here with this one. Right.

So a lot of people people a lot of people just the grass is greener thing just gets them you met if i may bring up because i know you've talked about sobriety yeah yeah yeah if you you met during the height of my craziness of your craziness but you when you got married you were sober that's right i i got sober a year before and you know as they say when you really are getting sober don't do anything major in the first year so i didn't we were together but we didn't we you know right and then i i had a year of sobriety under my belt and i proposed to her and we got married and was that that shift uh to sobriety was that oh i need to do that if I want to be with her?

100%. Yeah. It was like at least 70% of why I got sober was realizing if I couldn't make it work with her and I wanted to, I wasn't going to be able to make it work with anybody. If you're blessed, then you find somebody who feels the same, same way. Because if you go, oh, I see my part in this and I'll share it with you. But the other person goes, yeah, you're right. And doesn't look at their part of whatever the issue is. You need a partner.

Then you don't trust. You can't, you don't, you don't grow. Yeah. I mean, we've been, you know, Cheryll and our big believers in therapy and you know um marriage counseling and we've certainly done that we've done it when we needed it and we've done it we didn't need it yeah it's like it's like taking your car in and like making sure the engine's running great i had i had never done couples therapy before the last couple years and it's great isn't it it's better than i think single therapy in a way for sure because you know what it is is you get to go you in theory

let's hope it's a dispassionate observer and you have to go hey hey am i crazy yes or and they go yes ted you're crazy yeah or they go no you're not great but i i love it and i think it's it's well for whatever reason it's kind of fraught with oh we're in trouble we're in marriage count that's not what it should be it should be like going to the trainer you should literally be like i went to the chiropractor so it should be like yeah in terms of stigma and what i think what you find out you can start sharing is stuff that you just don't want to share because it doesn't make it makes you feel bad about who you are or something so you i'm not going to share this uh because it's just and you find yourself sharing that and realizing oh you, you know, it's not the end of the world.

Yeah. And I just blew the lid off of something that I've been keep any secret in my life just totally fucks me up. You can't have them. I mean, well, it's one of the core, core, core tenants of sobriety. So luckily that's something I, I got baked into me 33 years ago. You just, maybe normal people can have them, but it's hard to stay sober with secrets. I keep bouncing backwards in time. No, it's good.

It's like a quantum physics talk. It's like we're in the unified field, Ted. Everything is happening all at once. Mary follows me around in life going, what he he just made a leap everybody so what he didn't say is that you know she has to like she translated asterisk everything i say she translated yes but all the stuff we're talking about all the let's call it wisdom or life experience can you look back at your mom and dad and go oh yeah they gave me that or this or whatever or or not or you can look back and go they didn't give me this boy am i glad i got i mean

my and so my mom passed away really young um breast cancer she was 64 wow um and my dad is still alive and like looks one of my earliest memories of my dad is going to, can you imagine that they used to have these at county fairs? The guess your weight and age booth. Was he good at it? We would murder, murder. And because he looks 25 years younger than he is still he's 80 almost 85 he looks like he's 65 67 you have a good relationship or yeah we do great i mean you know it's complicated as all yeah yeah you know what i realize having my own kids now who are one's about to turn 30 jesus christ is no matter how there's we fuck

them up somehow we just did we did in some way they have an axe to grind they're always gonna have an axe to grind yeah do you know what i mean like the axe may be teeny teeny tiny or it may be ginormous but it so every father every father son has their thing and i certainly have it with with my dad but he taught me um he still works still practices law so that's the number one thing i think of anything is like work ethic the value of work the love of work which is a which is a rule of law rule of law that's a biggie. How to think. Yeah. How to communicate. How not to be a victim. How not to be a victim. Yeah, he's definitely not

a victim. It's right or wrong, but you're not a victim. That's right. Yeah. He taught me a lot about that. My mom was someone who wrote every day of her life. Never professionally, but wrote. I still have all of her writings. So when I wrote two memoirs, I would never have written them without my mother's influence.

Never. Did you write those after sobriety? Yeah. That helps. Yeah. I don't think you want the uh i would it would have been like the shining yeah how do you like my work and it's all work no play makes jack a tall boy page after how do you like it here's my chapter about the brat pack brat pack see how I led you there

yeah that's great you're welcome so wait that landed on all of you right after that's professional podcasting which just happened

I am by the way I am you can't see me but underneath the table I'm taking notes yeah I understand because and I was hoping you'd go first so I could just mimic

whatever you said yeah so when did that title land on you from the press oh I remember I remember it vividly You'd go first so I could just mimic whatever you said. So when did that, uh, title land on you from the press? I remember it vividly and, and, um,

I'll give you the reader's digest version of the story. Um, so my, at the time, my best friend was Emilio Estevez. He was 24 years old. We were, we'd done St.

Almost fire and all the John Hughes movies. And that was all a big thing happening at the time and emilio was writing directing and starring in a movie and apparently he was the last 20 the last 24 year old to do that was orson welles apparently wow so new york magazine is going to do a profile on that. It's my best friend. Writer spends all the time with him, editing room, talking, talking, talking, weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

And at the very end, Emilio comes to me and he says, so the writer feels like he just has one sort of view of me and it's very work centric. And he wanted to see what my friends are like and what i'm like away from work so i'm throwing a dinner for him at the this is makes me laugh at the hard rock cafe oh wow yeah when that was cool it's like so i'm throwing dinner at it at at uh tgifs at fud ruckers we're all gonna get together. But that's what it was. And that was the cool place.

So we go and I have, I remember being there. I don't remember much. It was a normal night, nothing to write home about literally write home about. And two weeks later, the article comes out. I'm on the cover with Emilio.

And I think Judd, and it's a still from St. Elmo's fire of us at a bar, like acting craze. It's still from the movie. So it looks like we posed for it. Right. And, and the title is Hollywood's Brat Pack. Wow. And the article is, has nothing to do with orson wells or emilio's work as a director it's all to do with this phenomenon of young actors

sort of taking over hollywood but really all we really like to do is drink well not necessarily untrue, but it's super bitchy. The way that journalism used to be... The one good thing I'll say about journalism today is the gotcha celebrity bitch-a-thon. There's not really a market for that anymore.

Well, it got taken over by the internet. The internet, that's right. So they don't have to be bitchy. Very good point. But they devastated all of us and but the public interestingly regular folks never got it was lost on them right they just thought the brat pack was cool but for a lot of the actors in it a lot of them to this day are super bitter and angry about i don't i don't care i because it had an impact on their career yeah they feel like it had and it probably did

it probably it probably made people go they're not as cool and they're not as serious and they're jaded whatever that but i with you know with 30 years of history i look back on it and i'm i think it's the term is great it's like the fact that there people still refer to it i think is is cool but at the time a lot of people were really bent out of shape about it and it was a really gnarly gotcha piece i thought of it as just a comparison to the rat pack which was fucking cool yes so this was a bunch of younger people who were like the rat pack oh it'll be funny or clever to say Brat Pack. That's where I took it.

And if you hadn't read the article, that's – and obviously, I don't know, not a lot of people read New York Magazine. So most people just thought of it as that. And that's cool. I'm down with that. I'd merchant – I'd do Brat Pack merch if the opportunity arose. Yeah. with that i would i'd merchant i'd i'd do brat pack merch if the opportunity arose yeah i tried i tried going to some convention and signing autographs how was that should i do one of those no no well you maybe me you should but i should never do it again why why i think we're very similar i mean possibly it was a bad day of the week possibly it was father's day

and there was a reason why no one showed up but there i am my little pile of headshots feeling a bit oh my god a bit slimy just a little bit so where was it uh it wasn't cincinn, but let's call it Cincinnati. Okay. But it was like that. Understood. And they paid me a chunk to show up and boy, did they not get their money's worth. Amazing. And who, here's the part that gets dicey. I mean, you're probably not going to name names. Who's at the, because my thing is all about who's at the table next to you.

Ah. Because it isn't going to be daniel day lewis no i think it was a wrestler there you go yeah and doing very well and it wasn't john cena no or the rock okay so you're a brat pack now when what was the first thing that you can remember where it was like no i'm not suck on this look at this performance i know you didn't choose it that way but looking back what broke you away from that do you think it i think it was about last night, even though Demi was in it with me and she is fantastic in it. That movie, it's based on David Mamet's play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. So it was a great piece of writing.

Ed Zwick's first movie. Yeah. I'm the director. And it was the first sort of adult ish thing that I got to do. Did you ever in this have moments of, Oh, I don't know. I'm out.

Yes. I've shot my whatever. Yeah, for sure. You think it's over? It's only taken me within the past five years of realizing, like you, it's like you're a made man,

as they would say in the mafia. You made your bones back in the, I always have that phrase, you made your bones, makes me laugh. But like, you made your bones back at, back at Paramount.

Stage 23, you and Woody, you made your bones together. In the latter half of the, uh, former century. You made your bones when I was kicking. So I, I, I realize I'm probably not going anywhere at this point, but it took me a long time, a long time where I, I can remember times where i thought my career was for sure over for sure i had a moment after chairs and becker and i tried something else that lasted like nine episodes and it was like oh okay i'm boring myself i'm'm not funny. There are other people who are doing this and are really funny. And I,

I'm out no more TV. And I went to Jeffrey Katzenberg. I said, who I'd known from three men and a baby. And I said, I just, I, you don't have to pay me,

but put me in any kind of movie. I'm not going to do TV anymore. I, it's a bit part, whatever. I don't care. I just want to start doing movies. And I don't know if he was responsible, but I got to be in Saving Private Ryan.

Oh, I remember it vividly. I've always wanted to ask you about that. Yeah. Well, on your own time, pal. That's when we reunite on my show. I have it underlined. Yeah, I thought I was out. And then Curb Your Enthusiasm kind of reinvigorated my desire to be funny.

Gotta do it. Yeah, that'll do it. I mean, legendary arc character for you, even though it's you but not you. Yeah. And one of the great comedies of all time. All right. Thank you. Moving on.

Sorry. We'll save that. So you have children. That's a big deal to be an actor, famous actor, and have kids and raise them in some way that allows them not to be in your shadow. Was that a big juggle for you or?

It's one, it's the reason we moved out of LA and, and, um, Matthew was six months old and I remember vividly the light bulb going on and going, I got to get out of here was he was literally six months old. And they're like, you know, you better be thinking about preschool. I was like, I was like, I'm sorry, what, what? I can barely figure out how to put a diaper on this kid. Like, no, in LA, the preschools, you know, there's a list and you should really think about this one. And I tell you, you should talk to, you know, you should talk to about the pre he's got preschools.

Why, you know, you need to talk to Mike Ovitz. And I was like, I'm like, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out of the city. I am gone. Wow. That's mature though. Cause you can get sucked into the what's hot and what's not here in LA.

Every once in a while, I have a really good vision. Really, truly every once in a while, like wanted to be an actor, knew I should get sober, knew who I should marry, knew I had to move out of LA. Doesn't it? It feels like, and looking back it looks like i'm good for a good idea every 10 years that was a good idea mary did that mary moved out of town and um moved to ohio and raised her kids there and one of the great schools yeah oak grove just a brilliant school oh yeah i spent a lot of my sons went to kate so thatcher yes was the big

rival yes so i spent a lot of time did they surf they were on the surf team at kate the surf team yeah charlie mcdowell mary's son is a big surfer amazing yeah loves it yeah yeah no i yes so they they um and and you know the thing about living up in santa barbara montecito was that you know it's not a company town no as a matter of fact you're a bit of an outsider if you're an actor 100 there there were there always actors had a footprint up there robert mitchum had been there forever how cool is that no come on um and you know but it was regular people and working class people and a couple and then you know they're always um old school um eastern families with lots of money as well but it was

kind of a mishmash of different things and i got to coach little league without having to worry about pulling out the president of paramount's kid from third base because he's a fucking spastic do you know what i mean it's like like that's what that honestly that was part of it too is like i knew i wanted to coach kids sports oh really yeah really i'm not kidding. And I was like, I can, I don't want to sit there with my agents, kids, my publicist kids with this movie stars. I just didn't want, I know that sounds weird, but I didn't want that. Is that insane? comes from uh i i made it i made it big i'm you know i i'm part of a title the brat pack you know i know i wasn't i wasn't there yet i was still ready i was i had many years of worrying about whether i was gonna done before oh really yeah oh yeah all right i'll give it to you that was a really brave mature choice well it made all the. And my kids knock on wood are doing great. Johnny, my youngest.

So he goes, he went to Stanford. Yeah. Like you. Two years. I went, he went for. You did. He made it. Smart lad.

But then he decided he wanted to be an actor. And I'm like, well, you could have told me that before I wrote the check. Cause I mean, all you had to do is four years ago into Jamba juice. Yeah. That was me. You know, going to yoga and that it would have been exactly the same. But, um, anyway. Johnny, he doesn't mean that.

No. He's so he, but he's co-created a show on Netflix that he and I do together. Unstable? Unstable. I looked at a clip. That's pretty cool. It's really fun. Well done.

Well done him. It's really fun. And he's a really, really talented writer and a really, really good actor as well. And so sometimes you can't fight City Hall. You know what I mean? you can't fight city hall you know what i mean you can't fight genetics um and then matthew my oldest was the one who went i want nothing to do with this business and so he went to duke and then went to loyola and got his law degree and now is in finance and has like a real job living living in la oh great yeah he didn't go new york that's now now he loves he loves the outdoors he's a big time intense outdoorsman so he has to be near the ocean and

all of that oh southern california has a lot to love yeah it really does yes yes it does but a lot of that then i'm assuming cause you were out of town a lot. I took them with. Fell on your wife's shoulder. Well, here's what happened. So I was, I was doing movies and in those days there were all those independent movies. There was lots of that. And I was kind of living in that world and they would come with me. They were young enough that they could, we always traveled like the Von Trapp family.

We traveled together. They were young enough that they could, we always traveled like the Von Trapp family. We traveled together. They were young enough that they weren't really in school, whatever. And then when they, when they got into elementary school, I just fortuitously got the West wing script. And then I was here and doing television. Did you commute?

And I commuted, yeah. The first I did. Wow. For the four years I was on West Wing, I commuted. That means up at 334. It was brutal. Wow. But I didn't know any better. And you know like you don't know what you're missing?

Until you've been driven somewhere, you don't know what you're missing. So I was like, this is what you do. And I was up and the sun wasn't up with my coffee and driving in and, and I loved it. It was great. Um, but I think it made a difference because I was home every night and they knew I was home. The kids knew I was home and it made a big difference, but it enabled my television work coincided almost perfectly with them being in school where we wouldn't be able to pull them out and travel yeah good for you no it was it was it

was a lot of it was luck i mean a lot of a lot of it was yeah they must have even in santa barbara bumped into oh your dad's famous huh they never tell you that's true they never tell you ever ever ever i bet you kids have never seen cheers no of course they haven't they never come to work unless you know oh i'm interviewing uh rob. Oh, we'll come. All right. Otherwise they give a rat's ass. No, they don't care at all. No, no, it's, it's unbelievable. I just know, I just know without asking, I promise you, your kids have never seen cheers. Of course they haven't. Why would they, why would they, why would Ted Danson's kids ever want to see the most iconic comedy in the history of television? Why would they ever want to see the most iconic comedy in the history of television why would they ever want to see that i'm gonna play this clip for them yes because they you know they they will embarrassingly admit to that every once in a while oh for sure you think my kids have seen the west wing yeah maybe johnny particularly not all. Oh, all right. All right.

Oh, dad, that shows like science fiction. Wait, well, it is now. It is now. No,

he's right. Not wrong. Yeah. He's not wrong. It's, it's watching that show now. You're like, you just,

it's plays like a comedy. Can I move away from career for a minute and talk about your big old heart and what drives you nowadays? If you had a, I know this is off purpose for me because I need to do something in the world besides acting and all this stuff. Yeah. What is that like for you now? Where is your heart? Where is that center of you now? Where is your heart? Where is that center of you and what's it aiming at kind of thing?

Well, I mean, it's funny. I spend a lot of time mentoring young men because my kids are, they still need mentoring, but it's a different thing you know they're on their own and kind of doing their own thing and the best way i can mentor them in many ways is to stay out of their lives honestly in a weird way you know what i mean yes um but i missed that and i was good at it and so um you know if there's a young person maybe struggling with drugs or alcohol, I, I know I'm going to get that call, which is great. And I love helping to the extent that

I'm able to do that. So I, I, I devote a lot of time in the recovery world with that. And, um, I, I also, um, unofficially just people finding you or reaching out to you or hearing about you yeah they're they're like you know you know how things are there's like a network right and and people who know know you know what i mean and there are other people doing what i do it's it's not you know bradley cooper does a lot of work in that area. He's a great friend to people who are trying to get it together. And there are others. So I do a lot of that. I do a lot of work in the cancer fundraising in honor of my mom and her mother and my grandmother.

Three generations of breast cancer. Wow. And then the other thing I do is I work with a group called the Horatio Alger Society. They're out of Washington DC and it's, it's self-made Distinguished Americans that I was honored to be invited to. And it's the who's who of people. And what we do is every year we pick two students who have to apply from each state who are at the top of their class academically, but whose families make less than $25,000 a year and who have the horror stories of where they come from. You don't even want to repeat them out loud. They're so bad, what these kids are dealing with at home, the kind of abuse. And we pay for their college education.

And we have a dinner every year in Washington and we get to meet these kids. And I'll tell you what, you will know our country is in great hands when you see these young students. students and in spite of everything they're going through getting great grades and wanting to change the world while they go home and have a crap beaten out of them and everything else you could possibly imagine and they still show up and and to be able to be a part of that is super super cool so those are really the the three areas where i i kind of am spending my time when I want to give back. Tell me about the kids. Is there a follow-up? Oh, yeah.

Do you know everything about them? Cheryl and I sponsor. And so the members will all sponsor kids as well. And so you don't just get paid for the education and go, good luck, because a lot of them don't know how to live. Right. Um, so we've, uh, we, Cheryl and I have sponsored a student from going to college. He's now in the workforce and, you know, it's, you know, whatever he may need a little money here and there checking in advice, you know, it's like, it's like a, you know, like, like big brother program used to be or whatever.

Um, and, uh, and it's, it's, it's very, very inspiring. It and uh and it's it's it's very very inspiring it's uh it's a it's a great group i think you've answered my next question which is how do you cope with um it's a lot going on in the world to make you scared sad you know hopeless yeah if you're not vigilant but it's see i guess what you do in life the giving back as you called it is what probably keeps your heart in good shape yeah because it's easy to get jaded and and and and and sometimes my my brand my comedy comes from a place of that because like you know there's nothing better than the archetype of the sort of Paul Newman archetype of the world weary Butch Cassidy or or Slapshot Coach. And I kind of like that sort of vibe a lot. But if you if you live in that, it's a cop out.

Yeah. Right. So working with people who are wanting to change their life, wanting to better themselves and change their lives. That's the key. Yeah. Working with people who are actively wanting to change their lives for the better. And whatever that looks like. Enter Jane Fonda. Jane. jane oh man isn't she just an inspiration i met her when i was just turning 70 and i thought at 70 i was going well i better

find a nice soft place to land and kind of gear down and make sure everything is in order. And then I met her and she was 80. And she had her foot on the gas pedal. She still does at 85. She is relentless. She'll do a 12-day shooting, you know, turn around, get on a plane, fly to so-and-so to campaign for somebody who's going to, you know, not take oil money. She's just truly inspirational. She's had so many chapters. Her documentary, Speaking of Chapters, is brilliant.

Yeah. I mean, there's nobody like her. Nobody. She also will say anything, tell any truth, and share anything. There's nothing hidden about her life. When we first met her, Mary and I both drove home going, oh, I don't think she should sail. I think she needs to be more guarded.

And then it was like, oh, maybe we're too guarded. That ship sailed a long time ago for Jane. Yes, that's true. That's true. Right? Yeah. We are so blessed to be around our children. We have four kids and they are

willing for some bizarre reason to share their friends with us. It's the best. And it's the best. It really is. And now we get grandchildren, which you're going to love because then you get to watch it like an anthropologist and go, wow, look at that brain develop. But here's my question. Cheryl and I talked about this the other day. I don't know.

Do you root for grandkids? Once you're married, you root for grandkids. I guess I don't want to root for grandkids. Both my kids are single, so let's not have any grandkids at the moment. No, no, no, no. All in the fullness of time. In the fullness of time. I think it happened to me at a perfect time.

I was just starting to get a smidge grumpy about being old. Yeah. And along came a granddaughter and it was like, oh, I'm in. Yeah. You know, or they sit, I look in the mirror and go, oh shit, look at this thing hanging from my chin, this flap of skin. And then one of them is sitting in my lap, playing with it, with their finger, just kind of smacking it back and forth. And I'm going, ah, yes, thank God I have a waddle because this is fun. Waddle is my favorite word of the day. Yeah.

The password is. Waddle. Waddle. Not to be confused with waddle. No, not at all. Thank you so much for sitting down with me. What I'm beginning to learn about podcasts, not that I'm good at it. You're great at it.

But the opportunity to sit next to somebody you really don't know or even you know, but you've never sat down for an hour and got to talk about anything. Isn't it amazing? Yes, it is. It's a privilege. It really is. It is such a privilege. I love it and when i and i i i go back and i vacillate between which is more fun sitting down with somebody you

do not know yes or someone you know really well because they're they're both different gears yes but you will find out i mean i've sat sat with Woody here on this podcast and found out stuff I had no idea. My sense is you could do a podcast with Woody for the next century and find out things you didn't know about Woody. Yes, that's true, because he is such a bundle of contradictions. I mean, right? Yes, yes. I will only eat the purest of air, but I will smoke and drink this. Oh, I please.

I admire you so much, Rob. Oh, and vice versa. Really, really grateful for this. Thanks. Vice versa. Thanks. This is great. Special thanks to Rob Lowe for being here today.

Be sure and check out Literally with Rob Lowe wherever you get your podcasts. You can even start with my episode because I visited him last year. And watch Unstable Season 2, created, produced, and starring Rob Lowe and his son John Owen. Out now on Netflix.

That's it for this episode. Hello to Woody. I miss you, buddy. And special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone you love. Subscribe, rate, and review. You know the drill.

If you like watching your podcast, just a reminder that full episodes are available on Team Coco's YouTube channel. We'll have more for you next week, where everybody knows your name. You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced

by me, Nick Liao. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Graw. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gann, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie Navarie. We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name. Consumer Cellular offers the same fast, reliable, nationwide coverage without the big wireless cost.

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