This is a wild story.

(Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)

The Outsiders may not be the highest-ranked Francis Ford Coppola movie, but its cast featured actors who would become some of Hollywood’s most notable stars by 2024. Not only that, but Rob Lowe can attest to the fact that the famed director gave his young cast some lasting memories during production of the 1983 film. The actor recently talked to Coppola about the time he and Tom Cruise had to live with real-life greasers.

Living with greasers is a story Lowe has shared in the past, but it’s interesting to hear him talk with Francis Ford Coppola about it on his podcast, called Literally! With Rob Lowe. Lowe played Sodapop, a greaser and best friend of Tom Cruise’s Steve Randle, who was also a greaser. In real life, they were just actors, so Coppola sent them to spend the evening with real greasers, presumably for the sake of immersion. Here’s Lowe recalling the evening:

We all had to go to their houses. And I remember so vividly being on a couch near a furnace, in a basement of these people I did not know, and me and Tom Cruise looking at each other going, ‘They could — they might come down and kill us tonight.’

Fortunately, the actors escaped with their lives and got to spend a good deal of their time outside of that night in a hotel. What’s funny is that the video shows Francis Ford Coppola burying his head in his hands during the story, perhaps thinking about how he would never do something like that now or that the actors were never truly in danger.

Imagine if something had happened on that fateful night and how it would’ve altered the landscape of pop culture, though! Tom Cruise launched an A-list career off of The Outsiders and we might’ve had someone else starring in some of his best performances over the past few decades. Let me add that Rob Lowe has also had a big career since then, despite destroying takes on the set of comedy movies early on.

And while The Outsiders may not be the most celebrated movie on either actor’s resume, it is still beloved by many. As someone who will defend the book adaptation to my last breath, I still say that the key death is one that will break my heart every time that I watch it. Robert Frost wrote “Nothing gold can stay” and inspired part of the story, but the power of the messages of the movie and original book by S.E. Hinton certainly endures.

Those looking to stream The Outsiders after hearing that funny story by Rob Lowe can do so if they have a Paramount+ subscription. As someone who has watched it fairly recently, I think it is still very entertaining, especially because it showcases a bunch of notable Hollywood actors early on.