Rob Lowe’s son had gun pulled on him on ‘Grace Point’ set
The outsiders looking in might find this advice a bit unstable.
When John Owen Lowe walked onto the set of his coming-of-age thriller, “Grace Point,” the last thing the young Hollywood star expected was to have a gun pulled on him. But after calling his dad, Rob Lowe, to recount the incident, his response was one for the books.
“Someone pulled a gun on us while we were filming,” the project’s writer and director, Rory Karpf, exclusively told The Post during an event for the movie on Jan. 30.
“We were filming and we’re in fields and woods in this town Laurinburg, North Carolina. And we have permission obviously to be everywhere, but this guy pulled up in a truck with his shotgun and it was more like shoot first, ask questions later.”
Luckily for the cast and crew, one member was ready to slither into action.
“He had his gun drawn and the person who stepped up was literally our local snake wrangler, whose name is Snake,” Rory continued. “Johnny thought maybe we were doing an improv scene.”
John confirmed the incident and recalled the moment he called his father to clue him in on what went down, telling The Post that Rob said, “That’ll make a great story for press.”
“That’s the only way my dad’s brain works,” the 29-year-old star quipped. “It wasn’t how are you feeling. It was like, ‘This is gonna crush!’”
The Post reached out to the movie’s press team for comment.
Despite Rob’s sense of humor, the “9-1-1: Lone Star” vet has been a guiding force for his youngest son, whom he shares with his wife, Sheryl Berkoff. The father-son duo, who starred in Netflix’s “Unstable” together for two seasons, have similar journeys with sobriety. Rob got sober in 1990 at 26, while John stopped drinking alcohol more than six years ago in his early 20s.
The “Holiday in the Wild” actor credits his family, including his older brother, Matt, 32, for helping him get to the other side of substance abuse and Rob, who went through it as well.
“Particularly with the sobriety, he helped me so much, my whole family did. My mom as well and my brother,” John revealed. “Definitely would not be here sitting in the chair having had accomplished anything that I’ve accomplished, maybe even alive, without them.”
When it comes to the acting side of things, he also threw some credit Rob’s way.
“Show business-wise, I think he’d like to take more credit than is true. But he gives me a lot of advice. He gives me more advice than I’d like to hear in that regard,” John teased.
It has now come full circle for John as he is playing a teen struggling with addiction who gets into trouble on the way to rehab in “Grace Point.” The project also doubled as a mini Brat Pack reunion as Andrew McCarthy plays John’s father in the film, 40 years after Andrew and Rob starred in the 1985 classic “St. Elmo’s Fire.”
“I think anytime you’re playing a character that’s dealing with addiction or anything of that nature, for me, it’s something I take very seriously and it’s a very sensitive topic,” John admitted about his character, Brandon. “It’s very private for a lot of people too, so it’s an internal struggle of how much of myself to put into this, how much of myself to broadcast.”
Dealing with a role so close to his heart, as John put it, leads to “pressure to get it right because it’s so important.”
“That’s why I loved this script and this project because I thought that it did get it right,” he gushed. “And highlighting the father-son struggles and the pressures from a parent who wants more from you and a son who understands that subconsciously but wrestles with that concept.”
“Not that I have experienced any of this in my own personal life. We know that can’t possibly be true,” John joked.
“I think it was handled delicately and taken seriously in this and it made it much easier for me to play that character and I’ve definitely put a lot of myself in there,” the producer noted. “I went to rehab in the south even when I was young, so there were a lot of parallels.”
In 2024, Rob opened up about quitting drinking in the ’90s after struggling in the spotlight for years.
“Getting sober was an incremental decision,” he told People at the time. “It’s baby steps until you’re ready. You can’t do it until you’re really ready.”
“Grace Point” is available to stream on Apple TV+.
