Actor Rob Lowe launched his new podcast “Literally! With Rob Lowe” Monday morning, with his first guest Chris Pratt, his previous co-star on NBC’s “Parks and Rec.”
Lowe dove right into the show by talking about old movies, television, his and Pratt’s funniest moments on the set together, and telling the story of the time he auditioned for “Footloose.”
“I left the ‘Footloose’ audition on a stretcher,” he said.
Lowe also revealed the awkward moment that his fake saxophone playing skills were requested in the White House by the unknowing Bill Clinton, only to be rescinded after clarification by Barbara Streisand that Lowe could not, in fact, actually play.
“This is when I really knew I was in show business and I had made it,” Lowe told a chuckling Pratt. “I was like ‘I’m in a shame spiral with the President Clinton, David Foster, and Barbara Streisand.’”
The humorous conversation between Lowe and Pratt also featured their feelings about the most recent “Parks and Rec” cast reunion and some of their favorite scripted and unscripted moments together on the show.
I’m LITERALLY the first guest on @RobLowe’s podcast. Out today! Listen and subscribe @ https://t.co/IEjAKfB57z pic.twitter.com/brENsb6Sxr
— chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) June 25, 2020
“I forgot how much work [Parks and Rec] was,” Pratt said “It was really hard, but I gotta say it was really worth it and it looked great. It was really fun and funny and great to see everybody.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lowe said he started the podcast because, “It felt like the next organic step” in his career.
“Podcasts are really the only place today where you could get the kind of interviews that I grew up with everywhere,” Lowe said. “You’d watch the ‘Tonight Show ‘and somebody who’s great can come on and tell a 20-minute story, or you could read the Playboy interview … Those things are sort of gone and now, that all takes place on the podcast. I wanted to do one because it was a natural progression from like two books to my one-man show.”
Lowe also explained the vision for the podcast is having the freedom to talk without a script with an authentic host, “in the sense that anything could happen.”
“Podcasts are a direct result of other talk formats getting overly scripted and overly produced. So you have to be authentic, to not give a f—, and you’ve got to let it all hang out,” Lowe said. “You have to be willing to mine your own weaknesses, as well as your strengths, usually for laughs.”
