My dad is an attorney. I've always been interested in it. My sons are probably going to law school.
— Rob Lowe
Tom Ford, who is my all-time favourite, once said to me, 'Here's the thing about dress shirts, Rob. You need white, and you need black.' 'What about blue,' I asked. He said, 'Have you ever seen Cary Grant in a blue dress shirt?'
I've gotten to believe it's more fun to play politicians than actually be them.
My hopes and aspirations haven't changed since I started in this business. They've been to be able to play drama, to be able to play comedy, to be able to play leading men, and to be able to play character roles. I have no other aspirations in this regard.
To be counter to the culture, you are by definition willfully and actively ignoring the culture, i.e., reality.
When I started on 'The West Wing,' that was at a time when this was still a stigma, because movie stars didn't do TV. Now, every movie star is desperate to find their 'True Detective.'
I have a friend who is very successful in business, and his motto is, 'Don't do what you can do. Do what only you can do.' First of all, you have to know what your specific, unique gift is and then you do that... every actor does that but every once in a while an actor plays a part that only they can play.
I learned to focus on what's real rather than imagined; on not letting feelings drive the bus; on being courageous and honest; on putting my total effort into something and not worrying about the result.
I started out being a really, really liberal Democrat.
I had met my now wife, Sheryl, and was attempting my first try at monogamy, which was not really in my nature at the time, and I wasn't able to do it.
Of the many horrors of divorce, the most egregious is that it robs a kid of the best of both worlds. Dads can do many things that even the best moms can't, and vice versa.
David Blum burned a lot of bridges. He burned people early in their careers. He took on the wrong people, though. He's not Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe, he's David Blum living in a cheap flat.
Equality for everybody is great. That would be amazing.
My greatest regret at the passing of America-hating strongman Hugo Chavez is that he didn't live long enough to party with Dennis Rodman.
It's funny what actors take issue with. Some won't do parts where animals are in jeopardy; some won't ever play anyone remotely unlikable - 'Heroes only, please.' Some won't do violence. I have no such qualms.
I'm a sportsman, you know, and I shoot skeet, and I grew up in the Midwest, so that's a part of my culture.
I couldn't have gotten sober without rehab because I needed the science.
Guys are really lucky. We become our authentic selves the older we get.
In comedy you have to be willing to not take yourself seriously, you know? I take comedy really seriously, and so to take comedy seriously, you must not, you cannot, ever take yourself seriously.
I love London.
Eleven days before 9/11, I was on a plane with the 9/11 hijackers who were carrying out a dry run.
Malibu was a wellspring of counterculture group think.
For sure, without question, the writing is better on TV pound for pound than movies because the businesses have changed so much. So all the great writers would rather work for TV, and they do.
I'm a registered Independent.
The cast of 'Parks & Rec' is just a group of unbelievably nice, humble, down to earth, hilarious friends.
I'm what you would call an 'independent moderate.'
I like doing things that are different, unexpected, and where I feel that either the role feels like a natural fit for me or it's a really big swing that I don't know if I'm going to connect on.
I've said before that the common perception that all good actors should be good liars is exactly the opposite; only bad actors lie when they act.
Cannes is a little bit like French wine. There are certain years that people prefer over others.
Individuals usually do a better job than the government.
If you are worried about what people think of you, you should go into politics. Real actors take chances.
Some actors specialize in shooting weapons and punching people. Some have the market on playing buffoons cornered, others specialize in roles that require heavy makeup or outrageous wardrobe. Some trade exclusively in a post-ironic blase attitude.
Look, I owns guns.
I look at it like this: that if Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written two or three plays about the Kennedy family, and actors would traditionally play JFK like they Hamlet or King Lear. They just would. I mean, people have played JFK, and they'll play him long after I have.
Like most guys, I don't come to beauty regimes naturally. I'm dragged kicking and screaming by the best in the world.
I've been lucky enough in 'The West Wing' and 'Brothers & Sisters' to talk about the issues that are important to me with none of the awful mud-slinging or public scrutiny you have in politics.
I'm not unashamed to say that I like movies that make me verklempt.
I am terrible with people's names.
A few years ago, I got to a point where I realised that the only way you can tell someone's age is how they live their life. The candles on the cake mean absolutely nothing.
Comedies always need to be provocative and catch your attention in a way that dramas don't have to.
I would've loved Jack Kennedy. I would've loved to have campaigned for him and supported him. I wish there were more like him today.
We should all be so lucky in our lives to create things that we're still talking about 25 years later.
When I got sober, that was 1990.
The first private space of my own wasn't a dorm room; it was a hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
After my parents' divorce when I was 4, I spent weekends with my dad before we finally moved to California. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was incapable of enjoying the day's activities, of being in the moment, because I was already dreading the inevitable goodbye of Sunday evening.
I'm a Hollywood pinhead; I don't know about political labels.
I have had a lot of blessed, interesting things happen to me and have bumped up against some amazing people.
The minute you start making calculations about what people will think of you as a person based on your work as an actor, you're on the road to becoming a bad one.
The first shooter video game stuff which - look, admittedly, I missed that generationally, so it's not a thing for me. I've never played them. I don't really get it. My kids do.
I'm a true centrist: my beliefs put me in the middle... You know what happens to people who drive in the middle of the road? They get run over.
