Rob Lowe reveals his secrets to reinventing yourself

(Image credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

published 22 September 2015

Being Rob Lowe means you're a bad-boy teen star, a scandalized celebrity in the way of Kim Kardashian, a hyperactive government employee, and an advocate for proper grooming all rolled into one. It means you grew up in Southern California 40 years ago and still surf unironically today. It means you're both a genetic marvel and a dude with "scrawny arms" who gets bested by a jar of mayonnaise. In short, it means you're king of reinventing yourself.

That's the point of this month's GQ cover story about the actor, who has been famous for three decades. Lowe divulged to writer Amy Wallace his tips for re-branding, which include:

Get noticed in the first place (as he had to do when sharing a screen with the likes of Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze in the 1983 movie The Outsiders)
Learn to live with disappointment (which he had to do after seeing he was mostly edited out of The Outsiders)
Be willing to change things up (like he did, playing optimism machine Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation while simultaneously playing convicted killer Drew Peterson in a TV movie)
Stand up for yourself (as he did when he left The West Wing after "insulting" contract negotiations)
Use facial moisturizer (which he credits for his good looks, and which he's been doing since he was 15)

Lowe also dishes on which celebrities reached out to him after his sex tape scandal broke (hint: not many), his habit for tracking his life stages with tattoos, and the time he punched a surfer mid-wave. Read the whole profile at GQ.