Rob Lowe Takes On Casey Anthony

Published by The Editor at January 19, 2013

Rob Lowe has already had a long and varied career. His infamous days as a member of the Brat Pack on and off screen, produced great roles in movies like “St. Elmo’s Fire”, “The Outsiders”, “Oxford Blues” and “About Last Night”. More recently he has done great work on television series like “Parks and Recreation”, “The West Wing” and “Californication”, and everything in between. He recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his latest project, a tv movie for The Lifetime Network, “Prosecuting Casey Anthony” in which he plays the attorney who prosecuted the highly publicized case. Excerpts from the interview appear below. “Prosecuting Casey Anthony” premiers January 19, 2013 at 8pm on the Lifetime network.

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Ron Bennington: This film plays out where it’s almost like a documentary. You’ve taken so much stuff that you probably already have enough footage to see, right? Most of this stuff.

Rob Lowe: It’s funny. You’re the first person who’s picked up on that. We wanted to make this like a documentary and not have it feel and look like a movie for television. And there’s a very very famous renown crime documentary called “The Staircase”. And that was our inspiration for making the movie. So I loved that you picked up on that.

Ron Bennington: Well, most of it looks like it was shot for TV, even though it’s a TV film – you still get this thing of – alright, we’ve taken this footage and there’s actually a thousand hours of it and we’ve clipped it together.

Rob Lowe: Exactly.

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Rob Lowe Talks About the Casey Anthony Trial and Social Media

Ron Bennington: But that you’re going for the high tension. Now everybody remembers this trial because this was one of those trials that only happens every 20 years or so. That if you’re not following it – you’re not part of any conversation that’s going on. That’s how many people were watching the trial.

Rob Lowe: It was really the first big trial in the era of Twitter and Facebook, I believe too.

Ron Bennington: So that actually even pulled up more…more than the OJ trial which we all kind of watched on TV, but separately. When you have Twitter and Facebook, people then can argue it out in public.

Rob Lowe: And public opinion coalesces so much faster. And information is spread so much faster, so when you’re trying to pick a jury and they say they have no opinion…

Ron Bennington: Yeah, they have an opinion.

Rob Lowe: They’re either living under a rock, they’re lying or they’re idiots.

Ron Bennington: And I remember, they even bussed this jury in from the other side of the state.

Rob Lowe: I love the idea. Talk about an antiquated idea. In the era of news traveling the world in 2 seconds – well, these people, believe me – they didn’t have the information. They came from the other side of town.

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Rob Lowe on The Casey Anthony Jury

Ron Bennington: It‘s a very strange thing because you see that when everybody pays attention to a trial. The jury starts to carry themselves different as well. The jury kind of knows…

Rob Lowe: This is their moment.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. Everybody’s looking at me right now.

Rob Lowe: And I think as juries go, this one – although I think they got it wrong, is not the worst jury I’ve ever seen in terms of taking advantage of it. I mean I don’t think there’s been any real books or anything. I think people are so repelled by the case that there was no market for it, certainly. And look, I didn’t even really want to do a movie having anything to do with Casey Anthony until I read this script and realized it’s the story of Jeff Ashton. It’s the story of this prosecutor and a guy who gave his entire career to finding justice for victims, many of whom were dead. And takes one last case and it happens to be this one. That was really interesting to me.

Ron Bennington: And he felt, going into this – slam dunk, right? I mean he felt really good about it from the beginning.

Rob Lowe: Oh yeah. Well listen, the minute you have a mother admitting for 31 days – she lied about her daughter missing. To me, that’s a pretty good indication that something bad happened.

Ron Bennington: Right. It was really mind blowing for people to put their head around. And you’re right with the fact that a lot of juries get…a lot of trials are sexy because it’s rich people and lovers and killed for the money, blah, blah, blah. But this was one of those cases where you were just sick the whole time you were following it. Just the thought of this crime was more than most people can hold on to.

Rob Lowe: Well look, those of us who are parents – it’s so unthinkable. It’s just unthinkable. And for there to have been no justice for that little baby – is still unbelievably painful for so many people. And maybe, this movie helps give some sort of answers as to why that happened.

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Rob Talks About Californication, Liberace and I Melt With You

Ron Bennington: You’re getting to do so much cool stuff at this point in your career too. The stuff that you’ve done on “Californication” is – I think some of my favorite stuff that you’ve ever done.

CALIFORNICATION (Season 4) Rob Lowe: Thank you.

Ron Bennington: I just think it’s crazy.

Rob Lowe: It’s a great character, right? Eddie Nero.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, it’s just amazing. And there’s so many guys that you think of while you’re playing it. So many of those actors who just want to live it the whole time. But it’s so funny. And to be doing that – you were doing it at the same time as “Parks and Rec”. And then pulling off stuff like this.

Rob Lowe: And then, I went from that to “Liberace” which I have coming out in May with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon – where I play this insane, demented plastic surgeon to the stars. I mean when I first started acting, right? And all I could play were ingenue parts, I mean that I made it to the point that I can finally have this kind of diversity. Like to play Drew Peterson last year – which was a transformational character for me.

Ron Bennington: And then you did “I Melt With You”.

Rob Lowe: “I Melt With You”

Ron Bennington: One of my favorite films last year.

Rob Lowe: Oh, thank you.

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Rob Talks About Some of the Problems of Early Success in Hollywood

Ron Bennington: Do you think you broke too young though? I mean is that part of the problem that you have when you come in as a kid actor like that?

Rob Lowe: I think it’s…look, the good news is you get success and you should take it whenever you can get it, but I do think that it’s a whole different set of hurdles to overcome if you have early success. Even today, I look at where the business is now and so many great young actors out there. You hope that they will have the chance to survive to show different sides of them that – right now, they want to put them in spandex and have them carry a shield and chase bad guys around.

Ron Bennington: Right. And you didn’t come from an acting family, so no one could say to you at the time – hey, you’re not in a hurry. You don’t need to do 2 or 3 movies a year.

Rob Lowe: Right. Oh by the way, you always think it’s going to end. (laughs) So you’re like – man, what? I could do 3 movies this year!? Guess what? I’m doing doing 3 movies this year. That never stops.

Ron Bennington: Who wants to not be working? I mean it’s insane to say – no, I’m turning that down.

Rob Lowe: Listen, you always think the Screen Actors Guild police are going to beat down the door and usher you out. That feeling never goes away. I mean I was sitting with Matt Damon in the Soderbergh movie (“Behind the Candelabra”) – now granted, we were…he’s playing Liberace’s gay lover and I’m playing the feel-good, we’re both in spandex, we’re both oiled up, we both have bouffant hairdos on and I looked over at Matt and said – dude, this may be it. This may be the final…this is the coup de grace. They found us both out. And it’s going to be the end for both of us. So, it just never ends.

Ron Bennington: Is there a time that it was more fun? Was it more fun when you were younger? Or more fun now?

Rob Lowe: It’s more fun in a different way now. Look, when I was young and crazy and partying and single – that was a great time, but that’s not the life you want to live when you’re in your 40s. And so, that was about the whole world of it. Now, you have the perspective hopefully one gets when they survive to this age where it is the actual work that’s the thrill. And when you’re young and a kid and you’re Justin Bieber or Robert Pattinson – there’s so much cool stuff going on that that’s fun. Listen, you’ve got to give it up – that shit’s fun.

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Rob Lowe Talks About Wanting to be an Actor as a Kid

Ron Bennington: You were a kid that really wanted to be in business.

Rob Lowe: Yeah, it’s all I ever wanted. I don’t know why. I guess I was demented.

Ron Bennington: And isn’t it even strange because I read your book – when you lived in Ohio, the chances are you would have gotten out there after college or something, but the fact that your mom moved. It’s always weird how that thing gets together to where you think you’re planning a life, but things happen.

Rob Lowe: Yeah. You can plan so much and then fate is going to intervene. And it certainly did for me, but I was ready for it when it did. And that was key.

Ron Bennington: You were ready to take the ride. You wanted it that much?

Rob Lowe: Yeah. For sure.

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Ron Bennington: This film, “Prosecuting Casey Anthony” premieres next Saturday, January 19th. You know the story. Everybody’s watched this, but this gives you a chance now after this much time to have a chance to stand back. We’ve stood away from it for a while and we can kind of watch it as a drama. Well, everybody I guess except for the people that were involved. I don’t know how Casey Anthony feels about this. It’s been kind of interesting that she hasn’t really been anywhere in the past year. Everyone expected a book or whatever out of her.

Rob Lowe: I don’t think anybody will pay her anything and rightly so. And it’s like Jeff says, my character at the end of the movie is that – she may not have been convicted by the 12 jurors, but she was convicted in the court of public opinion and there’s no recovering from that.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. That’s a tough one. That is a tough one to act like you’re going to restart because you’re going to have to leave the country at the very least. Next Saturday, January 19th, “Prosecuting Casey Anthony”. Rob, thanks so much for stopping by.

Rob Lowe: Thank you. This is great. I appreciate it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0NxxgmjfFM]

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