Robert Downey Jr. says he was 'jealous' of Rob Lowe in high school: 'I was a hot mess'

Robert Downey Jr. has revealed just how envious he was of Rob Lowe when they were students at Santa Monica High School in the 1980s. 

The Iron Man star recalled meeting Lowe in history class and being flummoxed by how the St. Elmo's Fire actor was able to successfully juggle both Hollywood and his homework.

“I want to say I was jealous, but that’s not deep enough,” Downey, then an aspiring actor, said on Thursday’s episode of Lowe’s Literally podcast. “I didn’t understand how anyone could get where you were, let alone still have attendance in school. It just seemed like there was something so high-functioning going on that there was no point for me to even attempt to understand it.”

In response, Lowe noted that they were just different people at the time. “We’re wired similarly and also super differently — you would be impossible to pin down for that kind of structure at that point in your life,” he said, to which Downey replied, “I was a hot mess.”

Lowe, who by high school had a big role as Tony on the ABC sitcom A New Kind of Family under his belt, mostly remembered the more antiquated ways he had to balance stardom and school, adding, “You’d walk by the bulletin board and there’d be like, ‘Rob, call your agent,’ and I’d go to the phone booth.”

“Can you imagine what it was like for the rest of us at SanMo High to see that notification for you?” a laughing Downey interjected, adding that if he ever had a message waiting for him, it would likely have said, “‘You’re f---ing suspended.’” 

Lowe’s shiny new car pulling up to campus each morning certainly didn't help Downey's jealousy. “You had a champagne colored Mazda 626 that only fresh money could grab you the lease on,” he recalled. “I remember you driving by in that car to get into the parking lot and was like, ‘Welp, that’s how the other half live.’”

Downey, who dropped out of school in 1982 to devote himself to acting, also noted that he was surprised that he and Lowe “weren’t drawn toward one another immediately” after they met, even if they had very different approaches when it came to their studies.

“I was in school as infrequently as possible,” he said. “I actually managed to figure out how to climb the only super-tall fence, which led out onto Lincoln, because that was the only place that hall monitors weren’t looking for people trying to ditch school. It had to have been a 28-, 30-foot-tall fence.”

The Marvel star also had “vague memories” of being beyond embarrassed to go to prom dressed in a “mohair black sateen suit” after his dad, Robert Downey Sr., refused to buy him a tux. “I went to prom like a gangster,” he said. “I believe with a gal named Kelly McReynolds, who, understandably, didn’t like me very much after prom night.”

Lowe and Downey weren’t the only Santa Monica High students who would become stars. In 2014, Lowe told Howard Stern about his experience going to school with Downey, Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, and Sean Penn, calling it a "weird time and place for people."

Listen to Downey and Lowe recall their high school days in the podcast above.

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