Rob Lowe Calls ‘Competitive’ ‘Outsiders’ Cast His ‘Frat Brothers’ (Exclusive) ArticlePure

Rob Lowe wasn’t even 18 when he landed his first feature film role, in The Outsiders.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 coming-of-age classic, costarring a group of up-and-comers, including Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez and Matt Dillon, helped launch the careers of the strapping and talented posse.

“I turned 18 on-set in Tulsa… Those [costars] are my guys, my homies, my frat brothers,” Lowe tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story that celebrates transformative moments in the Hollywood icon’s life. “We all were deadly serious and super-competitive. Tom [Cruise] being Tom took it to another level. He was just born with that kind of commitment and was inspiring.”

In the film, an adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel The Outsiders, Lowe played Sodapop Curtis — one of the Greasers — and Cruise portrayed Steve Randle.

“It’s funny, the movie meant different things to me over the years. As it was happening, it seemed perfectly natural, [and] that was my fraternity,” he says. “And now with time, and with so many generations growing up and accepting the movie, and it being a part of their lives… to be part of it is really special.”

Lowe’s bond with Estevez, rooted in their childhood growing up as pals and neighbors in Malibu, ran especially deep. “Emilio helped me navigate where this was all going, [and] it was good to have a best buddy going through highs and lows of being a young actor in Hollywood,” he says.

“It was an amazing moment in time… and this [film] felt really special. The seriousness with which Francis and everybody, all the actors, took it, was really ahead of its time.”

Looking back, Lowe says the seeds of who the actors matured into were evident early on. “All of us brought our individual things that you would see later in our careers,” he says.

“I think my [Outsiders] character is sort of funny on his feet, and good-natured and light [and] if you look at something like Parks and Recreation, you can see elements of Soda Pop Curtis even in that.”

Lowe, whose still-thriving career flourished with roles in projects like The West Wing, Parks and Recreation and Unstable, says he’s not surprised that Cruise for one remains at the top of his game.

“In Tom, you can see the intensity in The Outsiders that has him hanging off of an airplane in his late fifties,” he says. “The embryos of who we became are [evident] if you’re looking close enough.”

For more from Rob Lowe’s PEOPLE interview, pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.