Rob Lowe
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50 free Rob Lowe trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rob Lowe has had about as many careers as most actors have roles. He was a teenage film star in the 1980s, a leading man whose run stalled, a comeback story on prestige television, a sitcom scene-stealer, a memoirist, a podcaster and the host of a trivia show of his own. Few Hollywood careers have lasted as long or changed shape as often. This quiz follows him through all of it. There are questions on early films such as The Outsiders and St. Elmo's Fire, on his years in The West Wing and Parks and Recreation, on his comedy villains and voice work, on the firefighting drama 9-1-1: Lone Star and on the game shows he has fronted. You will also find questions on his childhood, his family and a few of the stranger moments of his public life. It is written for fans who grew up with his films and for viewers who know him from television. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you pick up a story even when you miss one.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Fox trivia game show, played on a giant grid of LED squares, did Rob Lowe begin hosting in 2024?
The Floor
The Floor is an American version of a Dutch format, yet its first season was taped thousands of miles from Hollywood, at Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland.
Q 02On The West Wing, Rob Lowe played which deputy communications director, a gifted speechwriter for President Bartlet?
Sam Seaborn
Sam Seaborn was conceived as the show's lead, and the pilot centered on him, before the ensemble around him grew more popular and the focus shifted.
Q 03Rob Lowe named his 2020 podcast after which word, his Parks and Recreation character's favorite adverb?
Literally
Literally is the word his ever-cheerful city manager stresses and mispronounces in almost every scene, and the interview podcast Lowe launched in June 2020 borrowed it for a title.
Q 04In The Outsiders, Rob Lowe played which greaser, the middle of three orphaned brothers in 1960s Tulsa?
Sodapop Curtis
Sodapop Curtis was Lowe's first feature film role, in a young cast that also included Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio and Diane Lane.
Q 05Rob Lowe was a leading member of which group of young 1980s film stars, named by New York magazine?
Brat Pack
Brat Pack was a label the actors disliked; writer David Blum's cover story grew out of a night watching several of them being mobbed by fans at the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles.
Q 06At the 1989 Academy Awards, Rob Lowe sang a notorious opening duet with an actress dressed as which fairy-tale heroine?
Snow White
Snow White was played by Eileen Bowman without Disney's blessing, and the studio sued the Academy over the number, dropping the case only after an apology.
Q 07Rob Lowe turned down the part of Dr. Derek Shepherd, later played by Patrick Dempsey, in which medical drama?
Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy lost Lowe to Dr. Vegas, a CBS series he chose instead, which was canceled after only five of its episodes had aired.
Q 08Which future Two and a Half Men star did Rob Lowe befriend as a classmate at Santa Monica High School?
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen and Lowe were, by Lowe's own account, both nerds at school, and the future sitcom star's ambition back then was to play professional baseball.
Q 09Rob Lowe's younger brother Chad was married for about ten years to which two-time Oscar-winning actress?
Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank famously forgot to thank her husband when she accepted her first Academy Award, for Boys Don't Cry, in 2000.
Q 10In a 2017 advertising campaign, Rob Lowe dressed as an astronaut version of which fast-food icon?
Colonel Sanders
Colonel Sanders, in Lowe's hands, gave a mock presidential speech about launching a chicken sandwich into space. Lowe said his grandfather had taken him to meet the real Harland Sanders as a child.
Q 11Which relentlessly upbeat Parks and Recreation city manager, a fitness fanatic, was played by Rob Lowe?
Chris Traeger
Chris Traeger was meant to last eight guest episodes before Lowe signed on as a regular. The character exercises constantly in the hope of becoming the first human to live to 150.
Q 12Rob Lowe's Parks and Recreation character falls for nurse Ann Perkins, a role played by which actress?
Rashida Jones
Rashida Jones's nurse and Lowe's city manager leave town together to be nearer her family in Michigan, and later have a son named Oliver.
Q 13In 9-1-1: Lone Star, Rob Lowe played which fire captain, a New Yorker rebuilding a firehouse in Austin?
Owen Strand
Q 21In Tommy Boy, Rob Lowe played the scheming stepbrother of the title character, played by which comedian?
Chris Farley
Chris Farley's Tommy gains a stepbrother who is really his new stepmother's husband: the pair, played by Lowe and Bo Derek, are married con artists with criminal records.
Q 22Which Tommy Boy cast member served as Roast Master at the 2016 Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe?
David Spade
David Spade presided over a dais that mixed comedians with quarterback Peyton Manning, singer Jewel and Ralph Macchio, Lowe's old castmate from The Outsiders.
Q 23Rob Lowe played sleazy television producer Benjamin Kane in which comedy based on a Saturday Night Live sketch?
Wayne's World
Owen Strand had done the job once before: he rebuilt his own Manhattan firehouse after the September 11 attacks, then was asked to repeat the feat for Station 126 in Texas.
Q 14Which future Top Gun star played greaser Steve Randle alongside Rob Lowe in The Outsiders?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise, by Lowe's account, went ballistic at being told to share a room with him during the auditions.
Q 15Which director filmed The Outsiders, Rob Lowe's first movie, after a school librarian's students petitioned him?
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola had no plans for a film about teen angst until Jo Ellen Misakian, a librarian in Fresno, California, wrote to him on behalf of her seventh and eighth graders.
Q 16Which actor shared the screen with Rob Lowe in both The Outsiders and St. Elmo's Fire?
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez played Two-Bit Mathews in the first film and Kirby, a law student hopelessly infatuated with a hospital intern, in the second.
Q 17In St. Elmo's Fire, Rob Lowe's reckless former frat boy Billy Hicks is a musician who plays which instrument?
Saxophone
Saxophone player Billy is the group's irresponsible charmer, and the performance won Lowe a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor.
Q 18Rob Lowe starred opposite which actress in About Last Night, a romance adapted from a David Mamet play?
Demi Moore
Demi Moore and Lowe played Chicago yuppies trying a committed relationship for the first time. The Mamet play behind the film has a blunter title, Sexual Perversity in Chicago.
Q 19Rob Lowe played a farmhand chasing an ice hockey career in which film, Keanu Reeves's first feature?
Youngblood
Youngblood forced Lowe to learn to skate, a process he later said he hated, and doubles handled many of his scenes on the ice.
Q 20Which US president did Rob Lowe portray in a 2013 National Geographic film based on a Bill O'Reilly book?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was Lowe's part, with Ginnifer Goodwin as the First Lady and Michelle Trachtenberg as Marina, the wife of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Wayne's World remains the highest-grossing film based on a Saturday Night Live sketch. Lowe's smooth villain buys the basement cable show from its two hosts for $5,000 each.
Q 24In two Austin Powers sequels, Rob Lowe played the young Number Two, a role played in old age by whom?
Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner plays Dr. Evil's second-in-command in the present day, and Lowe's younger version turns up when the villain travels back in time to 1969.
Q 25Rob Lowe played plastic surgeon Dr. Jack Startz in Behind the Candelabra, an HBO film about which flamboyant pianist?
Liberace
Liberace was played by Michael Douglas, with Matt Damon as his young lover Scott Thorson. Lowe's turn as the surgeon who remodels Thorson's face earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
Q 26On Brothers & Sisters, Rob Lowe's senator Robert McCallister marries Kitty Walker, a role played by which actress?
Calista Flockhart
Calista Flockhart's Kitty ended up a widow: Lowe quit after the fourth season, unhappy with his screen time, and the senator was written out after a multi-vehicle crash.
Q 27In The Grinder, Rob Lowe played a TV actor convinced that his long-running role qualifies him for which profession?
Lawyer
Lawyer is what Dean Sanderson believes he has become after years of playing one on television, to the dismay of his brother Stewart, a real attorney played by Fred Savage.
Q 28Rob Lowe voiced which grown-up lion, the father of young hero Kion, in Disney's The Lion Guard?
Simba
Simba is king of the Pride Lands by the time of the series, which began with the 2015 television film Return of the Roar; Lowe voiced him from that first outing onward.
Q 29Rob Lowe hosted which Fox quiz show whose contestants answered from a capsule swung by a giant robot arm?
Mental Samurai
Mental Samurai billed itself as an obstacle course for the mind. Its rotating capsule even had a name, Ava, and the show lasted two seasons.
Q 30Rob Lowe has been deaf in his right ear since infancy because of which undiagnosed childhood illness?
Mumps
Mumps went undiagnosed when Lowe was a baby. Decades later he asked to play the deaf and mute Nick Andros in The Stand, feeling the unusual part would be a great challenge.