Rob Lowe is an eccentric billionaire genius in his newest comedy that has shaped up to be quite the family affair.
On Thursday, Netflix premiered the trailer for Unstable, which was co-created by the 58-year-old actor and his 28-year-old son John Owen Lowe. In the series, Rob plays eccentric entrepreneur Ellis Dragon, and John Owen plays his estranged son Jackson Dragon. While Ellis is working to make the world a better place, Jackson simply wants to step out of his father's shadow.
The trailer starts with an energetic Ellis asking a room full of seemingly unimpressed listeners: "What is science?"
Ellis reacts to being called crazy, he notes, "They called Nikola Tesla crazy."
Then he acknowledges, "Tesla did lose his mind and fall in love with one of his pigeons, which I would never do — although I do have a hawk."
Elsewhere, Jackson's his friend urges him to reach out to his father, who has been "spiraling" since his wife's (and Jackson's mother's) memorial.
"All my dad ever does is try to change me into being more like him," Jackson says.
Cut to Ellis telling Jackson: "I want you to be exactly a version of you. You, but with some tweaks."
But there are bigger issues than father-son personality conflicts because Ellis on the brink of being ousted from his own company. Jackson is poised to help — but he needs his dad to help himself first.
Unfortunately, Ellis tells Jackson, "I can't just problem-solve anymore, I need to feel excited, I need to feel inspired."
The show came about after years of fans pointing out the sweet relationship between Rob and his son. Eventually the pair decided to make a show based on their relationship.
"John Owen was essentially trolling me on my Instagram account," Rob said in a release for the show. "We have a fun banter together and neither one of us thought anything of it. It was just something we did sort of intra-family to make each other laugh and people started to notice it."
He continued, "We spent a lot of time thinking about the base elements that go into our relationship that make it what it is, and then designed fictitious characters around it."
Rob added "it was a dream come true" to work with his son as a co-creator.
And while the family dynamic featured in the show is fictitious, nothing about their Lowes' own real-life relationship was off the table as they sought to create a comedy with "no rules."
"I think the things that are embarrassing, that are not our finest hours — that's the stuff that makes it super funny," Rob shared. "Where I find it most real though, is whenever I'm trying to give him loving advice and wanting to be proud of him and wanting him to win and pumping him up to be the best he can be. There's no acting there."
Unstable — which also stars Sian Clifford, Rachel Marsh, Emma Ferreira and Aaron Branch — premieres March 30 on Netflix.