10 Actors Who Went Uncredited For Major Film Roles (And Why)

8. Rob Lowe - Tommy Boy

After playing heartthrobs all through the 1980s, actor Rob Lowe’s career took a decidedly different turn when he started showing up in mainstream comedies such as Wayne’s World, Tommy Boy, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, every time playing a villainous, albeit hunky, twerp. What you may not know is that his role in Tommy Boy as the con artist stepbrother to Chris Farley’s titular character, went completely uncredited.

The reasons for this came down to scheduling conflicts. Lowe was originally supposed to play (you’re not going to believe this) the role that eventually went to David Spade. Yes, that’s right. After Lowe’s appearance in Wayne’s World, the actor was ready to step into more comedic roles, and was cast in Tommy Boy to play the uptight straight man against Chris Farley’s bumbling man-child. However, Lowe had a previous obligation to star in a TV mini-series based on Stephen King’s The Stand and because of the overlapping shooting schedules, he could no longer make the time commitment to play the second lead in Tommy Boy. Lowe’s contract for The Stand even went so far as to say that he could not have another starring role in a film or TV show at the same time as it might detract from the big-budget miniseries. His role was recast with Spade (thankfully).

As a favor to Chris Farley, with whom Lowe had become good friends, he stayed in the film by taking on the much smaller role of the stepbrother and took his name off the film in a sneaky way of getting around that stipulation in his contract for the miniseries. Without Lowe doing this solid to his friend Farley, Tommy Boy may not have been the memorable comedy it is today.