Diane Lane admits there was a bit too much testosterone on the set of 1983’s The Outsiders.
The Oscar-nominated actress stopped by a recent episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, where she was asked about her experience shooting the movie with mainly male costars, including Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze and Matt Dillon.
“What was it like to be with literally every single young man who would become the biggest male movie stars?” host Drew Barrymore asked, to which Lane replied with a laugh, “It was hot! It was great.”
However, the Anniversary star noted she did need to find her moments away from the boys at times. “It was kind of… too much testosterone for one girl,” she confessed. “So I kept to myself. But I was definitely pinching myself. I was definitely overwhelmed.”
Barrymore completely understood where Lane was coming from. The host quipped in response, “I think that was the movie that made me realize like, ‘I like boys.’ I was like, ‘Oh wow, I get it now.’”
The Outsiders, based on author S. E. Hinton’s book of the same name, was set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1964. The Francis Ford Coppola-directed film followed the rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, which heats up when one gang member accidentally kills a member of the other.
During her chat with Barrymore, Lane also reflected on one memorable moment while filming the pic: the drive-in cinema scene with Howell, who played Ponyboy Curtis.
“I remember when we were at the movie theater and they were creating this windstorm. They had these big huge fans and they were throwing cocoa powder to make the dust so it wouldn’t be toxic or get in our eyes,” she recalled. “By the end of the night, we would just be, like, white striping. Like, ‘Mmm! That’s good!’ We all looked tan and sweet.”
