Rob Lowe Says Being a Dad to Post-College Kids is 'Whole Other Level of Parenting'

Rob Lowe is experiencing a different phase of fatherhood.

Speaking to PEOPLE on the green carpet of his Dog Gone premiere Wednesday, the actor shared what it's like to have kids who are now working adults — and in the case of son John Owen, 28, working alongside him.

"They finish college and now you're at a whole other level of parenting," Lowe, 58, tells PEOPLE about his family life with John Owen and brother Matthew, 30, whom he shares with wife Sheryl Berkoff, 61. "Like, okay, it's the real world. Go to work, get a job, what's that going to look like?"

"That's the theme of the movie," he adds about how he personally relates to the dad in feel-good Dog Gone, which revolves around a family's search for a beloved dog who has gone missing.

"Anytime I get to play something that mirrors my own life, it just makes it more resonant as an actor," adds Lowe.

While Matthew joined his dad at the Pacific Palisades, Calif. premiere on Wednesday, Lowe has recently been spending time with John Owen filming the Netflix comedy series Unstable, of which they're also co-creators and executive producers.

"The series is set in a cutting-edge biotech research company, following an introverted, socially-challenged son who goes to work for his very successful, wildly eccentric father in order to save him from disaster," the streamer said in a release announcing the show in April 2022.

"He's already writing season two," Lowe tells PEOPLE about John Owen's dedication to the project, before adding that their father-son relationship also partly inspired the show.

"He loves trolling me on social media. And we decided that people were so interested in it, how can we explore this maybe as a show?" says Lowe. "So we've come up with, I think, a really funny take on a benevolent narcissist father in the spotlight, who means very well."

His character is "very successful and touched with genius, but maybe a little untethered," adds Lowe, adding that John Owen plays a son "who's had to grow up in that shadow."

Unstable then focuses on "how hard it is to find your own identity with that kind of presence in your life," says Lowe.

As for whether or not he goes into "dad mode" while he's shooting alongside John Owen, the actor says it's starkly the opposite.

"You know what's really weird, is I forget he's my son when we're shooting. Unless we're doing scenes where we're playing father and son," says Lowe. "But making the show, what's amazing for me and was a revelation, was I feel like I'm working with a peer. And he's also the only partner I could have had making this."

"There's nobody else who I could do it with because no one else would understand," he adds.

Last January, Lowe spoke in depth to PEOPLE about his four decades-long career and balanced family life, which wasn't always the case.

"I've never been happier, personally or professionally [and] there's not a day that goes by where I'm not thankful about it all," Lowe said in his cover story. "I have gratitude and profound humility for the gifts that I've been given, and worked for, in this world."

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Lowe's good fortune was hard-won, earned in the face of early superstardom, a struggle with alcoholism and a deep-rooted unease from a young age. As a kid navigating his mother Barbara's consecutive divorces — from Lowe's father and then stepfather — and multiple moves, Lowe found solace in acting early on.

"I had a huge fantasy world in my head and then I found something I could focus all my energies on instead of living in the moment, which a lot of times as a kid was sad or uncomfortable," he said.

Over time, Lowe has worked hard to craft a life of personal and professional balance, though he has no regrets about the struggles he faced in his earlier years.

"Up until I turned 26, I spent all my time investing in my career," he said. "From 26 on, I've invested in me; my spirituality, my recovery, my marriage, my family. A lot of it has been, excuse me, f—ing hard. And no one has a perfect life... but I'm grateful for all of it."

Dog Gone is released on Netflix on Jan. 13