Lowe: 'There are no real men on TV'

Brothers And Sisters star Rob Lowe has claimed that there is a shortage of "real men" on TV.

The former Brat Packer said he was enjoying playing a man who knows his own mind in the hit US drama.

Lowe, whose character Senator Robert McCallister is engaged to his communications director Kitty Walker (Calista Flockhart), told DS: "Television is populated with commitment-phobes [and] with men who don't know what they want, so it’s great to play a guy who knows what he wants. It's great to play a man. There's not very many of them on TV."

He argued that producers have fallen into the habit of churning out clichés about men in shows and adverts, saying: "I think people get caught up in recycling the same themes over and over again. And I think that we're in a phase right now where it’s a theme they want to re-use.

"You even see it on commercials where the men are sort of ineffectual lummoxes waiting around to be told what to do and the kids are smarter than they are. It's just a standard clichéd thing."

He added: "[So] when they came to me and said we want to do this guy, I jumped at the chance. I was so happy to hear he was going to be a real guy. I was like, 'Okay, I'm in.'"

> Click here for our full interview with Rob Lowe