In New Documentary, Andrew McCarthy Reflects on Brat Pack’s Legacy

Don’t you forget about them — and America won’t — with the new film on Hulu

Tim Appelo,

AARP

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Published June 13, 2024

Andrew McCarthy against red background with outlines of old film projector and wheels on it

In the new Hulu documentary "Brats," Andrew McCarthy reunited with fellow 'Brat Pack' members to revisit their legacy.

AARP (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Four decades ago, Andrew McCarthy, 61, got famous overnight as part of the ’80s Brat Pack, along with actors Emilio Estevez, 62, Demi Moore, 61, Molly Ringwald, 56, Rob Lowe, 60, and Ally Sheedy, 62. In hits like The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire (sometimes called “the Gen X Big Chill”), they defined their cultural moment and endured as youth icons. Now 61 and a distinguished author and director, McCarthy still has in his closet clothes and skinny ties he donned in those movies. He hasn’t worn them in years, nor seen much of the Pack. But in his wise, sweet, funny new documentary Brats (on Hulu June 13), he tracked down his costars and talked about old times. He told AARP what he thinks now, looking back.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In Brats, you interview New York Magazine writer David Blum, 68, whose article dubbed you “the Brat Pack.” Why did it stick?

It was an iconically snarky article — and that phrase was such a good, witty, snarky phrase. It was supposed to be an article about how Emilio Estevez was becoming the next Orson Welles, writing, directing and starring in movies at 23. And then it blew up [to include them all].

How did you feel about it?

I felt like we were standing on the beach and got slammed with a wave. It was a really pejorative term used to slap us down, like — these punks think they’re taking over Hollywood? Not so fast!

You reunite with Rob Lowe in the film. How did Lowe feel about being branded as a brat?

He was one of the first to realize, yeah, the movie industry may think of it as a negative term, but the public is using it as a shorthand for a great affectionate term. I didn’t. I just took it personally. Rob was always very business savvy that way.

Were you always way too sensitive back then?

I was certainly oversensitive and very wary. Yearning, then pulling back, so elusive. Being open and then being scared and defensive in the next breath.

Isn’t that trait how you got cast with Lowe in Class (1983), your breakthrough role?

A friend read about the open audition for Class in the newspaper and said, “You should go, they want 18, vulnerable and sensitive.” I said, “That’s me, dude!”

They rejected you at first for Pretty in Pink, because they wanted a star quarterback type as Molly Ringwald’s love interest. So how come they cast sensitive you instead?

Molly got me the part. At the audition she just said, “That’s the guy you should hire.” The filmmakers were like, “Are you kidding me?” So it was just sort of by the skin of my teeth.

Blum tells you the term “Brat Pack” came to him after his friends overate at dinner and called themselves “the Fat Pack,” punning on the old Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin’s cronies.

Yes!

But it wasn’t just a gimmick. Didn’t the phrase catch on because it signified something important in our culture?

Like Malcolm Gladwell [The Tipping Point author] says in the movie, it became this iconic thing because it had truth in it — it was a cultural shift. It was perfectly able to capture the seismic change in popular culture, changing to being about kids. Every Friday, at least one or two youth movies came out, and every kid went to see that movie. It wasn’t about ’70s auteurs or All in the Family anymore.

John Hughes wrote and directed several influential Brat Pack movies. What did he accomplish?

I thought Pretty in Pink is a kind of silly movie about a girl who makes a dress and wants to go to a dance. But it was about so much more, which is what resonates with people. John Hughes honored young people in a way that movies hadn’t before. It wasn’t Beach Blanket Bingo or crass teen sex movies. It was about their emotional life. John took them seriously. He told me what people are remembered for is when they show their heart.

Why did so many viewers so passionately identify with your characters?

Nobody feels anything with more passion than an 18, 19-year-old kid. Those emotions are so powerful and so complete. And without any kind of buffer between you and the emotion. So it’s a hugely powerful time.

What’s so bad about being corralled into the Brat Pack?

Nobody wants to be labeled. The minute you’re put in a box, people are done seeing you, they just see the label. For an actor, never useful. I felt like I overnight lost control of the narrative of my career. And that proved to be the case.

And yet, it made you stars whose movies older people remember for life.

We represent that moment when your life is your own for the first time and anything is possible — thrilling and wondrous! As we get older and start to look back more, with a certain nostalgia and affection for our youth, it’s a different relationship than people have with other movies.

Did the Brat Pack have continuing influence on popular culture?

Friends wouldn’t have existed without the Brat Pack.

Is it hard for a Brat Packer to become a grown-up in Hollywood?

I was known my entire life for being young and appealing. If you lose that appeal, what do you have to offer? That’s a scary place. So making a transition and being an older person who looks like an older person is something that a lot of people don’t want to make. It’s taken me years well past my youth to give up trying to be youthful.

Your movie reminds me of a really satisfying school reunion. What did it feel like for you?

My past was sort of locked away. It allowed me to have much more affection for the past and forgiveness and understanding and compassion for myself in my youth. The best thing and the biggest surprise to me making the movie was how much affection we all have for each other. Because that wasn’t the case when we were young. We were young and scared and competitive and flailing out there in the world. Every man for himself! So after all these years to come back to the only ones who understood what happened was really a lovely thing to do.

Why did you call your movie Brats when you hated it back then?

It’s just reclaiming the narrative.

Do you think older people have something to gain from talking to old friends, and looking back on the past, even parts of it that were kind of upsetting at the time?

Yeah, I think any life changing experience in youth — I daresay our perspective on it when we’re 50 or 60 years old is going to be different. Whether that experience was youthful trauma, or joy or whatever, to re-examine it from distance, when it can no longer harm us, is really valuable and worthwhile doing.

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.

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