Andrew McCarthy is an actor, writer, and director, and you may know him from some of his most iconic eighties films like Pretty and Pink, Satan Alma's Spire, and Less Than Zero, just to name a few scene every minute of them multiple times. But that's not all. Andrew is also an author and is releasing his new book Walking with Sam, which is an intimate and funny travel memoir following Andrew as he walks the Camino de Santiago with
his son Sam. This is just be with Andrew McCarthy, very excited, so we have to get some.
Awkward things out of the way. If that's okay with you.
There, I go okay, so I and I'm not This is not me like fantasizing about many different people. But I only had two childhood like everyone had a bunch. Actually I liked Duran Duran a lot, but I had two like ride or Die childhood crushes and don't get jealous. One was Matt Dylan and the other one was you, but like you lasted longer. That sounded wrong, but Matt Dylan was like early you lasted longer than Matt Dylan.
But I you just really and the career that you've created and curated and molded and sculpted into something so interesting now makes me proud that I bet on the right horse early, like mannequin early. So that's just something I wanted to get out of the way.
Thanks.
Yeah, sorry, I've I've watched everything you've done. I just in addition to being a heart throw for so many, you're so talented and your writing is amazing.
So I was really excited when Jill told me that you were going to be on this podcast.
Oh I'm equally it's excited, So thank you.
Awesome, Okay, so, uh but I really mean it. You have cultivation this career that to me seems like you're really doing things the way exactly the way that you want to do it now where you started out obviously as an unknown, in which everyone's an unknow when they start out, but and you've gotten to this point, it feels like where you're doing really things that you're really passionate about, but you still are able to monetize them and have people receive them, and you just have an
interesting different career in addition to acting. Is that accurate? Do you do a lot of things you don't want to do?
Well, that's a nice way to look at it. I don't do as many things as I that I don't want to do as I used to. You're right in the sense that I'm not a good business man. I'm like you, I'm a terrible business man, and so I am a business person. So I just do what I want to do and sort of feels right to me. And I mean, who goes from being an actor to being, you know, in movies and TV to being a travel writer for you know, that's very downwardly mobile, you know,
and then I writing these books and stuff. So yeah, I just tend to do what I want, what makes me feel good in what I like to do. And I also I'm a person that likes as few votes as possible in my life, and so I don't want to need a lot of a big committee to approve of what I'm doing. Whereas an acting you're always waiting for somebody to call you and give you a chance. Or is I like to do I want to do this, I'm going to go do this, and I do do it sort of like books and travel writing and various
things like for fun and for free. I do them because I want to do them and hopefully they work out.
You know, so you don't crowdsource ideas whatsoever? Or do you crowdsource and then ultimately not at all? Okay, what's interesting.
Though, I do the opposite of crowdsources. I don't tell anybody for as long as possible about what I want to do, because invariably people can kind of yeah, and that'll kill it for me. It'll just wither on the ball. And for me, I just do what I feel to do. And okay, is it ready to go out and withstand public scrutiny? I hope. So there it is. So I do the opposite of crowdsource.
It's funny that you say that, though, because there are a lot of you know, hiring business people that listen to this show, and I plan less than one would think. I don't have a big grand plan. I too do what I want to do and always have. But I do think about the chess board. And it sounds like you don't think about the chessboard.
You just are like.
Moving that piece, and you've you've been like you know, Forrest Gump ended up in a pretty good place. And I'm not saying you're not inteligent. I'm just saying he put one foot in front of the other and did whatever was right in front and it seemed to really work out for him.
So I am.
Looking at me far more successful if I had more of an eye on the horizon. And this will be to Batman, I want to do that, and then okay, if I did.
That, okay, So how do you manage the business aspects of your life? And you know, for your provide for your family, and who does all the business stuff, and how do you know you can trust them? And how do you manage knowing what you don't know, because that's as important as knowing what you do.
Know.
Well, I know what I don't like to do, and I'm not real strong at so I just hire people that help me do that. Those aspects of business and money and stuff, and you know, having to provide for multiple children and parents and things that sort of keeps a fire under me to go, Okay, what do I gotta do next? What's next? What's next? So I'm always thinking about what's next. But I wish I had that kind of vision to sort of okay, five years I
want to be doing this. You know, I just never could think like that, And you know, I've trusted people that have handled helped me with money and things, and it's paid off.
Have you had a lull in your career or you have really just one foot in front of the other, been working the entire time some version of success.
I've been working the entire time. But I'd say there was a lull for ten fifteen years. The nineties really were low for me in the sense I did bad movies or tell bad TV things I would pop in on. And it wasn't until I discovered travel writing by accident, which led to sort of a creative rebirth for me, and that led to books and things and talking about it and being involved in that world. That was sort of a rebirth for me. And then it sort of that led somehow. I think it pushed in my confidence.
Suddenly I was sort of directing again. I started directing television shows and that led to smacking stuff. So you know, success, great success and stuff. But I'd say there was a good ten to fifteen years where I was in the wild and just sort of trying to recapture pest glories, you know, and that is never a good thing and it's just.
Not satisfying, right. That's chasing the dragon.
Most of the people that are very successful that come on here really are not motivated by money. They're motivated by passion. And that ten years was that? Did you resent the way that you came into this business during those ten years? Like that you came in in the Brat Pack and those movies that were so successful, But that's peaking early and then having that's a long time to have a lull, I mean in that kind of public environment that you work.
Well, you know, also people aren't really paying intoed anybody that's closely But did I resent it? No? It took me year decades to come to terms with my early success and to realize what a blessing it was, whereas it felt very stigmatizing, and I think it was professionally stigmatizing for a number of years uh and for decades. Uh And so it took me a long time to come to terms with that. Really to writing that book
about the Brat Pack. In my time, writing Brat helped me really see you know, the gifts that came with that as opposed to just the stigma that came with it. Because now it's a very kind of iconic and fuzzy, warm phrase and recalls a moment of youth for a certain generation. And you know, I'm like this avatar of their youth, and so they look at me with kind of an affection because I represent something in their youth.
You're you know, you're a mannequin to you, you know, and that's wonderful that it's become that and kind of amazing that I've become that. But for a long time, it wasn't that. And when it did come, when the term was coined, it was, you know, a very negative term. You know. It was New York magazine in the MIDI right snarky and very you know, and it was a
real takedown. And you know, I've always said, you know, Marty Scrusezy and Steven Spielberg aren't going to call somebody who's in the brat pack to be in there.
Ah, It's funny because it's true. That's that was my that's my era of movies, you know. And I wanted to move to la and like you know, see you and live in the movie pretty in Pink.
And I lived in New York, so you would have missed me.
Oh my god.
Well, so that was my era, and I know exactly what you're talking about, because I did read those articles. And I also know what you're talking about because I tried to do a rint from the Housewives being clumped in. I like, you didn't like to be clumped in, and you're trying to do a rint, so you're kind of not remembering where you came from, but you recognize that it was good to you. It's like a mixed relationship
with something. And when you come to a point where you could have a good relationship with it, and you know, just like it's got some just like a nice memory to you overall, that's a good place to get. So I actually oddly relate to that because it's got a bad connotation.
It's exactly the same. You know, you're dismissed, is this or that? And it's like, wait, you're not even seeing me, And particularly when you're young, it's like you just want to be That's all any of us ever want is to be seen, see who I am, you know. And so later in life, you know, with these books and various things and starting to direct and the stuff I've been doing acting wise a little bit, so I've gone
back to that a little bit. It's much more you know, since I stopped caring in a certain sense, I just yes, yeah, and I'm going to do what I want to do, and hopefully it's successful enough that I'll get another opportunity to keep doing it. But the rest of it, I don't really. I just don't care anymore.
I get that the least the least interested party always wins. I tell my twelve year old at school, if there's a boy or something, I'm like, just relax, it's going to be what it's going to be. It's funny that you say that and I read part of your book Brat that we're talking about. It's so much much more than the title.
The writing.
You're really good writer. Like just the way you describe some small, nuanced moment in a scene is really interesting. Or when you met jack Linbussett, Like you're very very descriptive. It's just really real. Like I was like reading more than I needed to for this podcast, and I felt like I was reading a book and I was like, oh my god. I said to Jill Andrew and my publicist. Coincidentally, I said to Jill, he's a good writer. Like I'm impressed. So I like that you kind of have a whole
other layer to your life and career. And then that there's travel. Is it that you love to travel? Is it that you love to write or that you really love to just write about travel?
Well, I mean, you know, acting changed my life. When I was fifteen years old, I walked out on stage in the high school plays the Artful Dodger in Oliver and my life was different that you know, that's what I'm That's what I'm and talking about. No crowdsourcing. I knew it was so important to me that I didn't tell a soul. I just went out something happened to me, don't count anybody, And that's what I'm doing with my life. And then you know, when I was traveling, I was
walking across the Comuno to San Antiago. It's a longer answer than you want it, which is it's not very insane to like twenty eight years ago and I had a moment where I sort of at a moment of clarity where I broke down in sobs in the middle of this weet field and I realized how much some of fear had dominated my life. And it was a very liberating moment. And so I just started traveling the world a lot alone and traveling because and then it was like my university. I was kicked out of college
and travel was like my university. I discovered who I was by being far from home and alone in the world. And I thought paradoxically very safe alone far from home in the world. And so then I just started writing about that, and that is then evolved into books and stuff. So I love I think travel is meaningful and changes people's lives if we let it. And it's not just about you know, bucketless and you know, Instagram shots. It's profound and meaningful if we let it be. And so
that was important to me. And I felt the same way and I did that that I felt when I first started acting. You know, I felt like, oh, there I am, that's me. I feel like me when I do that, and so and then so I kept, then I kept and the more I you know, and I'm pretty much the loner in then anyway. So I love to sit alone in the room and right does means that day, you know, so you know, and then the thing with that is that it's that it's received and
fellow success was great. But on the other hand, as you know as well, it's like I'll always be oh, he's the actor. I thinks he's a writer, now okay, And to that I can do nothing about that. So it's go whatever. If you bother to read it, you'll have a real opinion as opposed to just some preconceived notion, you know. And again that's none of my business.
Stuff, right, But how does this travel which seems like and I want to get to your book when you travel with your son, But how does this travel mesh with your relationships? Because I think about things that I like to do by myself, and there's certain types of travel I like to do my myself and certain types I like to do with my daughter, not with my partner. And it sounds like there's a lot of exploration and solitude.
So how do you pull away? And you know, this is like your city slickers, go find your smile a happy place, Like how do you craft? How do you get that? Because many people have all these you know, the kids, the work, the obligation, the partner, and that's your own thing.
I don't get to as much as anymore as the ants. And I got all these pesky kids, and you know, traveling with other people, it's a very different thing than traveling alone. And you know, and that's fine. Great, So I don't get to as much as I used to. I still occasionally sneak away, but like next week, I'm going to Botswana for a travel story for magazine and I'm taking my nine year old son with me. And you know, so you know, I told the magazine, go, okay,
that's great, I'll do the story. But I got to take my nine year old because he wants to see elephants. And so it's a great privilege, you know, right.
But it's different, it's different than you be. It's like a little selfish travel.
Yeahs, it's entirely different, entirely.
Selfish travel to be like a blog or something.
So and also, you know, you've directed almost as much as you've acted, like you've directed things that I was surprised by.
I didn't.
I mean I was reading through everything about you, and there have been a lot of the things that you've touched that I definitely wouldn't have known. So how about directing is that where does that fall on your list of passions?
Well, you know, directing something I stumbled into because I directed the early episodes of Orange is the New Black, when that was still you know, when Netflix was like people that sent you DVDs to your house and the mail, and and so I directed a bunch of those, and then suddenly came on with the Sensation of the Year, and suddenly I was a brilliant director because I directed, you know, and so I was successful then, and so I just stumbled into this career of being a television director,
which I did and continue to do for you know, last fifteen years or so. But I have to say it's not as in all, directing televisions is ultimately not very satisfying work. It's like, uh, you get in great shape. It's sort of like going to the director gym. You know, it's like working on one week and work and children, but you're not really doing something deeply creative and satisfying. Ultimately, I'm servicing your vision if I'm directing a TV show
that's not your own show. So it's not all. I've come to a place where it's I'm quite proficient at it. I you know, I'm good at it because it's just something I've spent my whole life on sets, so I know how they work, I know where time is wasted. I know what one needs to do, and to be a good TV director you have to be decisive and I know how to make a decision, and so, you know, I enjoy it, but ultimately I find it not that satisfying.
That's interesting because I thought that a little bit about acting, because it's someone else's character, someone else's story, versus just playing your being yourself, like being able to express yourself and improvise. And I think about like shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm where someone gets to just sort of riff a little bit. So how does how do you get to really explore as an actor when you're playing someone else's words and someone else's character.
Well, that's entirely different, you know. But acting is funny to me because it's like breathing to me. Like I just thought I had acted on the show this last year. I hadn't really acted in good ten years and acted on the show for a season, and it was just going back to it again. I'd learned so much in that interval of ten years of working with actor, you know. So, but there's something very different about it. It's not like that.
It's it's something very private and intimate with yourself in a certain way where you know, I always directing is stressful. An acting causes anxiety because you know you're trying to summon things up inside you and sort of share them in a way that you're both open and vulnerable and yet protected. And so it's a complicated dance you're playing with yourself if you're going to try and be truthfuughted
and good at it. So I just don't, you know, I suppose first and foremost I'm an actor, So coming back to it just feels very natural to me.
Right well, meeting you, I see you in a lot of your the characters play, which is comforting. You know, often you see someone and like they're nothing like the characters that they've played. So you have managed to have a career where well you don't may not want anyone to know who you are, but who I'm not, Like, Wow, he's nothing like he Wasn't you know what I'm saying? Like, even in the early stuff, I'm seeing a little a lot of you in you. Does that make any sense?
Sure? Of course? Yeah? I mean there's nothing to say except yeah, I mean I'm not one of those I am not a chameleon, It's true, But I'm trying to reveal sort of it sounds so pretentious, but you just want to reveal something truth so that truthful, so that as are you watching and go oh, I feel that
and it's not your head. It's like in the same thing in writing, if you can get the reader to nod their head, you know, it's like, okay, I get what you you know, then you have a connection and that kind of all you ever really want with people somehow, identification and connection and we're less alone And isn't that what all this storytelling is about is to make people less alone?
Yeah?
Can you answer what percentage? This is like a fantasy, stupid question, but I just want to hear from your perspective, what percentage do you think in your career? Is luck, work, hard work, and skill? Like you know each is it a third or third or third? Or have you been very lucky or have you worked your ass off to get there?
Like what's the combo?
You know? Ben Hogan was a great golfriend. He always used to say the luck is in the dirt, meaning he would practice hours and hours and hours hitting golf balls in the dirt. And you know, the harder you work, the luckier you get, I think and what I have been wildly fortunate in their moments when people have helped me in the most unlikely ways. And my first job I ever got was because some a friend of mine called me up and said, I saw an add in
the new newspaper. They're looking for someone eighteen vulnerable and sensitive to beau leading a movie an loo can call and I'm like, that's me. So Eddie and not called me and told me that I never would have gone to this open call with five hundred other eighteen vulnerable and sensitive kids.
You know.
And time and time again, people have sort of angels just passing through my life have just kind of pointed something out, And if I have any ability, it's been able to recognize that instant when someone points to something for it to go. It's like that's in Star Wars when they shoot that missile at the end and it goes into the desk store and it finds its way down. I've been able to hear those moments really and they go deep and I go after those things. So that's
my skill in a certain way. But your block is the massive porton timing, timing, timing, It's no matter you know, the brat Pack happened, and those movies happened because of what had been happening through the seventies and movies evolving and then suddenly discovering of a youth market and then you know, boom, there it happens, and John Hughes comes along at that instant and so it's all And I happen to be one of those guys at that instant.
Right, so I walked into the right room. You just happened to walk into that room, and that room was like yeah.
And then also when you walk into that room though because other people walk into that room, you walk into that room, you have to this is the moment right now, deliver and you yes, when your moment comes, you have to be ready to deliver. And there have been many times in my life when I haven't been ready when the moment.
Yes, well yes, that makes me think of like you're on the boat, you have your net, you're prepared, you know, you're centered, and then like so you are you know how to go where the fish are? Or for surfers,
I always think it's like a set. You know, there's a lot of shitty waves that come and if you try to battle it and like go in and get beaten down you're too tired for when the good set comes, or you can just sit and chill and wait and you're like, this is about to be a good set, you know, I think does a million.
Yeah, I think that's very true. And we do beat ourselves. I mean so many times I'm just grinding to try and make a not good set into a good one, and it's like, this isn't a good waight, no matter what you're doing here and how hard you're beating yourself up and grinding, this is never going to be a good ride here. So and now you just missed a good one.
Because exactly, thank you, exactly exactly. So that's what that's that's what I think you have.
To be able to write.
You.
That takes trust in waiting for that okay, I wait for this and then knowing when it's coming. Okay, go because often those good waves to carry this metaphor are a little bigger than we're comfortable.
Yes, you better fucking ride that thing like it's your play tennis the best.
Yeah, fear takes over you somehow don't quite catch it right, and you can blame all sorts of things, but it's really fear that made you miss it. And so those waves will always be bigger than we're ready for if you wanted success to take you to the next level, right, And I've often I've found myself missing those waves at times because I doubt it an instant when you just need to go one hunt.
That's a great it's so true. That's such a true thing about it. The waves a little bigger than you, but too bad. This is your moment you ride it. That's so so interesting. And Kelly Rippa said to me alcohol is unnecess which I thought. I always say to her, you like a little wise owl. So what do you think about that sentence.
I mean, clearly it is. I mean it'll almost destroyed my life, But I mean clearly it's unnecessary. I mean I've lived without it for thirty years now, I've gotten much better. But it did. But it's also I thought it was it became necessary. There's a certain you know, if you have a problem with alcohol and you're attracted to alcohol and it's attracted to you and you meet, it seems like it's solving a lot of problems. You know.
There's a great line. A man takes a drink. Then a drink takes a drink, Then the drink takes the man, you know, and you don't know when that's happening. You know, alcohol it's a good kind of sea and a social lubricant and even professional one. And at a certain point it turns in and attacks you. But that point of when it does that is invisible and in my experience, and so you know, alcohol is a slippery slope. You know it's me It was vicious, you know.
It really was. That was during that time years no id.
Stopped drinking by that, And it took me a long time. I stopped drinking in ninety two, and I'd tak for ten years after that. I was in the wild professionally. But I also would say it took me a long time. It's for my head to clear and emotionally to get myself under me again. After I stopped, I drank probably for about ten years in a serious way, maybe eight, and in a way that was destructive, and so it took a while to recover from that.
But it's not even something you think about now, right, do you even think about it? It's just like something that somebody used to know.
Now, well, it just is now, you know. But any good alcohol will tell you which I consider myself when all bets are off for tomorrow, you know, in a certain way. A call. It's a funny thing, you know, and it's a slippery slope, you know, like we said. And so I mean, yes, it's very much. My life now is very much being not drinking. It just is in my life. But again I think, you know, I don't think I'm a cucumber. Again. I think once you pick the cucumber, it's a pickle. I four its more
vodka down my throat. It would be a great idea. Too much too. I have a wondrous life, you know, and I have too much to lose.
And yeah, well I did not know that your son was your son. And I watched Dead to Me with my daughter, and like, now it makes sense to me. He's an interesting actor and he's a little he's Depp. He's got depth charm complex, you know, the boyish charm that you have. So that makes when I heard that, I'm like, wow, that's so interesting. So he's an actor. And how old your daughter she's twelve, it's young for
her to watch that stuff, but she watches. She watched Handmaid's Tale, she walked in and she fell in love with it. I was watching crazy stuff when I was a kid, So that's okay.
How old is he? How old is Sam?
That is twenty one now, so he's twenty one. And have you always been close and had a good relationship with him?
Yes, it's the simple answer. Yes we did. I mean I was terrified of my father and had no relationship with my father at all when I left home at seventeen. I never that was the end of a relationship really and until he was dying basically when I went to him. But so he was really, you know, kind of the
most important thing in my life. I always if I have a relationship with my adult children, If my children are adults and they want to have a relationship with me throughout their life, than my life will have been a great success.
Literally, same story, same exact whole story as the last minute of what you said. So I really really get that. And do you overcompensate? Because have you overcompensated?
You know?
I feel like we're the world our kids. When we were kids, people just were like, let out the backyard with us. We're doing everything with our kids. We're bonding, we're having moments, we're having experiences, we're talking about our feelings, which we're going to get into your book in a minute. But have you do you feel like you've done a decent job as a parent.
I'm present for that and I shall, you know. I tell them the truth as much as I can, and I you know, but if I've overcompetated, it was that I think I wanted. I was afraid of the day that my kids would just my oldest son particularly say would just wake up and hate me the way it came, and so I overcompetated in that, and I think in
trying to prevent that, it's sure as it happens. So I give it relaxed enough at a certain point to just trust that my relationship with him is not the one I had with my father, and it's a different thing.
It's so funny that you say that, because we see some of the things we see our parents in us, whether we you know, loved them, hated them, you know, so we see it, and I have the exact same thing where I'll do something or i'll say something, and obviously I'm acres away from my parents, but I have that same thought sometimes and I'm obviously ten years, nine years behind you, but I really I know exactly what you're talking about.
It's not even a ration.
It's rational, but sort of not rational because with the kind of parenting it seems like you're doing and I've done, there'd be no reason for there to be no relationship. But it is a realistic fear. I mean, it makes sense.
Yeah, And I mean that's why I that's why we walked across Spain together. Was I wanted to sort of segue because you know, now he was nineteen when we did that, and we we he wasn't going to tolerate, you know, day to day parenting anymore. So we had to what's going to fill that void? You know? And I wanted to show him who I was and to be to you know, the relationship just had to change in a certain way if it was going to grow to a deeper level as opposed to parent and child.
Wow, tolerate day to day parenting.
That's really interesting and smart, and I've never heard anyone else say that before. He wasn't because it's true that like a real even relationship from like a baby. For me, it's been like a baby to a tween, like you're a human being. You have your own decisions, Like I can't just go in there and like pack for you as I want to, or organize your closet or.
Make you eat.
Think, you know, that's interesting. So Walking with Sam is the book that you wrote to bridge being someone that you're parenting to being you know some of you have a different parental relationship with. And what was that actually? Like how long was the trip?
We walked for five hundred miles and it was about a month, and it was you know, it was life changing deep Like I said, I did it twenty seven years ago, and it was life changing the first time when I, as I was mentioning earlier, how fear was revealed to me and that changed my life. And this changed book. It changed our relationship, the dynamic of it just I grew to just trust it more and did not need to fix and have answers and solve things. I had the great luxury that you rarely have with
adult children, which is time. You know, I was walking beside them every day for five hundred miles, and I didn't need to solve the problems and give advice. I just mostly just shut up and or just let him
talk dog. Maybe you have one little thought, you know, when I did that, this happened, and I'll let him find his own way so that he then you know, one of the things, it's like, I've always you advocate for your children, but at a certain point, as they're growing and grow into their adulthood, you advocate for them to them, meaning I'm going to tell you what I really think here, Sam, and take it, take it or
leave it. But I'm advocating for you because I believe this in what you're saying, and you can choose to believe. And so if he knows I'm being truthful and really advocating for him, and I have his best interest in my heart. Whether he agrees with it or not, it's fine. But he's more likely to come to me and go. My son called me the other day and said, tell you've got seven minutes. I'm like, yeah, go, And he said, I'm thinking this about my relationship. And I just listened
to that sounds about right, that sounds human. All right, got to go buy you know. And so it's it's just changing. And I never had that with my father. My father's a terrifying man. And then there was no relationship, so there's no put forward in my life, so us figuring out how to be there and be sort of how do we buy? And I'm not interested in being my son's powers buddy and his dad always be his dad. That's what I want. Go out into the world, look behind you, and I'm here, but you go on and
I'll be back. And you know that's and so anyway I walk. And the book is about coming to know each other as adults and sort of parenting and childing and you know what that entails.
It's so funny because the thing that jumped off the page is you saying, let him talk. And I find that, you know, how is school today? That stupid thing that starts when kids are young is the worst. Like they will never tell you how school is? And how is that? And who to hang out with?
Today?
What how is whatever? Like it's the worst thing ever. They'll never say anything. Then, and I find that, you know, my daughter's a very old soul, and she'll say to me, can we be present? Like she'll say that at a meal or in a car. And I realize, because and I put all the pieces together, that those are the places where we're just screwing around, eating fried food or just driving somewhere, and those are the times when she'll start saying, just out of nowhere, something that you would
never think she'd say. She'll be like, this person was mean to me today, something that's monumental like for her to say to me, And you never get that in those sort of proactive moments. So I really, I really, I can't imagine what it would be like to be on a month long trip and what would come out by just sitting back and being present.
You know, my son, you sit him down for a chat, you never get a word out of him, but you get a move and adventures. You know. He had just broken up with his first love, which is why we went on the trip from the first place. He was nineteen, He had just broke it out of the relationship for a year. It was a big deal. It was his first heartache. And he gave to me said, Dad, if you ever want to do that stupid walk you always
talk about, I'll go do it. And I literally went from that concert to the other room my computer, bought two tickets, and two days later we were in Spain
walking not mine, you know. And so every morning we'd wake up and we'd start walking, and I just knew, just wait, just wait, and whether it took fifteen minutes or an hour, eventually, Sam, which is so so then she said, and I said, we're in the middle of a conversation and it'll always start pouring out, and he just needed to heal and talk, and I was the one that got to be there. And that was a great blessing and gift for me to be able to
be present from that. You know, yes, you know, because when kids are little we were talking about he reminded me earlier, when you're talking about your daughter. No longer, you know, you can't tell him what to wear anymore. And like my youngest son is nine, I still have that great luxury of being able to just make him happy with whatever I do. You know, I can just make him happy. And it is you know, and that's long gone, you know, you're it's gone with you now
at twelve, and it's gone with my adult son. And so it's a different dynamic that has to take its place, and that takes active. I'm discovering active, you know, choice.
Right, But you're right, it's always a non sequity. So you're sitting back. Do he used to be able to take a bath? You know, I'd be a bath And she just says something, So that's a good lesson. Wow, well, hold on, you have a nine year old and a twenty one year old and.
How old your middle child?
And she's sixteen.
Oh, so you're like in between all the things I'm talking about, and that's very interesting.
Yeah.
Wow, those are like you're like in every aspect that's of childhood.
That's crazy.
What has what has been your rose and your thorn of your career, not your life, not parenting, just your career, like the high the best thing that you could just remember off the top of your head and the worst thing if you can. And it may be the same thing.
It is the same thing. It's when I was in the brad pap you know. Wow, it's both, although I find it much more interesting now, but that was professionally. That was you know, the bloom and the thorn. It's simultaneously, for sure. And I'll always be you know, it's the first thing you'll say to me, oh when you're in the brada, of course, and that's always and you know what that be a dry flower on my shelf is a great thing as supposed.
To like fucking you know, I get it, Yes, I get it. I'm having a great time right now. I have a podcast re talking about the Housewives and talking about real normal issues via the shit show that it sometimes is, and I'm having a good time. It's like nice when you can have a good relationship with something you know that you didn't have a good relationship with. It's really it's nice. I fully get that you're further
away from it. But also I was when I was looking through at who the rap pack was and the movies, It's rare that so many people would have had a career with longevity and like a roller coaster ride, people have had, you know, have really hit it and then had a lull, but like overall, most people in that group have been successful, right, Like I mean I'm looking at I was looking at the Outsiders, looking at saying I'm a spire. I was looking at all those movies. People have had good careers.
Yeah, I mean people are still hanging around, you know, and that's long. It's you know, almost forty years ars ago. And yeah, but interesting because ultimately I think the broad pack, you know, and I'm in the middle of making documentary about the broad Pack, and actually, I've got to see a bunch of the people who I hadn't talked to in thirty odd years. And you know, if I've been in the same movies and the term brad Pack didn't exist, I would be some guy who was in a bunch
of some of these movies. But because the Brat, I'm part of this iconic thing that happened in pop culture, you know. So it's you know, ultimately I think been a you know, a real blessing, which it just like if you told me that even ten years ago, I would have said, you're out of your mind.
Interesting, you were part of a pop culture phenomenon. I relate to that too, for better or for worse, the negatives. And that's funny, Like you're part of something that was in the zeitgeist in you know, Like that's so interesting. And are you does everybody are you? Are you do any relationship with these people? And are you quote unquote the one to do the documentary? Like does it make
sense to everybody? Because like there was a comedy documentary recently and Mike Binder is the one who's narrating it, and it's interesting because he wouldn't be the person you'd think we'll be doing a documentary on the Comedy Store.
So are people?
Are people really leaning in to do it because you're the one directing it?
Well, uh, what are you doing? Well, you know it's me. I'm just sort of getting my car in or on the plane and just go to people's houses and say, let's talk about this. I haven't seen you. It's great to see you. This is what it did to my life, what to do to yours? And it did the exact same thing to all I'm as you know, and so it's been interesting and a lot of people, several people said, well, you're the only one who could do this, and I'm not sure why to say that, but you know, and
there are other people. There are a couple that just don't want to talk about it. I'm not talking about this, you know. The whole thing is that it's what I find fasting. Still thirty five years later, whatever long it is, it's still so raw to some people I don't want to talk about them. Really. Wow, that which just sort of proves my point that it was a seminal experience.
And yes, I'm excited for it. I can't believe it hasn't been done. Like I'm now thinking about you.
I can't tell you why it hasn't been done. It's because no one from the out I would certainly never talk to anything like Emilio came. I said, Melio. He said, I would never have talked to anybody about this, but you like if so. I've been asked, and I've been asked dozens and dozens of times if you're doing a rat pack kind of thing, and no, not interested, not interested, And so it was because it was one of us kind of japing it because we're remembers like you are of this club.
Oh my god, I'm upset.
You don't understand. I've watched I've watched Santa's I watch it now. I will never turn Sana'm as Fire off. There are only how many movies in your life?
Will you never? I will never turn Shindler's List off. I probably won't. I won't turn Wall Street off.
I would turn the Shining off of maybe like there's just some weird movie that Santa Almost Fire and also about last Night. I will never turn them off. Never would I not stop and watch whatever scene and I know every word to every scene, and what about you?
What are the movies that you would not stop?
Mine would be Jaws and probably The Godfather.
That you oh oh got.
Yeah, this is what I'm doing for the next hour.
I thank you, yes, but I mean stay down with the music like everything. I mean, I and and the wind in that room with Demi Moore. I'm there right now, like I'm in the argument. You're so neurotic with the smoking in the ashtray and the apartment. Like there is not a sentilla of any of those movies that you've been in that I don't know. And I mean were you and you were in private school?
No? No, who is in private school? James Spader?
I don't.
Oh, okay, there's not a moment class all of it. So anyway, I get it.
I'm camp.
You tell me the minute it's out, I'm there. I will be the I will be I laughed, I cried. It's better than cats. I'll be your like spokesperson. I really enjoyed you, and I appreciate the time, and I'm excited for you and your book and just all of it. Like I'm now a fan again. I'm a new fan. I'm a new old fan. Me too, awesome. Thank you so much, Andrew. Nice to meet you, and I wish you the best of everything.
Bangs you doo, You're great awesome.
Likewise, oh my god, I just interviewed Andrew McCarthy and like I didn't want to be weird, and I wasn't weird because he was so cool and.
We're peers and peers with Andrew McCarthy. You don't understand. We are getting fucking Matt Dylon on this podcast, and I'm gonna try to remain cool. Andrew McCarthy was like the guy that, like I could actually marry. Matt Dylan was like the hot sort of bad boy that I could maybe like date or sleep with. I don't think at that age I was even thinking that. But like, you don't understand. I just interviewed met Andrew McCarthy and we're like adults with kids, talking like peers. I lived
for him. I wanted to crawl inside the movies and be there and move there.
I used to cry about.
It, like you don't under you do understand, Duran, Duran Matt Dylon, But Andrew McCarthy was my number one. Loved James Spader too, but like Andrew McCarthy had like the warm and fuzzy of it all, like the boyish charm. He's so interesting, so amazing, so smart, so textured, so deep, and like to talk about the brat Pack to what now, I know a member of the brat Pack? What the fuck are you talking about? The brat Pack was everything For those of you who are younger, you don't understand.
It was like this group of young Hollywood idol icons had got into trouble and we're like bad boys and bad girls, but like came up together in this group and the movie Standing almost Fire crystallized it, and like I would watch it right now. I would stop this podcast. If we were on television, I would not be able to turn away.
Obsessed. He was amazing by his book.
He's a great writer, and I loved it and I'm so excited and he's one of those people that's really smart and like complex, So I think my publicist was even worried that, like, if you know, he might want to sort of get off after five minutes, because some people are just don't like, can't be bullshit interviews. So excited, loved it, loved, so happy,