June 27, 2023 • 29 mins
Actor-director Andrew McCarthy (Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire) chats with Brooke about the nostalgia surrounding '80s films and how he struggled to be taken seriously after his Brat Pack fame. Andrew shares how he flew under the radar as a successful travel writer and details his most profound trip yet: a 500-mile walk along the Camino de Santiago with his eldest son.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What do you do when life doesn't go according to plan?
That moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question, now what? So you have a nine.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Year old I do, and a sixteen year old sick.
My daughter Willow is sixteen and Sam is twenty one.
We're going to see Taylor Swift tomorrow night, so excited.
And she got me a very spangly silver, sparkly blazer
that I'm to wear at the concert.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Are you a swifty? Now? You're a swifty?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well? I can say that. I hear a lot of
tailors Swift in the car, and I think she's kind
of great. But I yeah, I'm by proxy, I gilt
by association.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
My guest today is an old friend and a familiar
face to anyone who came of age in the eighties.
Andrew McCarthy is a writer, director, actor, and famously a
member of the Brat Pack. He became a household name
thanks to films like Pretty in Pink and Weekend at
Bernie's before pivoting to a successful career as a TV
and travel writer and director. We got to know each
(01:43):
other well when we co starred on the show Lipstick Jungle,
and time and again I was impressed by his versatility,
charm and quiet intelligence. His hustle and flexibility are something
to be admired, and I can't wait for all of
you to get to know him a little better and
take a fun trip down memory link. Here is Andrew McCarthy.
(02:09):
I'm trying to think of how long we've known each other.
We've known each other quite a while.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But it's interesting because I feel like I really just
got to know you for real life when you directed
Lipstick Jungle. When you acted in it, obviously, but when
I really got to experience you as a human being,
it was being directed by you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I wonder what the difference was being directed by me?
Is just acting with me.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It was different, I think because I'm really I really
do take one hat off and put another one on.
And I think it's the first time I really had
been directed by an actor. When did you become a director?
When did you first direct?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Go on that show for real Life? No, you had
I directed a short film before that that I made myself.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And the episode you directed was very well. There were
so many moving pieces to it, like That's what was
so interesting to me was it was a big episode,
meaning like lots of people and lots of activity, and
I remember thinking, damn, like he's so multi talented. It
always amazes me how people I'm gonna say, like us,
(03:22):
because I'm gonna put myself in your category who sort
of become very well known and sort of extremely famous early,
how little people expect we're capable of.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, I would certainly put myself into your category, not
you into mine. But that's really true. That's really true,
And I imagine more so even for a woman clearly
and a beautiful woman, because those are two things that
they immediately you know, you're immediately thought of as having
less intelligence, you know still, but yes, for me, it
(03:58):
was more I was perceived as like, well he didn't
even not going to care, Like it was a show
up and think people other people are going to do
the work. You know. But what you and I both
have and what we learned very young, and one of
the things I always most admire about you is you
know how to work and go to work and like
be prepared and show up and go to work. And
that's you know a lot of people don't.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Where was that stigma for you? Like I was blue
Lagoon or pretty where you were brad Packed?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah? Yeah, the minute I was, the minute the brad
Pack label was leveled, that was it yould at a
certain level of movie. That's the kind of actor you were,
And that was that and I was, you know, dismissed
as that. You know what's weird is that, of course,
the brad Pack label has grown to be this iconically
affectionate term for a moment in pop culture, and me
and other members of the brad Pack and you to
(04:48):
a lesser degree because you're so you're your own unique
kind of thing, but you know, we are the avatars
of a certain generation. So it's you're now seen with
great affection all but the brad Pack was a very
derogatory term when it was first leveled.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Our affection took about forty years to kick in on
that line.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, no, I think so. I think so into a
very real I think people have I had affection for
the brat pack more quickly than I did. Why Why
Because I it was cast in aspersion. It was cast
as its way of going your brats and you're in
this pack and who wants to be seen as a
pack when you're a young actor and all that, And
it was just a labeling and a branding and you know,
(05:28):
all any of us ever want is to be seen,
right see who I am? And you know, as my
career was starting, is that, you know, I was like
wondrous and wonderful and exciting and thrilling, and then sudden
we're in the brat pack and it was just like
a I lost control of the narrative of my career
and in many ways my life. Because forty odd years later,
(05:49):
thirty five years later, in any introduction of me, brad
pack will still be mentioned in the first sentence, you know,
But I have come. I'm speaking about it with some
spleen now because that's what it was like back then.
But I have come to see. You know, when people
look at me and they come up to me now
about Putty in Pink or whatever, they have such a
glassy eyed look of affection in their eyes, and you
(06:10):
know they're talking about themselves that in their youth, and
that I've come to represent that to them. Took me decades,
but to realize what a beautiful thing that is.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Doing the documentary about it help you reclaim it.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Writing the book about it helped me to understand it.
So I wrote a book a couple of years ago
about that time infe because I'd never looked at it,
and I'd run from it, you know, and I just
wanted to get on with my whatever, and I thought,
I shaid, it's not going anywhere. Maybe you should try
to look at this seminal moment in your life and
actually see what went on there. And so, as you know,
(06:47):
when you write something, and you said, it helps you
understand it, and then you have to be careful when
you write something because then it becomes what happened. And
so I took pains to kind of go, wait, what
actually happened, as opposed to just the story said I'm
going to tell, Because we tell these stories that happened.
Oh yeah, and you tell stories, you've told them for decades,
and yet you have what really happened. And so when
(07:07):
I kind of looked at it and realized, and you know,
I'm much more than the sum of my parts because
I'm in the member of the brat packet. Actually what
a you know, a wondrous kind of thing it was,
And that was a wondrous. It was a seismic change
in popular culture and in movie culture at that time.
We forget now, but movies weren't about young people till
(07:29):
you did, like, you know, to Animal House and you
did Blue Lagoon, and that started movies to be about
young people, you know what I mean. And then suddenly
are little movies come on, and then the Brat pack
comes along with John Hughes, where they're taking young people seriously,
and Hollywood has realized, suddenly, oh my god, these kids
are going five, six, seven times. Grown ups only go once.
Screw that, Let's make movies for kids. And Hollywood has
(07:52):
never recovered from that.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Are you able to look back and be proud of it?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Oh? I think they're awesome. I think they're fantastic. I'd
have great affection for them. Now. I think some of
the movies are wouldn't be made today, certainly, like you're
never going to make Mannequin today.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
You're not gonna make pretty Baby today, and.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Not gonna make pretty Bigy. You know, You're not going
to make most of the movies. You're not going to
make saying almost fired today, Emilio is a stalker and
you know, and all those kinds of suff So you're
not going to make any of those movies or a
lot of the John Hughes movies either, because they're you know,
I have they're exploitative in certain ways, but I have
great affection for them now because I do think that
they you know.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It's a shame that it takes us this long to
have affection. I don't have the same kind of affection
because the thing that I never got to do was
grow as a talent. And I will say that what
I when I look at your films and any of
the ones you just mentioned, I remember and I was
(08:48):
this was I was there at the time. I remember
watching those movies and thinking, God, those people got to
actually really act, and they got to grow and they
got to be directed.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, Brooke, I mean that's I was running around with
a mannequin and dragging a dead body around. I don't
know how much acting I was, but I think.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
That's what It's harder to do that kind of comedy.
It's harder. I mean I was walking around hair on
my boobs, like with a squeaky voice, not not accessing
any emotion.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Like yeah, I mean, you know, one of the amazing
things about you is that you know you were wildly
exploited in this way, and yet you just sort of
have owned your life, and you know, so I thought
it was in such respect for that. But you know,
maybe you tell me this is a little pop psychologizing,
but you know that's your thing, that's your is you,
Like I didn't get a chance to go. I remember
(09:43):
when I were acting with you, when we were on
that show together, all you wanted to do was really
dig into the work and like be seen as as
an actor and like someone who really enjoyed the work
and was interested in doing good work and stuff. And
whether that wasn't asked of you or we each have
our thing of what we have a lens through which
we look at the world, and like when I was younger,
(10:03):
I looked at the world I'm not smart, and so
that's how I perceived other people perceived me in a
certain way.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Why why did you say that?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Oh, because I was terrible at school.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Which which is analogous to you. I'm not smart.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yes, And when you're growing up and you're in school
schools for smart people, you don't do well in school,
you're not smart. Obviously that's incorrect.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
But that's why you're so much smarter than ninety nine
percent of the people like that.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Nobody, but like, I'm the same thing about you, Like
you do know how to work, and you do. But
because this is a perception we get early about ourselves
where it's you know, body dysmorphy or whatever the world is,
you know it? Or life? Yeah, you know what I mean.
And I think we get in a lot of trouble
when we put on those pair of glasses and apply
them universally in our lives, because they don't really apply.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I've recently just done Pretty Baby, the documentary. Right, I
didn't produce it, I didn't direct it. I just was
in it. But what's been interesting to me is I
didn't know how people were going to respond to it,
but people have been coming away from it with a
broader understanding of actually who I am. Is there something
(11:18):
that you wish people really heard and knew about you?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, maybe it's just because I've I turned sixty this year,
and so that's really kind of threw me for a
loop for a while. I'd never blinked about my age,
you know, forty fifty and over blinked in six. I
was like, Wow, it's the beginning of being old, and
particularly someone like who's famous for being young. Now you're like,
what happened to the middle Anyway, I kind of found
(11:42):
myself I don't really care. I don't really need you
want to know anything. I want to be successful only
in the sense that just for ego wise, because that
feels good for eight minutes. But I don't really think
of myself as even having a career in any way anymore.
I just wanted things to be successful so that the
next thing that I want to do i'm allowed to
(12:03):
do more easily. I've sort of given up on perception
and how I'm received.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Isn't that freedom, though? Like, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Oh? It feels great, it feels I wish.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
We didn't have to get to sixty to we didn't
have to but maybe that's the point of all of it.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, and suddenly much more spacious. It's a lot more spacious,
for sure. And you know there's something about that drive
and ambition younger that can be useful.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But also you know you've you've done a thing that
I think I did by default. I don't know if
if you planned it, but the versatility of your talent.
Yes you're an actor, Yes you're a director, you're a writer,
but you keep adding to your list of fruition within
your talent. You went to NYU, Okay, you went to
(12:50):
study theater. You got kicked out. I don't know why.
Why'd you get kicked out?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Because I didn't go to my classes?
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You know what that it's interesting that they didn't just
keep taking your tuition.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well they would have. After I did my first movie.
They kicked me out, and I did my first movie,
and then they invited me back and I could if
I paid the tuition, I could use that for independent study.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
And I said, fuck they did they give you an honorary.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Degree, not yet. But like you though, Brooke, all of that,
all of that has come by necessity in a certain way,
because I stopped being successful as an actor, you know,
brat pack stuff sort of and then diminishing returns, and
I had personally, you know, I drank too much. It
took me a while to sort that problem out, and
when I could have came out of that fog, I
(13:31):
was then chasing like acting, and I realized, oh, this
is heartbreaking. I can't be doing this. So I stumbled
into travel writing. So I embraced that fully and it
was a real creative rebirth for me. And then that
led to books. And then when I realized, you know,
you can't really make enough money travel writing, so I
got to go back, Oh, well, I'll start directing. And
I stumbled into directing and realized I had an aptitude
for it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So it's not a stumbling. And I want to kind
of just stop you there for a second, because if
you weren't highly intelligent, you might have gotten a job,
but you wouldn't have been able to get another one
and keep going with it. Right, So there's a humility
that we I'm going to say, we try to have
by saying, oh, it just we stumbled and we just reacted.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well when I say stumbled, no, you're right. There was
absolute clear intent on both those things. I learned a
lot from the first time when I became. When I
was a young actor, I had no I just knew
I wanted to do that, and I didn't know anything,
and stuff happened, and it was like stuff happened to me,
and then the brack pack happened to me. And so
when I started writing and wanting to be a travel writer,
I was very careful how I curated it and how
(14:30):
I approached people, like no one knew I was the
broadpack actor being a travel writer, because you know, I
did it. Everything in that world is done by email,
so I would just email people. And when when I
was finally outed for being, oh, the actor, I think
he's a travel writer. By then I'd already written, you
use your name. Yeah, but I mean there's lots of whatever.
Nobody's thinking these kind of things. But by the time
I was out it, I'd already written for the New
(14:51):
York Times and National Geographic Travel and The Atlantic and so.
And I was very careful to curate to write for
those outlets so that when I am outed, they can't
easily dismiss me.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Do you like one more than the other?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Well? I had an act in about ten fifteen years
when I was just on a or ten years anyway,
on a show last season, and I really enjoyed acting.
It was really you know, it was like breathing to me.
We've been doing it since we're children, you know, So
I really located myself in that. But you know, I
do like sitting in a room alone. I have to say,
is something about that that I really enjoy as long
as I have something that's going on.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I don't think people know that about you when I
think of you, when someone says you to me, I'm like,
very intellectual and serious, very analytical, but in the most
beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Well you see me, you know. But see, that's one
of the things, Brooke, because you were not seen. You're
very active in your desire to see other people. And
I think that's a great gift because that's all any
of us really want in the world is to be seen.
And you were clearly not seen for who you are,
and so you do that.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Why do you think you drank so much?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Because I'm an alcoholic, you know. I mean, I don't
believe alcoholism is a reaction to anything else, but I
you know, I always say I drank better vodka because
I was in the movies, but the movie being successful
and the movies did not make me an alcoholic and
being too young for success and all that crap.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
What did it do though? What did you like about it?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It relieved my fear for a while.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And what was the fear about? Fear of what?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I don't know. I was just sort of a fearful person.
I was afraid of. You know, what do you got?
Fear is also just sort of feeds on itself. So
fear just sort of is a a thing that sort
of sits right in front of something. So anything you
funnel through it, it comes out with fear on it
because it's sitting in front of you. You know.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Was that from when you were a little kid?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeahah?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Does it? Parents? Is it? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
As a parent, I don't know. I was I was
terrified of my father, But was it because of him?
I don't, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I'm always interested in, like again, nature nurture, but the
fear my Okay, I'll share something. My fear was obviously
never being good enough. But that's because I had an
in satiable mother and her what she was insatiable for
and about and whatever was love. So like with my father,
(17:10):
I know he loved me, but like I never felt
good enough for him, But not because of anything he did,
just because the image of who my father was to
me was so much larger than life, and I loved
him so much, but I just always felt something wasn't
right with right enough with me. But I'm not a guy,
(17:32):
and I'm curious about men and their relationships with their father.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Oh, I just think I was. I had a very
highly oversensitized temperament, and I always felt my dad didn't
like me. Actually I thought, well, I think if you
were to pop psychoanalyzed it in a way, it would
be my mother's showered affection on me, and my father
was jealous, and so he didn't like me, and so
I was then frightened of him, so fear just I
(17:57):
don't know. He was just in a company accompanied me
from very as long as I know, So I don't
where it came from. I don't know. It doesn't even matter,
you know why. I'm kind of relieved to see that
my kids don't seem to have it. I know how
that happen, and that's I'm glad for them. But although
I have to say having a lot of fear in life.
It's given me kind of it's my what if people
(18:19):
put my secret superpowers? The kids say, because I can
see it, because I'm so aware of it and myself.
I can see it in other people operating all the time,
and most of the time people are not even aware
they're operating from a place of fear, and so I
can see that they're operating from fear, and I go, Okay,
I know something about them now that they don't might
not even know. And that really helps me navigate a
(18:41):
lot of situations. So in many ways, I'm very grateful
for it.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Tell me a little about your new book, Walking with Sam.
I find it interesting in so many ways. It's so
layered and beautiful. Talk to me a little bit about
the book. It's subject.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Why it's about us walking five hundred miles along the
Camino to Santiago, this old ancient pilgrimage route in Spain.
And I walked it twenty five years earlier alone or alone. Yeah,
it was after my early sort of success and all that,
and I guess I was kind of lost without really
even being aware that I was. And I heard about
the Camino, I read about it, and suddenly I just said,
(19:24):
I got to do that, and I went and I
did it, and I hated it until I had like
this breakdown in a field of wheak, and it was
I had one of these kind of white light experiences.
We're just talking about fear, and I became aware how
strong fear was in my life. And it was the
first time I was aware of its presence in my life.
Because it had been so ever present in my life,
I was afraid. I was relieved of it for this
(19:46):
moment and I felt like myself fully for the first time.
And that changed my life. And fear, of course, is
very cunning. It doesn't just go way once you identify it,
but at least it can never have the blind hold
it had on you before that. So that changed one.
So I always wanted to go back to Spain and
do that walk again. And as my son was becoming
(20:07):
a man, and I go back to go out into
the world. And I also should say when I we
were talking about my dad, I left home at seventeen
and I never really had a relationship with him for
the rest of his life until we reconciled when he
was dying, which was a beautiful thing, but we didn't
have any relationship, and I didn't want that with my kids.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And this is your older son.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
My oldest son. Yeah, so he was nineteen at the time.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Who is an actor?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, he's on a Circle Dead to me on Netflix.
He's an actor, Yeah, and a lovely actor.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
What was his reaction to both the book and the experience?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Well, day two he said, Dad, what's the point of
this fucking walk?
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And I kindly agree with him, but now I got it.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
On the last day he said, Dad, that's the only
ten out of ten thing I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
What did you say to him when he asked you
that question.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I was smart enough not to say anything. You know,
I had the ultimate luxury your parent gets with an
that old child, which was time. I didn't need to
be wise and have answers and be smart and be
full of advice. I could just walk and listen to him,
really create space for him.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Did you know you were going to write the book
as you were walking.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Well, being a travel writer, you know you're always going
to write about pretty much everywhere you go at at
some point in some form. So I was keeping notes
of the sort, and then about halfway in the walk
goes for five hundred miles to the Santiago de Compostella,
which is fifty miles from the sea, and that's where
the pilgrimage ends. But a lot of people continue walking
(21:37):
those last fifty miles to the ocean. They just feel
compelled to make that walk. I did not, and I
had no desire to do that either time. And Sam said,
I'm the place is called finished theare. So Sam said
he was going to walk to finishtare. He just wanted
to keep going. It was like he was, you know,
just go beyond. So the notion of him going beyond
(21:57):
my accomplishments in the metaphor, the communal abound. Everything on
the communal to Santiago's a metaphor. So the idea that
he was going to go beyond my accomplishments, which is
what is hardwired in every parent, is that our children
go beyond us, right, So, and he was going to
go beyond me. I just thought, oh my god, there's
a book in there.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Were you only trying because you said I didn't want
to have the same relationship with my son my father?
Was there anything else that you any other expectations you
possibly put onto doing no walk.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
No, I just want I knew, having had experience with it,
having walked it and had a life changing experience. I
knew if you just keep them walking and keep walking
beside him, what needs to happen will happen, you know.
So I did not have any expectations of wanting the
relationship to become this. All I wanted was for us
to see each other like we were talking about, as
(22:50):
adults and as human beings, as opposed to parent child dynamic.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Where did this come in his career?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, he'd been I think he had done two seasons
of dead time me by that before the third one,
and I think it's solidified in him a desire to act.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Did you have reservations about that?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Were you him acting? Yeah? My daughter has also been
on Broadway number of times, So I like, the last
thing you ever want is your kids to become an
actor if you're an actor, right at all?
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Or how about a model at all? I trumped you
with that one even worse?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, exactly so. But you know, acting saved my life
when I was fifteen, So who am I to say? So?
You know, if you're a teenager, you have to find something.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Are you going to take a trip with any of
your other children.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah. I just came back from Botswana with my nine
year old Rowan. I was doing a story for a
magazine and so we went on a safari type thing together.
So that was kind of great. Although we were looking
at the lions one day, you know, you drive up
in the jeep and you're looking at these lines and
I'm like, oh my god, amazing and these and then
he just leans on his dad, I got a poop,
(23:54):
Like Okay, so I go, can we pull away from
the lines a little bit? So we go and you know,
I go, or we got to dig a hole. You're
going to dig a hole? He said, what go? Yeah,
I got to dig a hole and poop the ground.
And so any way we do, and like that night
we come back and he's facetiming his mom and she's like,
how are the lions and the elephants? And he's like, mom,
I pop around. You know, so this is this is
(24:15):
the big deal.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Do you have a little bag with the paper? Like,
because you got to put the paper in a bag
unless it's biodegradable, which you've got to hope that.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
We just went home and took a. We just went
home and took a shower.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I wanted to go deep on the poop. When I
pitched this show see where I hired, I called it
now What because I said, listen, every single person has
now what moments in their life where they're all of
a sudden, like, fuck, does anyone now what moments stick
out in your life?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
She says? Every morning?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Now what do I do? I've just wait awakened.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, no, I mean I kind of you know that
I feel I've always I felt like that all the
time my whole life, you know what I mean. That's
one of the things that comes to being a freelancer too.
You know, I've had You've had, you know, hundreds of jobs.
They're like, okay, now what now? What do we do?
And although every now what I've ever had has always
spurred me to something more interesting, you know, it's always
(25:15):
a frightened because I'm so used to fear. I think
that now what is always filled with dread and fear,
and so I've just come to be so used to
that feeling that I don't mind it that much because
it's just this normal state, I mean, and it has
always led to like I say, oh, I can't do
that anymore. Okay, Now what what do I do now? Okay?
(25:37):
I became a traveler and okay that doesn't pay enough. Okay,
now what Okay, So I guess I'll become direct Okay,
that's not happening now, Okay, I guess I'm going to
make this documentary because okay, and you know, you just
sort of and all those obstacles and things that precede
and now what are you know, always seen as an
oh shit, but then they you look back and go, oh,
(25:57):
thank god exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
I mean, you're such an inspiration on so many levels,
and I also feel akin to you just because that's
the way I've lived my life. You know that the
documentary is it finished? Is it?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know? I'm in the process of sort of finishing it,
in the process of finishing it, so hopefully in the
fall it'll come out.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Was there anything that surprised you about because you recently
just talked to me, By the way, I was supposed
to have lunch with her today and you fucked that
up because I can't. I can't. I can't be sitting
on a couch with Ali and de me, which is
where I was invited. Is there anything about those conversations that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Would be much that would have been much better?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
We should have done the podcast from Allie's couch? Are
you so? Where were you're talking?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
All of I talked to most of them, and well,
I've talked to all of the most of them have
participated a couple as still being a little you know,
cagey about it.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
But anything that surprised you.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
It surprised me how much affection we all had for
each other because we didn't back in the day. You know,
we're young and scared and whatever was going on. But
I mean, just how much like I hadn't seen Robin
thirty thirty five years, same with Amelia, and just like
how much affection I had for him and four more
then our youth and like to just sort of an
understanding that we have. I don't know them at all,
(27:16):
and yet I know them deeply because we both we
all went through kind of a very similar thing. So yeah,
that was a really lovely feeling to sort of just
connect with it and then connect with them connected me
to my own youth, and I had count we had
so much more affection for my youth, which led me
to then have more affection for myself at that time
in those movies and all that. So it's been very
(27:38):
lovely experience.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
One last question, what is your proudest moment from the
walk with your son and something that you'll always remember.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Well, when he was marching to finish stare after at
the end there, I took a taxi out to meet him.
And it's a little it's a little daunting to realize
you can take cover a half hour in a car
what it took you through days the walk. But I
went out to meet him and just as he came
marching up the hill with his shirt off, on his
arms pumping and just sweat ford and the grin on
his face, to just stand there and receive him, you know,
(28:13):
and that he allowed me to receive him. And that
was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
That was the brilliant Andrew McCarthy. If you want to
hear more about his incredible trip with a son, go
pick up a copy of his new memoir Walking with Sam.
That's it for us today, Talk to you next week.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
What with Burke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
and editing by Darby Masters and Abu zafar Our. Executive
producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Baheed Fraser.
What do you do when life doesn't go according to plan?
That moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question, now what? So you have a nine.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Year old I do, and a sixteen year old sick.
My daughter Willow is sixteen and Sam is twenty one.
We're going to see Taylor Swift tomorrow night, so excited.
And she got me a very spangly silver, sparkly blazer
that I'm to wear at the concert.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Are you a swifty? Now? You're a swifty?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well? I can say that. I hear a lot of
tailors Swift in the car, and I think she's kind
of great. But I yeah, I'm by proxy, I gilt
by association.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
My guest today is an old friend and a familiar
face to anyone who came of age in the eighties.
Andrew McCarthy is a writer, director, actor, and famously a
member of the Brat Pack. He became a household name
thanks to films like Pretty in Pink and Weekend at
Bernie's before pivoting to a successful career as a TV
and travel writer and director. We got to know each
(01:43):
other well when we co starred on the show Lipstick Jungle,
and time and again I was impressed by his versatility,
charm and quiet intelligence. His hustle and flexibility are something
to be admired, and I can't wait for all of
you to get to know him a little better and
take a fun trip down memory link. Here is Andrew McCarthy.
(02:09):
I'm trying to think of how long we've known each other.
We've known each other quite a while.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But it's interesting because I feel like I really just
got to know you for real life when you directed
Lipstick Jungle. When you acted in it, obviously, but when
I really got to experience you as a human being,
it was being directed by you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I wonder what the difference was being directed by me?
Is just acting with me.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It was different, I think because I'm really I really
do take one hat off and put another one on.
And I think it's the first time I really had
been directed by an actor. When did you become a director?
When did you first direct?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Go on that show for real Life? No, you had
I directed a short film before that that I made myself.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And the episode you directed was very well. There were
so many moving pieces to it, like That's what was
so interesting to me was it was a big episode,
meaning like lots of people and lots of activity, and
I remember thinking, damn, like he's so multi talented. It
always amazes me how people I'm gonna say, like us,
(03:22):
because I'm gonna put myself in your category who sort
of become very well known and sort of extremely famous early,
how little people expect we're capable of.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, I would certainly put myself into your category, not
you into mine. But that's really true. That's really true,
And I imagine more so even for a woman clearly
and a beautiful woman, because those are two things that
they immediately you know, you're immediately thought of as having
less intelligence, you know still, but yes, for me, it
(03:58):
was more I was perceived as like, well he didn't
even not going to care, Like it was a show
up and think people other people are going to do
the work. You know. But what you and I both
have and what we learned very young, and one of
the things I always most admire about you is you
know how to work and go to work and like
be prepared and show up and go to work. And
that's you know a lot of people don't.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Where was that stigma for you? Like I was blue
Lagoon or pretty where you were brad Packed?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah? Yeah, the minute I was, the minute the brad
Pack label was leveled, that was it yould at a
certain level of movie. That's the kind of actor you were,
And that was that and I was, you know, dismissed
as that. You know what's weird is that, of course,
the brad Pack label has grown to be this iconically
affectionate term for a moment in pop culture, and me
and other members of the brad Pack and you to
(04:48):
a lesser degree because you're so you're your own unique
kind of thing, but you know, we are the avatars
of a certain generation. So it's you're now seen with
great affection all but the brad Pack was a very
derogatory term when it was first leveled.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Our affection took about forty years to kick in on
that line.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, no, I think so. I think so into a
very real I think people have I had affection for
the brat pack more quickly than I did. Why Why
Because I it was cast in aspersion. It was cast
as its way of going your brats and you're in
this pack and who wants to be seen as a
pack when you're a young actor and all that, And
it was just a labeling and a branding and you know,
(05:28):
all any of us ever want is to be seen,
right see who I am? And you know, as my
career was starting, is that, you know, I was like
wondrous and wonderful and exciting and thrilling, and then sudden
we're in the brat pack and it was just like
a I lost control of the narrative of my career
and in many ways my life. Because forty odd years later,
(05:49):
thirty five years later, in any introduction of me, brad
pack will still be mentioned in the first sentence, you know,
But I have come. I'm speaking about it with some
spleen now because that's what it was like back then.
But I have come to see. You know, when people
look at me and they come up to me now
about Putty in Pink or whatever, they have such a
glassy eyed look of affection in their eyes, and you
(06:10):
know they're talking about themselves that in their youth, and
that I've come to represent that to them. Took me decades,
but to realize what a beautiful thing that is.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Doing the documentary about it help you reclaim it.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Writing the book about it helped me to understand it.
So I wrote a book a couple of years ago
about that time infe because I'd never looked at it,
and I'd run from it, you know, and I just
wanted to get on with my whatever, and I thought,
I shaid, it's not going anywhere. Maybe you should try
to look at this seminal moment in your life and
actually see what went on there. And so, as you know,
(06:47):
when you write something, and you said, it helps you
understand it, and then you have to be careful when
you write something because then it becomes what happened. And
so I took pains to kind of go, wait, what
actually happened, as opposed to just the story said I'm
going to tell, Because we tell these stories that happened.
Oh yeah, and you tell stories, you've told them for decades,
and yet you have what really happened. And so when
(07:07):
I kind of looked at it and realized, and you know,
I'm much more than the sum of my parts because
I'm in the member of the brat packet. Actually what
a you know, a wondrous kind of thing it was,
And that was a wondrous. It was a seismic change
in popular culture and in movie culture at that time.
We forget now, but movies weren't about young people till
(07:29):
you did, like, you know, to Animal House and you
did Blue Lagoon, and that started movies to be about
young people, you know what I mean. And then suddenly
are little movies come on, and then the Brat pack
comes along with John Hughes, where they're taking young people seriously,
and Hollywood has realized, suddenly, oh my god, these kids
are going five, six, seven times. Grown ups only go once.
Screw that, Let's make movies for kids. And Hollywood has
(07:52):
never recovered from that.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Are you able to look back and be proud of it?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Oh? I think they're awesome. I think they're fantastic. I'd
have great affection for them. Now. I think some of
the movies are wouldn't be made today, certainly, like you're
never going to make Mannequin today.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
You're not gonna make pretty Baby today, and.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Not gonna make pretty Bigy. You know, You're not going
to make most of the movies. You're not going to
make saying almost fired today, Emilio is a stalker and
you know, and all those kinds of suff So you're
not going to make any of those movies or a
lot of the John Hughes movies either, because they're you know,
I have they're exploitative in certain ways, but I have
great affection for them now because I do think that
they you know.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It's a shame that it takes us this long to
have affection. I don't have the same kind of affection
because the thing that I never got to do was
grow as a talent. And I will say that what
I when I look at your films and any of
the ones you just mentioned, I remember and I was
(08:48):
this was I was there at the time. I remember
watching those movies and thinking, God, those people got to
actually really act, and they got to grow and they
got to be directed.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, Brooke, I mean that's I was running around with
a mannequin and dragging a dead body around. I don't
know how much acting I was, but I think.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
That's what It's harder to do that kind of comedy.
It's harder. I mean I was walking around hair on
my boobs, like with a squeaky voice, not not accessing
any emotion.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Like yeah, I mean, you know, one of the amazing
things about you is that you know you were wildly
exploited in this way, and yet you just sort of
have owned your life, and you know, so I thought
it was in such respect for that. But you know,
maybe you tell me this is a little pop psychologizing,
but you know that's your thing, that's your is you,
Like I didn't get a chance to go. I remember
(09:43):
when I were acting with you, when we were on
that show together, all you wanted to do was really
dig into the work and like be seen as as
an actor and like someone who really enjoyed the work
and was interested in doing good work and stuff. And
whether that wasn't asked of you or we each have
our thing of what we have a lens through which
we look at the world, and like when I was younger,
(10:03):
I looked at the world I'm not smart, and so
that's how I perceived other people perceived me in a
certain way.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Why why did you say that?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Oh, because I was terrible at school.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Which which is analogous to you. I'm not smart.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yes, And when you're growing up and you're in school
schools for smart people, you don't do well in school,
you're not smart. Obviously that's incorrect.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
But that's why you're so much smarter than ninety nine
percent of the people like that.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Nobody, but like, I'm the same thing about you, Like
you do know how to work, and you do. But
because this is a perception we get early about ourselves
where it's you know, body dysmorphy or whatever the world is,
you know it? Or life? Yeah, you know what I mean.
And I think we get in a lot of trouble
when we put on those pair of glasses and apply
them universally in our lives, because they don't really apply.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I've recently just done Pretty Baby, the documentary. Right, I
didn't produce it, I didn't direct it. I just was
in it. But what's been interesting to me is I
didn't know how people were going to respond to it,
but people have been coming away from it with a
broader understanding of actually who I am. Is there something
(11:18):
that you wish people really heard and knew about you?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, maybe it's just because I've I turned sixty this year,
and so that's really kind of threw me for a
loop for a while. I'd never blinked about my age,
you know, forty fifty and over blinked in six. I
was like, Wow, it's the beginning of being old, and
particularly someone like who's famous for being young. Now you're like,
what happened to the middle Anyway, I kind of found
(11:42):
myself I don't really care. I don't really need you
want to know anything. I want to be successful only
in the sense that just for ego wise, because that
feels good for eight minutes. But I don't really think
of myself as even having a career in any way anymore.
I just wanted things to be successful so that the
next thing that I want to do i'm allowed to
(12:03):
do more easily. I've sort of given up on perception
and how I'm received.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Isn't that freedom, though? Like, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Oh? It feels great, it feels I wish.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
We didn't have to get to sixty to we didn't
have to but maybe that's the point of all of it.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, and suddenly much more spacious. It's a lot more spacious,
for sure. And you know there's something about that drive
and ambition younger that can be useful.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But also you know you've you've done a thing that
I think I did by default. I don't know if
if you planned it, but the versatility of your talent.
Yes you're an actor, Yes you're a director, you're a writer,
but you keep adding to your list of fruition within
your talent. You went to NYU, Okay, you went to
(12:50):
study theater. You got kicked out. I don't know why.
Why'd you get kicked out?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Because I didn't go to my classes?
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You know what that it's interesting that they didn't just
keep taking your tuition.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well they would have. After I did my first movie.
They kicked me out, and I did my first movie,
and then they invited me back and I could if
I paid the tuition, I could use that for independent study.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
And I said, fuck they did they give you an honorary.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Degree, not yet. But like you though, Brooke, all of that,
all of that has come by necessity in a certain way,
because I stopped being successful as an actor, you know,
brat pack stuff sort of and then diminishing returns, and
I had personally, you know, I drank too much. It
took me a while to sort that problem out, and
when I could have came out of that fog, I
(13:31):
was then chasing like acting, and I realized, oh, this
is heartbreaking. I can't be doing this. So I stumbled
into travel writing. So I embraced that fully and it
was a real creative rebirth for me. And then that
led to books. And then when I realized, you know,
you can't really make enough money travel writing, so I
got to go back, Oh, well, I'll start directing. And
I stumbled into directing and realized I had an aptitude
for it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So it's not a stumbling. And I want to kind
of just stop you there for a second, because if
you weren't highly intelligent, you might have gotten a job,
but you wouldn't have been able to get another one
and keep going with it. Right, So there's a humility
that we I'm going to say, we try to have
by saying, oh, it just we stumbled and we just reacted.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well when I say stumbled, no, you're right. There was
absolute clear intent on both those things. I learned a
lot from the first time when I became. When I
was a young actor, I had no I just knew
I wanted to do that, and I didn't know anything,
and stuff happened, and it was like stuff happened to me,
and then the brack pack happened to me. And so
when I started writing and wanting to be a travel writer,
I was very careful how I curated it and how
(14:30):
I approached people, like no one knew I was the
broadpack actor being a travel writer, because you know, I
did it. Everything in that world is done by email,
so I would just email people. And when when I
was finally outed for being, oh, the actor, I think
he's a travel writer. By then I'd already written, you
use your name. Yeah, but I mean there's lots of whatever.
Nobody's thinking these kind of things. But by the time
I was out it, I'd already written for the New
(14:51):
York Times and National Geographic Travel and The Atlantic and so.
And I was very careful to curate to write for
those outlets so that when I am outed, they can't
easily dismiss me.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Do you like one more than the other?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Well? I had an act in about ten fifteen years
when I was just on a or ten years anyway,
on a show last season, and I really enjoyed acting.
It was really you know, it was like breathing to me.
We've been doing it since we're children, you know, So
I really located myself in that. But you know, I
do like sitting in a room alone. I have to say,
is something about that that I really enjoy as long
as I have something that's going on.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I don't think people know that about you when I
think of you, when someone says you to me, I'm like,
very intellectual and serious, very analytical, but in the most
beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Well you see me, you know. But see, that's one
of the things, Brooke, because you were not seen. You're
very active in your desire to see other people. And
I think that's a great gift because that's all any
of us really want in the world is to be seen.
And you were clearly not seen for who you are,
and so you do that.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Why do you think you drank so much?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Because I'm an alcoholic, you know. I mean, I don't
believe alcoholism is a reaction to anything else, but I
you know, I always say I drank better vodka because
I was in the movies, but the movie being successful
and the movies did not make me an alcoholic and
being too young for success and all that crap.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
What did it do though? What did you like about it?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It relieved my fear for a while.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And what was the fear about? Fear of what?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I don't know. I was just sort of a fearful person.
I was afraid of. You know, what do you got?
Fear is also just sort of feeds on itself. So
fear just sort of is a a thing that sort
of sits right in front of something. So anything you
funnel through it, it comes out with fear on it
because it's sitting in front of you. You know.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Was that from when you were a little kid?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeahah?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Does it? Parents? Is it? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
As a parent, I don't know. I was I was
terrified of my father, But was it because of him?
I don't, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I'm always interested in, like again, nature nurture, but the
fear my Okay, I'll share something. My fear was obviously
never being good enough. But that's because I had an
in satiable mother and her what she was insatiable for
and about and whatever was love. So like with my father,
(17:10):
I know he loved me, but like I never felt
good enough for him, But not because of anything he did,
just because the image of who my father was to
me was so much larger than life, and I loved
him so much, but I just always felt something wasn't
right with right enough with me. But I'm not a guy,
(17:32):
and I'm curious about men and their relationships with their father.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Oh, I just think I was. I had a very
highly oversensitized temperament, and I always felt my dad didn't
like me. Actually I thought, well, I think if you
were to pop psychoanalyzed it in a way, it would
be my mother's showered affection on me, and my father
was jealous, and so he didn't like me, and so
I was then frightened of him, so fear just I
(17:57):
don't know. He was just in a company accompanied me
from very as long as I know, So I don't
where it came from. I don't know. It doesn't even matter,
you know why. I'm kind of relieved to see that
my kids don't seem to have it. I know how
that happen, and that's I'm glad for them. But although
I have to say having a lot of fear in life.
It's given me kind of it's my what if people
(18:19):
put my secret superpowers? The kids say, because I can
see it, because I'm so aware of it and myself.
I can see it in other people operating all the time,
and most of the time people are not even aware
they're operating from a place of fear, and so I
can see that they're operating from fear, and I go, Okay,
I know something about them now that they don't might
not even know. And that really helps me navigate a
(18:41):
lot of situations. So in many ways, I'm very grateful
for it.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Tell me a little about your new book, Walking with Sam.
I find it interesting in so many ways. It's so
layered and beautiful. Talk to me a little bit about
the book. It's subject.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Why it's about us walking five hundred miles along the
Camino to Santiago, this old ancient pilgrimage route in Spain.
And I walked it twenty five years earlier alone or alone. Yeah,
it was after my early sort of success and all that,
and I guess I was kind of lost without really
even being aware that I was. And I heard about
the Camino, I read about it, and suddenly I just said,
(19:24):
I got to do that, and I went and I
did it, and I hated it until I had like
this breakdown in a field of wheak, and it was
I had one of these kind of white light experiences.
We're just talking about fear, and I became aware how
strong fear was in my life. And it was the
first time I was aware of its presence in my life.
Because it had been so ever present in my life,
I was afraid. I was relieved of it for this
(19:46):
moment and I felt like myself fully for the first time.
And that changed my life. And fear, of course, is
very cunning. It doesn't just go way once you identify it,
but at least it can never have the blind hold
it had on you before that. So that changed one.
So I always wanted to go back to Spain and
do that walk again. And as my son was becoming
(20:07):
a man, and I go back to go out into
the world. And I also should say when I we
were talking about my dad, I left home at seventeen
and I never really had a relationship with him for
the rest of his life until we reconciled when he
was dying, which was a beautiful thing, but we didn't
have any relationship, and I didn't want that with my kids.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And this is your older son.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
My oldest son. Yeah, so he was nineteen at the time.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Who is an actor?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, he's on a Circle Dead to me on Netflix.
He's an actor, Yeah, and a lovely actor.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
What was his reaction to both the book and the experience?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Well, day two he said, Dad, what's the point of
this fucking walk?
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And I kindly agree with him, but now I got it.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
On the last day he said, Dad, that's the only
ten out of ten thing I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
What did you say to him when he asked you
that question.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I was smart enough not to say anything. You know,
I had the ultimate luxury your parent gets with an
that old child, which was time. I didn't need to
be wise and have answers and be smart and be
full of advice. I could just walk and listen to him,
really create space for him.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Did you know you were going to write the book
as you were walking.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Well, being a travel writer, you know you're always going
to write about pretty much everywhere you go at at
some point in some form. So I was keeping notes
of the sort, and then about halfway in the walk
goes for five hundred miles to the Santiago de Compostella,
which is fifty miles from the sea, and that's where
the pilgrimage ends. But a lot of people continue walking
(21:37):
those last fifty miles to the ocean. They just feel
compelled to make that walk. I did not, and I
had no desire to do that either time. And Sam said,
I'm the place is called finished theare. So Sam said
he was going to walk to finishtare. He just wanted
to keep going. It was like he was, you know,
just go beyond. So the notion of him going beyond
(21:57):
my accomplishments in the metaphor, the communal abound. Everything on
the communal to Santiago's a metaphor. So the idea that
he was going to go beyond my accomplishments, which is
what is hardwired in every parent, is that our children
go beyond us, right, So, and he was going to
go beyond me. I just thought, oh my god, there's
a book in there.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Were you only trying because you said I didn't want
to have the same relationship with my son my father?
Was there anything else that you any other expectations you
possibly put onto doing no walk.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
No, I just want I knew, having had experience with it,
having walked it and had a life changing experience. I
knew if you just keep them walking and keep walking
beside him, what needs to happen will happen, you know.
So I did not have any expectations of wanting the
relationship to become this. All I wanted was for us
to see each other like we were talking about, as
(22:50):
adults and as human beings, as opposed to parent child dynamic.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Where did this come in his career?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, he'd been I think he had done two seasons
of dead time me by that before the third one,
and I think it's solidified in him a desire to act.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Did you have reservations about that?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Were you him acting? Yeah? My daughter has also been
on Broadway number of times, So I like, the last
thing you ever want is your kids to become an
actor if you're an actor, right at all?
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Or how about a model at all? I trumped you
with that one even worse?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, exactly so. But you know, acting saved my life
when I was fifteen, So who am I to say? So?
You know, if you're a teenager, you have to find something.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Are you going to take a trip with any of
your other children.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah. I just came back from Botswana with my nine
year old Rowan. I was doing a story for a
magazine and so we went on a safari type thing together.
So that was kind of great. Although we were looking
at the lions one day, you know, you drive up
in the jeep and you're looking at these lines and
I'm like, oh my god, amazing and these and then
he just leans on his dad, I got a poop,
(23:54):
Like Okay, so I go, can we pull away from
the lines a little bit? So we go and you know,
I go, or we got to dig a hole. You're
going to dig a hole? He said, what go? Yeah,
I got to dig a hole and poop the ground.
And so any way we do, and like that night
we come back and he's facetiming his mom and she's like,
how are the lions and the elephants? And he's like, mom,
I pop around. You know, so this is this is
(24:15):
the big deal.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Do you have a little bag with the paper? Like,
because you got to put the paper in a bag
unless it's biodegradable, which you've got to hope that.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
We just went home and took a. We just went
home and took a shower.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I wanted to go deep on the poop. When I
pitched this show see where I hired, I called it
now What because I said, listen, every single person has
now what moments in their life where they're all of
a sudden, like, fuck, does anyone now what moments stick
out in your life?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
She says? Every morning?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Now what do I do? I've just wait awakened.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, no, I mean I kind of you know that
I feel I've always I felt like that all the
time my whole life, you know what I mean. That's
one of the things that comes to being a freelancer too.
You know, I've had You've had, you know, hundreds of jobs.
They're like, okay, now what now? What do we do?
And although every now what I've ever had has always
spurred me to something more interesting, you know, it's always
(25:15):
a frightened because I'm so used to fear. I think
that now what is always filled with dread and fear,
and so I've just come to be so used to
that feeling that I don't mind it that much because
it's just this normal state, I mean, and it has
always led to like I say, oh, I can't do
that anymore. Okay, Now what what do I do now? Okay?
(25:37):
I became a traveler and okay that doesn't pay enough. Okay,
now what Okay, So I guess I'll become direct Okay,
that's not happening now, Okay, I guess I'm going to
make this documentary because okay, and you know, you just
sort of and all those obstacles and things that precede
and now what are you know, always seen as an
oh shit, but then they you look back and go, oh,
(25:57):
thank god exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
I mean, you're such an inspiration on so many levels,
and I also feel akin to you just because that's
the way I've lived my life. You know that the
documentary is it finished? Is it?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know? I'm in the process of sort of finishing it,
in the process of finishing it, so hopefully in the
fall it'll come out.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Was there anything that surprised you about because you recently
just talked to me, By the way, I was supposed
to have lunch with her today and you fucked that
up because I can't. I can't. I can't be sitting
on a couch with Ali and de me, which is
where I was invited. Is there anything about those conversations that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Would be much that would have been much better?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
We should have done the podcast from Allie's couch? Are
you so? Where were you're talking?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
All of I talked to most of them, and well,
I've talked to all of the most of them have
participated a couple as still being a little you know,
cagey about it.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
But anything that surprised you.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
It surprised me how much affection we all had for
each other because we didn't back in the day. You know,
we're young and scared and whatever was going on. But
I mean, just how much like I hadn't seen Robin
thirty thirty five years, same with Amelia, and just like
how much affection I had for him and four more
then our youth and like to just sort of an
understanding that we have. I don't know them at all,
(27:16):
and yet I know them deeply because we both we
all went through kind of a very similar thing. So yeah,
that was a really lovely feeling to sort of just
connect with it and then connect with them connected me
to my own youth, and I had count we had
so much more affection for my youth, which led me
to then have more affection for myself at that time
in those movies and all that. So it's been very
(27:38):
lovely experience.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
One last question, what is your proudest moment from the
walk with your son and something that you'll always remember.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Well, when he was marching to finish stare after at
the end there, I took a taxi out to meet him.
And it's a little it's a little daunting to realize
you can take cover a half hour in a car
what it took you through days the walk. But I
went out to meet him and just as he came
marching up the hill with his shirt off, on his
arms pumping and just sweat ford and the grin on
his face, to just stand there and receive him, you know,
(28:13):
and that he allowed me to receive him. And that
was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
That was the brilliant Andrew McCarthy. If you want to
hear more about his incredible trip with a son, go
pick up a copy of his new memoir Walking with Sam.
That's it for us today, Talk to you next week.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
What with Burke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
and editing by Darby Masters and Abu zafar Our. Executive
producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Baheed Fraser.
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