Actor Andrew McCarthy Dishes on Acting, Directing and Writing

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with actor Andrew McCarthy, member of the 80’s Brat Pack, about his work off-camera as a director and young adult novelist.

6/14/17 #2049

Excerpt:

"Hi, Steve Adubato. Welcome to the Tisch WNET Studio. It is our honor and pleasure to welcome for the first time, hopefully it won't be the last, Andrew McCarthy. The author of a book called "Just Fly Away", an actor, director. You recognize him from a whole bunch of things that he has been doing for how many years have you been doing? Hmm. In the business? Since '82. First film was? Called "Class" with Jacqueline Bisset. I played Jacqueline Bisset's young lover. Yeah. It's been downhill ever since. I should have quit right then. I'm sorry. Was that hard work doing that? [laughter] I was 19 years old and I went to an open call up on 72nd street, and... Get out of here! They wanted an 18, vulnerable and sensitive kid and I was like "Dude!" And... Was she there? No, she was not. But I went to 7 or 8 auditions and they flew me out to Los Angeles to her house up in the hills. And they drove me up to Jackie's house to be approved and, yeah, she approved. That's wonderful. Yeah, no. It was fantastic. How soon after do some of the other really great things... Pretty In Pink and St. Elmo's Fire, how quickly after? I didn't work for about a year after I did class and so I thought, "Oh well, that was it. I had my shot and it's over," but then I guess I did another movie called Heaven Help Us and then St. Elmo's fire happened and then Pretty in Pink and then it all sort of happened in a rush there. Okay. Fast forward just a little bit. Orange is the New Black? Yes. Directing? Yeah. It's like herding cats, that show. [laughter] Okay. My wife's favorite show. It's very good. Netflix, right? Yeah. What do you love about the show? I just think it's Jenji... Jenji Kohan the creator has an original voice. You know, all those shows... All TV shows are the writer's voice, really. You know, you can shoot 'em in many different styles, but if the voice and the, you know, dialogue and the characters aren't original and real, then that's what makes TV. You know. And that the cast of characters in that, those are ladies that didn't get to do much except play house, you know, cleaners and nannies and things. All shapes and sizes. All different ethnicities and suddenly they're in the mix and it's chaos and it's great, I mean, it really works. There's a lot of truth in that show and there's a lot of humor and pathos within the same moment. You know. For you, given your background as an actor, as a writer, when you're directing, how much of that, it's complicated, I don't want to overcomplicate this..."