If you’re old enough to remember John Hughes teen movies, life before social media, and big hair that wasn’t ironic, you probably remember the Brat Pack, the punny name given to a group of young celebrities who seemed to be living their best, most glamorous lives in the late ‘80s. “Oh my God, you wanted to be us,” recalls one Brat Pack member, Andrew McCarthy, “But for us, it just wasn't that way.”
Now, McCarthy, has made a documentary about what it was like for those lucky (or unlucky) enough to be in the era’s ultimate in crowd. He interviewed fellow Brat Pack members Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Jon Cryer, Lea Thompson, Timothy Hutton and directors, casting directors, screenwriters and producers for the film, which is set to debut on the streaming platform Hulu later this year.
For McCarthy, setting up interviews was often as easy as picking up the phone. "It was all just kitchen table chat. Really, I just want to come talk to you," he recalled at the Television Critics Association panel held in Pasadena, California last month." I didn't have any agenda particularly, I was just like this was my experience, what was yours? Because I wanted to have conversations with people. I wasn't interested in interviewing people and getting their responses. I was interested in having a conversation with people. And, like, consequently, I was revealing myself.
He wasn't able to have a conversation with every member of the Brat Pack, however. "Pretty in Pink" star Molly Ringwald politely passed. "I asked Molly [Ringwalds] if she wanted to talk in the film, of course, and she said she'd think about, but that she would probably just like to keep looking forward. And I talked to Jon Cryer about it. He said, "You know, a lot of time as actors, we want to be free of the baggage of our pop cultural associations and we just want to act." And I thought, fair enough, you know?"
And Ringwald wasn't the only one. "Judd [Nelson] didn't want to talk," McCarthy said. "He said, 'The Brat Pack didn't exist, so I'm not talking about it.' Whereas initially, he said he'd love to, and then he kind of said, "I don't want to talk about it."' Somehow, that response seems exactly right for the guy who played the "criminal" in "The Breakfast Club."
