[electricity buzzing]
INTERVIEWER:
Are we doing a disservice
to the individuality of you
and the rest
of the young group that,
by calling you the Brat Pack
and by sort of
putting in one group
and stereotyping
all of you as young actors
who've made it
and who now sort of control
a lot of Hollywood?
- [laughs]
Oh, I wouldn't say control,
but--
INTERVIEWER: But are part
of the sort of--
Well, I think it's easy
to just group people
together in any level.
So it's just an easier way
to get a handle on people,
but I think all of us
are very different.
[keyboard clacking]
INTERVIEWER:
Does it offend you
when they talk about
the Brat Pack?
ANDREW: I kind of let it--
try and let it,
like, slide off your back.
I mean, it happens.
And that stuff will sift
itself out, I think.
INTERVIEWER:
Now, you've met early success.
Lots of people struggle
for a long time.
Is this an uncertain period
for you?
ANDREW: [laughs]
If you were coming
of age in the 1980s,
then the Brat Pack was at
or near the center
of your cultural awareness.
I mean, we were who you wanted
to hang with, who you emulated
or envied,
who you wanted to party with.
But for those of us
experiencing the Brat Pack
from the inside, it was
something very different.
INTERVIEWER:
Is it overwhelming?
Is it ever overwhelming, the--
what you have in front of you
and what all you can do?
Right, um...
And perhaps the pressure,
too, there?
- You're 22 now?
- 22.
[interviewer whistles]
INTERVIEWER: Wow.
I thought
I was gonna get used to it,
and I don't think I ever quite
got used to it.
And we fit a niche
that needed to be filled
in pop culture
at that moment, you know?
And what was that?
What was the need to create us?
We were a group
of young actors
who were trying
to have careers,
and we were suddenly
bonded together indelibly
forever as this unit.
However much sort of truth or
not truth is involved in it,
it doesn't really matter.
And I think that's
what some of us
resented so much
at the beginning is that,
this isn't the right perception
of who we are.
This isn't the reality
of our experience.
[dramatic music]
[Joy Division's
"Love Will Tear Us Apart"]
? ?
IAN:
? When routine bites hard ?
? And ambitions are low ?
ANDREW: When I was 17,
I moved into New York City,
and I lived on the
fourth floor of this building
right off
Washington Square Park.
In 1980, New York City
was a completely
different place than it is now.
? ?
[police sirens wailing]
People always say that
about the past, don't they?
[laughing]
But it was.
It was scary.
It was thrilling.
It was dirty.
And I spent most of my time
right here
in Washington Square Park
because I was at NYU.
And when I was
cutting my classes,
I used to play frisbee
in the park every day
and buy two joints every day
from the same Rastafarian
playing soccer right here.
I'd smoke them.
I'd go home and watch
The Rockford Files.
[laughs]
I was not exactly
the guy most likely to be
in the movies two years later.
ROSCOE: Oh, whoa!
Jeez, oh, God!
Great, d*uche bag.
ANDREW: And then suddenly
the fortunes
of a group of young actors,
including me, soared.
[Bob Seger's
"Old Time Rock and Roll"]
Hollywood discovered
the box office
potential of a young audience.
BOB: ? Just take those old
records off the shelf ?
ANDREW: They aimed
their moneymaking
tractor beam directly at it.
BOB: ? Today's music
ain't got the same soul ?
? I like that old-time
rock and roll ?
It's the Hollywood
class of 1985.
A crop of young movie actors
that's giving young audiences
a whole new generation
of heroes to root for.
It's an incredible time
to be 22, 23 right now
and to be a young actor because
the films are catering to us.
But right now, it's great.
The movies are being made
about my age of people.
That's the audience
that's going.
ANDREW: Audiences, they--
they couldn't get
enough of us.
It seemed that every weekend,
there was another movie,
and another movie,
and another movie about
and starring young people.
In the history of Hollywood,
it had never been like this.
This sounds like
a dream come true.
You are all in your early 20s,
and you're stars.
[applause]
Welcome, if you will,
Molly Ringwald.
[cheering]
And then on June 10, 1985,
New York Magazine
published a story called
"Hollywood's Brat Pack."
It was originally intended
to be this small feature
on Emilio Estevez.
It took off and became
this whole other thing.
The hottest stars
in the movies today
are officially known
as the Brat Pack.
[The Cure's
"Just Like Heaven"]
? ?
REPORTER: And so we return
to the week's new releases
and St. Elmo's Fire, which
stars a group of young actors
who are fast becoming
known as the Brat Pack.
A card-carrying member
of the Brat Pack.
A cover titled the Brat Pack.
They're the Brat Pack.
What is the Brat Pack?
REPORTER:
Everyone in this group
is a most-likely-to-succeed.
They are ambitious, committed,
and many of them
have real talent.
? ?
ANDREW:
Within days, news outlets
around the country were using
the term "Brat Pack."
There's a big article
in New York Magazine...
Yes.
About something
called the Brat Pack.
Right, right, and I heard
that you wanted to join.
- I'd like to be in this group.
- Yeah, right.
ROBERT:
? Show me, show me, show me ?
? How you do that trick ?
? The one that makes
me scream, she said ?
? The one that makes
me laugh, she said ?
Is this the future--
what is--
are these the Brandos?
- Well, talk to Brando.
You would replace
Katharine Hepburn tomorrow.
? I promise that
I'll run away with you ?
? I'll run away with you ?
? ?
I just remember seeing
that cover and thinking,
"oh, f*ck."
I just thought
that was terrible instantly.
And it turns out,
uh, I was right.
[laughs]
It was--
the article was scathing
about all these young actors.
And the phrase,
being such a clever,
witty phrase, you know,
it caught the zeitgeist
instantly and burned deep,
and that was it.
From then on, my career
and the career
of several other people
was branded without
any wiggle room
as the Brat Pack.
I'm really sorry
that article had to come out.
You know, it was just when,
you know,
kids, young, you know, adults
were beginning
to find their place,
you know, in this business.
INTERVIEWER:
It's a clever line,
"Brat Pack."
- Yeah.
INTERVIEWER:
But what does it mean, really?
You know what?
It-- it was a term
created by the media.
It was a nice, generic term.
You know, you don't say
a "Tylenol."
You say an "aspirin."
You don't say a "Rob Lowe."
You say a "Brat".
Do you know what I mean?
That's how it was created.
INTERVIEWER:
Are you offended by it?
Very much so.
ANDREW: I don't really think
it's a valid thing.
I mean, we all don't go
to the same bar every night,
and talk about chicks
and, you know,
throw back a few brews.
I mean, I don't think
it exists per se.
They thought
I was their friend.
Well, you know,
the honest truth is,
you know, we're not friends,
and I never said that we were.
I'm sorry he didn't realize
that or that he was operating
under a different set
of ideas about
what the relationship between
a journalist and a subject is.
It doesn't apply.
It never did.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah?
And it was just
some writer's
silly imagination or label
that he could sort of stamp
on this young group of actors
that he didn't have
any other explanation for.
The name alone--
the term alone always brings up
this defensive quality.
And so--
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever feel
a part of the Brat Pack
that you're
so closely associated--
No, I felt a part
of a group of young actors
that worked continually
with each other.
The Brat Pack is an image
that somebody thought up
who doesn't know
anything about us.
That I can't
trust anyone now.
That's what I learned.
That's what I learned.
[soft dramatic music]
ANDREW: That changed my life.
And that changed everyone
who was involved's life.
Once the Brat Pack thing
happened,
everyone just sort of,
poof, scattered.
Because it was--
it was such a stigma
early on that we didn't want
to be associated with it.
I've never talked to anybody
about what that was like.
It certainly was
a defining thing in my life,
and I imagine
it was in theirs as well.
So I thought it might be
interesting to try and contact
everyone who was in
the Brat Pack
or who might have been
associated with the Brat--
and sort of see what their
experience was at that time
and what it's come to mean
all these years, decades later.
[bright orchestral music]
? ?
I think the first thing
we need to establish
is, like, who is in
the Brat Pack, right?
[laughs]
There's me.
There's Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson,
Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy.
Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald.
It's a moveable feast, I think.
Anyway, so I know
it started with Emilio
because it was
the article about him
that created the whole thing.
So I'm calling Emilio.
[line trilling]
Hey, Emilio Estevez.
This is Andrew McCarthy
calling you.
That was nice,
to just hear your voice there.
I hope you're well.
Long time.
Give me a call
if you get a chance.
I'd love to talk to you
about something.
I think I'll call Ally,
but it could be 30 years
since I've seen Ally.
I got her number
from a friend of mine.
Let's call her up.
[line trilling]
Hey, Ally.
This is Andrew McCarthy
calling you.
Hey, Molly.
Nice to hear your voice.
Andrew McCarthy calling you up.
How are you?
It's so strange to hear
people's voices again.
I haven't been able to find
Judd Nelson's phone number.
I don't know anybody
who knows his phone number.
I asked his manager about it.
But we are
Brat Pack brethren and--
[laughs]
[upbeat jazzy music]
? ?
Hey, Demi.
This is Andrew McCarthy
calling.
How are you?
Listen, I'd love to chat
with you about something.
If you get a chance,
give me a call back.
That was Demi.
I left her a message.
Let's call Rob.
[line trilling]
Ugh.
VOICEMAIL: Automated
voice message system.
Hey, Rob.
Andrew McCarthy calling you.
I'd love to chat with you
if you have a chance.
Give me a call.
917--
[phone ringing]
Are you ready to go
on the camera?
CAMERAPERSON:
Uh, yeah, rolling.
Hello.
SPEAKER: Andrew?
- Yep.
SPEAKER: Hi.
- Hey, man.
How are you?
[laughs]
How has your life been
the last 30 years?
[laughs]
[phone ringing]
How are you?
[laughs]
[phone ringing]
So where are you now, Demi?
DEMI: In LA right now,
but I've been going
back and forth between here--
ANDREW: We were such
a select kind of group of--
you know,
this happened to all of us.
And it fell down
on all of us in such a way,
and I've never talked
to anybody about it,
and it affected my life
so massively and--
right?
And so I would just love
to get your perspective.
[phone ringing]
Judd Nelson.
So Rob just
called me back here.
I'm in a hotel in Chicago.
I've just landed here.
SPEAKER: Hey.
Hey, man.
How are you?
[chuckles]
Well, you know, you, Rob,
me, you know, Ally--
whoever is actually in
the Brat Pack.
And I wanted to sort of make
a documentary about it.
Well, that's the whole point
of talking about it,
so we don't get triggered
by these things anymore,
you know?
Oh, my gosh, there's my dog,
who weighs 75 pounds.
[laughter]
Do you think Willow
weighs 75 pounds?
No, the dog, not Willow.
Anyway.
When would you
want to do it?
When would you want to do it?
Oh, don't tell me
any of this now.
Don't tell me now.
I want to get it all on film.
[laughs]
So could I come out to Malibu,
and sit down with you
with a camera
and chat about it?
[Steve Winwood's
"Back in the High Life Again"]
? ?
When I was 22 years old,
I bought my first toy.
I bought a 1967
red Camaro convertible.
Now, here I am, 59 years old.
I'm driving a red
rental Camaro convertible.
What makes you a cool kid at 22
makes you a fool at 59.
[laughs]
STEVE: ? I'll be back
in the high life again ?
? All the doors I closed
one time will open up again ?
? I'll be back in the ?
ANDREW: Heading up to see
Emilio here in Malibu.
I haven't seen Emilio
since maybe the premiere night
of St. Elmo's Fire.
So what's that,
30-odd years ago?
I am Bob, yeah.
ANDREW: Yeah,
I haven't seen him since.
Then you know good.
- I love your stuff, Bob.
- Hey, thank you.
- Take care.
- Hey.
ANDREW: I always felt like
he was sort of
an insider in some club.
And I always felt like
the guy on the outside.
You know?
I lived in New York.
All the other guys lived here.
And Emilio seemed
to know more than anybody,
like, what the deal was.
So it'll be great to see him
and get his take on all this.
Because I know
Emilio hasn't talked much
about the Brat Pack
in all these years.
Hold on, dude.
Take your time.
I missed the grid.
I missed the grid.
What number is that?
I don't know.
Yo!
[laughs]
There's Emilio.
[laughs]
EMILIO: How are you?
I'm so glad to see you.
This is Ed.
This is Emilio.
Emilio.
Nice to see you.
Good morning.
Nice to see you.
Are you good?
Are you rolling?
Yeah.
Have you seen this
in 30-odd years?
I probably have online.
Well, I had seen it online
when I did--
but there's all the artwork
and everything to it,
you know?
And it's interesting.
Have you read it
in the past ever years?
EMILIO: No.
ANDREW: I mean, it's--
EMILIO: Massive feature.
ANDREW: Massive story,
isn't it?
Yep.
ANDREW:
Well, the first question I--
[laughs]
This might end
our conversation right now.
There's just-- no,
there's just so much, Andrew.
First of all--
It's like, what the f*ck
were you thinking?
[laughs]
Well, I wasn't.
And I had had some experience
and had done some press
but nothing to the extent of,
like, a real sort of profile,
which made me uncomfortable.
It was naive of me
to think that this journalist
would, in fact, be my friend.
I think the most upsetting
about it--
because I had already seen
a different path for myself,
and I felt derailed.
Emilio Estevez is the son
of actor Martin Sheen,
but he has made a name
for himself on his own.
Do you have any feeling
as to which direction
your career will take?
EMILIO: The opportunities
are just--
are endless.
Very exciting.
REPORTER: At 23 years old.
EMILIO: Yes.
Ah, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
ASSISTANT: There's also juice
if you need it.
OK, thanks.
ANDREW: I mean, the fallout
in my recollection is
it was immediate and big.
You and I didn't do a movie
because of it.
ANDREW: This is what I thought.
And I thought
we were going to--
And this was Young Men
with Unlimited Capital...
ANDREW: Yes.
Which was one
of the best scripts
I had read in a long time.
- You were gonna do it.
And they wanted me
to do it too,
and then they told me that
you didn't want me to do it,
and I just assumed
at the time--
it hurt my feelings a lot,
but I assumed
it was simply
the Brat Pack fallout.
I didn't want to have
anything to do with any of us.
Do you know what I mean?
- Yeah, yeah.
I just--
I didn't want to do any--
I wouldn't-- if it were Judd,
I would have said
the same thing.
To be seen again
in another film
would ultimately
and could potentially
have a negative impact.
Working together just almost
felt like we were--
we were kryptonite
to each other.
ANDREW: My understanding--
you were not interested
in talking about the Brat Pack
for years and years.
I'm asked to do
retrospectives all the time,
whether it's Repo Man,
or The Outsiders,
or Young g*ns,
or Breakfast Club.
I turn everything down.
There was an opportunity--
ANDREW: How come
you're talking to me?
Because you called me.
Because you asked.
You called me.
And I also thought it was time
that we sort of clear the air
on a couple of things.
And that Young Men
with Unlimited Capital
was something that
I'm glad we were...
ANDREW: Oh, me, too.
- Able to talk through it.
ANDREW: Because I feel chills
right now.
It's like--
you know, it's nice.
You know, one of the reasons
I started to want
to make this movie--
wow, I really--
it's very touching.
You know, it only happened
to a handful of us,
and it really affected my life.
Which is probably why
I don't--
I'm not interested
in revisiting,
which is why I'm not interested
in, you know,
dredging up the past
because I think
if you're too busy looking
in your rearview mirror and
looking at what's behind you,
you're going to stumble
trying to move forward.
ANDREW: But it's
an interesting thing.
Because if you're confronted
on a however often basis
by people going,
"Oh, the Brat Pack movies,
I love St. Elmo's,
I love Breakfast Club,
you're gonna be--
it's not like you can
just sort of put it in the past
and leave it there.
You're gonna be reminded
of it on a weekly,
almost daily basis.
- Daily basis, yeah.
- Right?
We learned to be gracious
and put on a thing.
Of course.
ANDREW: But it's still picking
at whatever it's picking at.
And do people say to you,
"Do you ever see
the old g*ng anymore?"
Well, the assumption is
that we're all still friends.
That's all you would read
about is,
the Brat Pack went here
and did this.
Yeah.
The Brat Pack
ate a sandwich together.
The Brat Pack
went swimming somewhere.
Yeah.
Are you tight with Molly
and the rest of the guys?
Well, you know
what's really strange
is they sort of assumed
that because we work together,
we would hang out together.
I haven't attended
the latest Brat Pack meeting.
So, I mean, I don't know.
You know?
You guys don't get together
all the time
and make fudge and--
- Make fudge?
Sleepover.
Well, we make cookies
and stuff, yeah.
And do you think there will
ever be a big reunion where
they get-- you guys are all
in your 80s or something,
and they get you guys together,
and you--
It could happen.
You never know.
[laughter]
Well, we'll wait.
We'll look forward to that
60 years from now.
That's gonna be good.
ANDREW:
I find it important somehow
to go and try and connect
with people in the now
seems of value,
and I'm not sure why.
Hmm.
If you could have
the Brat Pack name not exist,
would you?
- Hmm.
That's a different--
I think a difficult question
to answer because it's--
you can only know the known.
And was it something
that we benefited from?
Maybe.
But in the long run,
I think we did not.
I think there was--
I think there was more damage
done by it than good.
I perceived it to be
very harmful career-wise.
Because I didn't think--
Martin Scorsese,
Steven Spielberg
is not gonna call up somebody
who is in the Brat Pack,
you know?
[laughs]
- You're not wrong.
No, you're not wrong.
And it-- I think
it created a perception
that we were lightweights,
that we didn't
take it seriously.
Well, that's what
that article was about.
Yeah.
And what's--
it's just a name. Who cares?
It's just-- what's it matter?
But it did matter,
and it did affect how
I was perceived in the business
certainly, how I was perceived
in the world when people would
stop me on the street,
and how I perceived
myself for many years.
- Oh, yeah.
ANDREW: And to reposition that
or rewrite that history
in some way to turn it
into an asset as opposed
to something that's just
still dragging around, to me,
is a-- you know,
before my dad died,
I went to him.
We did not get along
for my adult life.
Right.
ANDREW: And I went to him
as he was dying.
And I can't say
we cleaned up our past,
but we just put it down,
and there was something
that was so meaningful to me
about just--
I'm here with you,
you're dying.
He's my dad, and I loved him.
So to get back to that
was a beautiful thing,
and I'm not saying
this is on that scale at all,
but it still-- it is something.
It doesn't have any power
anymore except what we give it.
What we give it, yeah.
ANDREW: You know?
Yeah. Yeah,
like any of our demons, right?
ANDREW: Like anything, right?
And so-- and why
should that be a demon?
And I know anything else
about emotional things,
the more we just sort of
push them aside,
they're not going any--
they're still there.
They're still-- you're
still gonna react to them.
I don't want to be
reacting to it anymore.
You know what I mean?
- Right.
And so to see you,
for me, is a beautiful thing.
I just want to go, "Ah."
You know?
I always thought
we'd be friends forever.
Yeah, well, forever got a lot
shorter suddenly, didn't it?
[bright orchestral music]
? ?
ANDREW: Will you look
through that camera
and see if my head's
chopped off
between those two lines?
ALLY: It's a little--
the white line is going right
across the top of your hair.
- OK, all right.
I got it.
Have a seat back down.
ALLY: You need to just--
it's, like, a smidgen.
ANDREW: I got it.
ALLY: What is that?
Oh, that's a two shot?
What is that?
ANDREW: That's my iPhone.
- I know.
But what are you filming on it?
- You and your couch.
- Oh, it's another angle.
- It's another angle.
Oh, OK.
ANDREW: I have a memory.
You drove me home
from I don't know where.
I seem to think it was
a rehearsal of the movie
when we were doing
St. Elmo's Fire,
when we rehearsed for those
few days on that soundstage.
But you were just driving me
home to my hotel,
and I was staying at, like,
the Sunset Marquis, I think.
ALLY: Yes, yes.
And it's one of the happiest
memories of my life.
- Really?
- There was something about it.
We were-- there was no reason.
Nothing happened.
We were just being friendly,
and laughing, and just driving,
and you were driving me home.
And-- but there was something
about being young
and life was just happening.
ALLY: Yeah.
It was thrilling.
And the top was down
on your Jeep.
And it was like a scene out
of St. Elmo's Fire, frankly.
And it was just so--
all these years,
it's stayed with me.
It's this wondrous experience
of youth and the moment.
And I was aware in the moment
of how happy I was,
and that hasn't always been
my experience with life.
Yeah, that was when
I had that thought,
wow, I really actually--
I finally belong somewhere,
and I have friends.
What do you think about our
relationship as an outsider?
I want you to be honest.
Really.
KEVIN:
You want me to be honest?
I think I hang around
you guys so much
personally because, well,
you're all I think about.
Me?
And I am desperately,
completely in love with you.
[laughs]
[soft dramatic music]
Ooh.
I had a crush on you
back in the day.
You did not, Andrew.
No, you did not. No.
I was so scared that
I was busy being so aloof.
- Yes, you were aloof.
- Yeah.
You were aloof.
ANDREW: You said something
to me on the phone,
that The Breakfast Club was
a gift that keeps on giving.
Can you talk about that?
The Breakfast Club is
the gift that keeps on giving.
ANDREW: What does that mean?
- It's just--
I was really, really happy
that entire experience.
I can write with my toes.
I can also eat,
brush my teeth--
With your feet?
There's a lot of me
in Allison.
The feelings,
and the fears and things
that she's going through, I--
I know that they were coming
right straight from me.
So in high school,
I did not have
many close friends.
I didn't fit in.
I was really lonely.
I couldn't wait
to get out of New York,
and just go to California,
and get my acting career
happening.
That was the plan.
So when Allison came along
in The Breakfast Club,
I felt like, ah, that's it.
This-- and I wanted to--
and John Hughes
was great about this.
I wanted her to look
on the outside the way
I always felt on the inside
during high school.
So he let me do that.
Go away.
- Where do you want me to go?
- Go away.
It still astonishes me
how many people
found themselves in that film,
are moved by that film,
enjoyed the film,
remember that film fondly.
And yes, it is really tied up
in their
high school experience.
It's become a rite
of passage for teenagers
to see these movies.
It's become an adolescent rite.
You read Catcher in the Rye.
You watch The Breakfast Club.
ALLY: Right.
You know what I mean?
And that's just
kind of amazing.
I mean, that was before--
right before,
I think, the article came out.
And then, of course,
the article just changes...
ALLY: Right.
Everything.
ALLY: Right.
Yeah.
And then all that stopped
in a sense, in a very real way.
Right?
- Yeah. It all stopped.
And it-- we kept working.
Everybody kept working,
but there was this feeling of--
it was just sort of like
being shell-shocked.
These young people were
all doing the same thing
at the same time,
and it's thrilling,
and it's exciting,
and wow.
And then--
What do we do now, you know?
Now what?
I started feeling the kind of
weird vibe in the room
if I went in to meet somebody
or audition for something--
just a weirdness.
Oh, yeah.
I felt that.
We worry that
you're gonna be spoiled.
We worry that you're
getting too much too soon.
And now, you know,
the circle turned around.
And now, everybody has to--
I don't know-- pay the price,
pay the piper or something.
You know?
- I do.
I very much felt like that.
And I felt there was a certain
glee in that the wheel turned,
and you're now under.
- OK, glee.
There was a glee feeling.
Yeah.
There was--
I mean, that's not
the word I would have used,
but that that strikes me--
yeah, schadenfreude.
Schadenfreude.
Yeah, I'd say that too.
- It was trite--
something very trite
about the Brat Pack.
It felt like
it was just like,
let's just write off
everybody's lives
and their experiences
and their work.
Let's just-- you know,
it's just getting
all sort of written off.
It felt 100% like that.
I, in 35 years,
have never talked
to anybody about it.
So to hear you articulate
exactly what my experience was,
exactly what I know
Emilio was experiencing,
you know--
exactly the same.
And so to like--
ALLY: Yeah.
Yeah.
ALLY: Yeah.
When you grow up,
your heart dies.
Who cares?
I care.
When that article came out,
I recall being
really taken aback by it.
Because there had been
so much excitement
about all of the young actors
that were showing up.
Because there was
this startling group of
really talented young people,
and that was the first time
that it felt like
that had curdled,
that people were going,
"You know what? They need
to be knocked down a peg."
And I also felt a little weird
because there was
some sort of effort because
Pretty in Pink came out to--
it was like,
you have to decide.
Are you part of that or not?
Blane?
His name is Blane?
Oh, that's a major appliance.
That's not a name.
Just because
I'm going out with Blane
doesn't mean I can't
be friends with you.
Writers are addicted
to narrative.
Brat Pack allowed a new
narrative to take shape.
You know, these kids have
the world on a string
because they've got this
enormous amount of talent
at a time when the industry
is really ready
to tell great stories
about teenagers,
and let's f*ck
with that a little.
It felt like water
had been thrown on all of you,
and you had to walk into a room
more apologetically
for having been part
of that dynamic.
You guys were it.
You would have walked in
with a different swagger
before that article.
And then they were free
to have their kind of judgment.
The resentment could then morph
into, see, we knew.
We know what you guys are.
Which you guys
weren't at all.
You were young,
vulnerable, excited,
proud-of-your-work actors
who literally got the rug
taken out from underneath them.
It was condescending.
And I don't think
anybody had thought
of all you wonderful actors
in that way
until he coined that phrase.
And I could see you
walking around with a lot of--
not specifically you,
but I can see a person
walking around with a lot
of resentment from that.
I was, you know, mad for you
about that reductive wording.
I thought it was rude.
I was very protective.
[bright orchestral music]
All right,
we are Upstate New York here,
far from the madding crowd.
[laughs]
And we're hunting down
Malcolm Gladwell,
who I am hoping can give me
some insight into
how the Brat Pack label
caught fire like it did,
and caught the zeitgeist,
and took hold.
I mean, this is right up
his area of expertise,
this kind of social science,
and I'm hoping he can
illuminate this for me.
MALCOLM: But the Brat Pack
is signifying
that a generational transition
is happening in Hollywood,
and we're gonna call it this.
The explicit reference to the--
the pun on the Rat Pack
is obviously huge.
So it's no longer a term.
It's a metaphor, right?
Whenever a term makes that
journey to metaphor status,
it has a chance
to kind of endure.
And, you know, it's also funny.
The Rat Pack and the
Brat Pack in sensibility
are polar opposites, right?
One is anxious,
and immature, and trying
really, really, really hard
to figure out
their place in the world,
and the other group
doesn't give a f*ck,
But that's sort of part
of why it's funny, right?
It's--
- We didn't find it funny.
No, I can imagine.
It was funny for--
not funny.
Not "ha ha" funny,
but funny in the way
that sticks in your mind.
Phrases endure when
they have a kind of cleverness,
like it's quoting
"Rat Pack," and when
they have some truth to them.
This has truth.
It is.
If it was just--
if you were doing it about,
like,
three rando actors today
who were in some indie movie,
it wouldn't work
because it's not true
that there's
a generational transition
going on in Hollywood,
but there was then, right?
There was a big
transition happening.
ANDREW: Yeah.
I mean, it is when
youth movies took over.
At the time,
I was tremendously invested
in the pop culture
that was aimed at me.
ANDREW:
That's how we communicate,
and how we identify,
and how people talk
to each other
when we're in our 20s
is through that, really.
It's the easiest, quickest
shorthand to communication,
isn't it?
- Yeah.
Oh, did you see that, dude?
You know.
Well, and possible then
in a way it's not possible now.
So nothing like that
can happen anymore.
You can't have a cultural
touchstone that everyone
in their 20s can refer to.
If you gathered
100 17-year-olds at random
in America in 1986,
90 would have seen
or at least be conversant
about Pretty in Pink.
No question.
They wouldn't even have had
to see it to be able
to hold a conversation
about it.
Right.
There is absolutely
no cultural phenomenon
at the present time
of which that can be said--
impossible.
- Why?
Well, because things
have been fractured.
We've gone from a relatively
unified youth culture
to a youth culture that
looks like every other aspect
of American society,
which is everything's
all over the place.
There's no common denominator.
I was 13 the first time
I saw Breakfast Club on VHS,
and I remember watching it.
It was this--
around eighth grade--
and thinking
I had never seen anything
that was so like my life.
You know, movies were
about grown-up things,
either serious
grown-up things
or silly, funny
grown-up things.
I couldn't believe that
here was The Breakfast Club.
Here was a movie
about the exact things
that I was concerned with
at that moment in my life.
This was pre-Facebook,
pre having a sense
of kind of what
everyone around the country
was feeling until
I literally got to college
and met kids my age from
all over the place
who knew and loved
all of these movies.
IRA:
That was before social media.
If you were a teenager
living anywhere in the world,
and you're watching
The Breakfast Club,
you're watching Pretty in Pink,
you are imagining a world
that you're not a part of.
For a teenager now,
they can see that world
by opening up their phone.
This was this moment where
it seemed so surprising
to have a movie
like The Breakfast Club,
which is really just
basically a therapy jam
for about
an hour and a half,
if you really want
to break it down.
It was just so powerful.
I mean,
we're all pretty bizarre.
Some of us are just better
at hiding it.
That's all.
BRET: I think ensembles
had something to do with it.
A group study is always
very enticing to audiences.
And a group study
of these people
in this particular moment
in 1985
was kind of like catnip.
These are considered
the golden age
of youth cinema, these movies.
I mean, The Breakfast Club is
in the Criterion Collection.
BRET: I remember seeing it
the first weekend
it came out, really not
knowing what to expect,
and I was very affected by it.
I was very affected
by how seriously
they took these kids.
I was very moved
by their ultimate plights.
Growing up in the '80s,
it felt very aspirational.
And yet,
most of those movies also
felt very realistic
in that they took
young people's
lives seriously.
SUSANNAH: We used these films
as kind of a prism
through which
to look at our lives.
We would talk about
people in our lives
in terms of the characters
from the movies.
You know, he's such a Blane,
he's such a Duckie,
he's such a Bender,
whatever it was.
Still to this day,
people would come up to me
and go, "I was team Duckie."
- I was team Duckie.
- You were, really?
- Of course.
What do you mean "of course"?
My idealized sense
of what my role was
in my high school was Duckie.
I wasn't actually that,
but that's
what I would have liked to be.
And I'm gonna use that
to build my own identity.
So when I'm watching
the Duck Man,
there are things in him
that I would like to acquire.
So when you look back
20 years later,
you do see yourself
in the movie.
Yeah.
But you've forgotten
that you acquired--
- You took it from there.
- You took it from the movie.
IRA: I connected
to Molly Ringwald a lot.
I connected to characters
like her's that sort of felt
like they weren't being
listened to by adults,
didn't feel like they fit in.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had
any of those insecure feelings?
All the time.
All the time.
I'm always doubting myself,
which is OK.
I mean, I have a certain amount
of confidence,
but I also have--
it kind of balances out
with all my insecurities.
There was this feeling that
there were these young people
who were in different kinds
of movies exploring
what it means to be young.
And it's just so powerful
to see my own feelings,
my inchoate feelings about
what it means to be young
and a teenager
and having my own troubles
and seeing it reflected
in the screen.
That was extremely powerful.
When these movies came out,
the parents were
really pushed to the back.
We were seeing friendship
being treated in the same
kind of heady, exciting,
sweeping, cinematic way
that normally had just been
reserved for romantic love.
Everybody,
but especially young people,
so want to connect
and so want that group
of close, tight-knit friends.
And to see on screen something
that represents that dream,
it's such a powerful feeling.
This was when malls
were becoming huge.
Malls are a very natural place
for teenagers to go.
And they'd see movies
with their friends
over, and over,
and over again.
BRET: The effort that we put
getting a ticket for a show
that starts two hours later,
and you got to get
into the line because
there's no advanced seating.
You were investing
in something.
It wasn't just
flipping on Spotify
or watching a movie
over four nights on Netflix.
That moment--
as a young person,
you're like this sponge
taking in everything
and reacting to everything.
And you're so much
more interested
and invested in a way
that you're not at 42.
LEA: I think we were in a very
unique period in history.
And I boil it down to this.
It was the first time
you could hold a movie,
and you could buy it,
and you could put it
in your thing
and play it
over and over again,
and it was
a very small part of time.
Our first television set.
Dad just picked it up today.
Do you have a television?
Well, yeah.
You know, we have two of them.
Wow.
You must be rich.
Oh, honey, he's teasing you.
Nobody has two television sets.
[laughs]
ANDREW: Yeah, we were
the first generation
where that was happening.
- Yeah.
ANDREW: And who was renting
movies but young people?
And what movies were they
watching but those movies?
And they could watch us
in their basement.
Over and over.
And it's not like that now.
Nobody owns movies.
No--
you know, it was the same thing
with albums and album covers.
You could look at the album,
and you could look
at the cover,
and you could put it in,
and you could play it.
It meant something more.
It was physical.
[static hums]
[John Parr's "St. Elmo's
Fire (Man In Motion)"
[cheers and applause]
Do you guys know this song?
Or you're all too young
for this song?
JOHN: ? Growin' up ?
? You don't see
the writing on the wall ?
ANDREW:
The music video,
we had to all
go be a part of it.
It was like, oh, my God,
this is so
of that instant in time.
And so it really does
bring back
such specific memories
to me of, like--
? I can hear
the music playing ?
? I can see the banners fly ?
? Feel like you're back again ?
? And hope riding high ?
? Gonna be your man in motion ?
? All I need is
these pair of wheels ?
? Take me where
my future's lying ?
? St. Elmo's fire ?
? I can see a new horizon ?
MICHAEL: Something that unites
a lot of those movies
that people
don't always talk about
is how much
the soundtrack mattered.
Yeah.
And you think about
St. Elmo's Fire.
And it wasn't just
the John Parr song.
It was also, like,
the "Love Theme" instrumental
was a hit song.
[David Foster's "Love Theme
from St. Elmo's Fire "]
? ?
Like, that literally charted.
And with Pretty in Pink,
you're always going to think--
if you think of Pretty in Pink,
the song playing is going
to be OMD, "If You Leave".
[Orchestral Manoeuvres in
the Dark's "If You Leave"]
SINGER: ? Oh, if you leave ?
SUSANNAH: These movies changed
the kind of music
that American teenagers
were listening to.
The idea of, you know,
random Midwestern teenagers
knowing every word
and loving, you know,
new wave British synth pop,
that's because of these movies.
- Hmm.
SUSANNAH: It's true.
That's because, basically,
John Hughes loved these artists
and put those--
those songs in his films.
I like doing it.
I like working
with young actors.
I like to use music a lot.
And it's
a very receptive audience.
Hughes just allows himself
to remember,
and to think,
and to feel about those times.
EMILIO: I liked the fact that
he was very collaborative.
It was like he's-- he
invited you into the process.
"What do you think?"
I've never had a director
say "what do you think?"
ALLY: I mean,
to have a director there
who just trusts you--
go ahead, improv till the--
till you hear the sound
of the film, like,
slapping around
in the canister.
And it's just sort of--
we ran out of film, reel film.
He's got a lot of different
levels to him and things.
He's very enthusiastic
about the work,
and he's got
a really creative,
quick mind,
which I really like.
MOLLY: I admire John
because he is a writer,
and yet, he's not really
overprotective about his work,
you know?
He's real good
about letting people
come in and kind of
form their own character.
JOHN: I think one of the
mistakes that's commonly made
in Hollywood teenage pictures
is that it's just--
they're going for the bucks,
and they're not going
for the heart.
And, you know, I try to make
a movie that's gonna last.
KATE: I mean,
I still think that John
is the ultimate
teenage drama filmmaker.
When he was making
these films,
he was tapping into his own
adolescent emotions and angst.
And John, I think,
remembered what it felt like,
for better and for worse.
The glaring thing when
we look back
on Brat Pack movies now--
with our perspective now--
is that John Hughes
doesn't deal at all with race.
I mean, the history of media,
and Hollywood,
and films has been
white characters for...
- Ever.
- Forever, you know?
And so when you aren't white,
and you're consuming media,
you are sort of used
to the media being white.
You know, and you sort of
build up the ability
to, you know, empathize
with and connect with--
you know, I think
it's never really
been a problem
for non-white people
to watch, like,
a Pretty in Pink
or a Breakfast Club
and sort of connect
with those characters
because we are--
you're used to consuming it.
Even now, when there's
a lot of diverse options,
the majority of the media
is still sort of white-leaning,
you know, despite people
protesting that it's not.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off,
he's a kid from
the northern suburbs
of Chicago.
If you watch it
and you're like,
oh, he's reflecting the way
the world was in the '80s--
you know,
the Brown decision is '54,
which is the legal end
of educational segregation
in this country,
but the country
just resegregated after that
just along kind of
residential lines.
So it's like, the reality
of being a suburban,
upper-middle-class suburban kid
from outside Chicago
in the 1980s
is that there were--
there was, like,
one Black kid in your class.
That's the reality
of it in that era.
So, like, I don't know.
We can watch those movies and
just be reminded that's what--
that's what America was.
MICHAEL: But I think
that what John Hughes
was interested in
in a real way was class.
I want to show this girl that
I'm as good as anybody else.
CLIFF: So what, are you gonna
impress her with money?
You think
that's the solution, Keith?
Dad, didn't you ever
have guys at your school
that didn't fit in?
CLIFF: Yeah, of course.
- Yeah?
[chuckles]
Well, I'm one of those guys.
[orchestral music]
? ?
ANDREW: When I first heard
the term "Brat Pack,"
my memory is being
in your office, which was--
my memory is also,
you were just across the hall
from John Hughes there.
- Yeah.
ANDREW: And you're
the first person I remember
saying, "They're calling
you guys the Brat Pack."
And you seemed to think that,
like, that's cool.
Yeah, it was a good thing.
It distinguished us.
It took us out
of a whole year of movies.
It put us in the forefront.
I mean, you have to realize
when people saw
St. Elmo's--
young people--
they wanted to be part
of the St. Elmo's Brat Pack.
[both grunting]
[together]
Boogah, boogah, boogah.
Ah, ah, ah!
[laughter]
LAUREN:
Here's what I understood.
I understood that the guy
who wrote it, in all deference,
was jealous of Emilio
and all of you guys.
He termed "Brat Pack"
as a bad term,
and I thought it was fabulous.
I thought it was--
aren't these guys lucky,
and aren't they talented?
They made their luck.
If we had perceived
it that way,
all our careers and lives
would have been different.
[laughter]
I think we perceived it as
you're spoiled f*cking brats.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
- Are you in the Brat Pack?
- I'm Brat Pack-adjacent.
- That's what I would say.
- [laughs]
I'd say you're
Brat Pack-adjacent. Exactly.
And did you want
to be in the Brat Pack?
LEA: I did.
I did.
And I was like, "Aw,
I would have liked to have
hung out with you guys."
- But we never hung out.
- I know.
It was an illusion,
like all of Hollywood.
Well, they're the cool kids.
They're the people
you want to hang out with.
And I think it just, like,
continues the fantasy.
You wouldn't want that
to end when the movie is over.
You don't want everyone to,
like, go back to their trailer
and not talk to each other.
You want them all to be young,
and cool, and fun
on screen and off screen.
JON: You know,
everybody always wants
to be part of the cool group.
You know, there was always
a part of me
like, "Yeah, whatever."
They're-- you know,
"They're not so great anyway."
Oh, the Brat Pack.
I-- I think people just
want to put people in groups.
I don't-- the only--
I don't--
I mean, of the Brat Pack,
I don't really--
I certainly don't think
I'm a part of it.
I mean--
[laughs].
I hope not.
So have you spoken to Molly?
ANDREW: I, of course,
asked Molly
if she'd like to speak,
and she said
she'd think about it
but that she would probably
just like
to just keep looking forward.
And so--
Interesting.
I think Molly, you know,
wants to move on, wants--
we all want to be taken
without the baggage
of our pop cultural
references as an actor.
We want to just act.
Does it make it
difficult for you
to work with that group
of actors because
of the publicity attendant?
I think that the most
reprehensible thing
about it all is that
it portrays us
as not being serious
about our work.
Regardless of how our
personal life may be portrayed
by those people who aren't
in our personal lives,
our professional life should
be painted in the true picture.
It should not
cost us professionally
because of a point of view
that's outside of it.
[Lou Reed's
"Ride Into the Sun"]
? ?
LOU: ? Looking for
another chance ?
? For someone else to be ?
? ?
? Looking for another place ?
? To ride into the sun ?
ANDREW: When we first
started this,
I thought, you know,
the biggest problem
with this is going to be
getting everyone to say yes
because I know there's still
such post-traumatic stress
associated with it for
some of the g*ng, you know?
And our past lives on in us.
As much as we try
and leave things in the past,
they don't get left there,
you know?
It's like that
Eugene O'Neill line.
"The past is the present.
It's the future too"
LOU: ? Ride into the sun ?
? Where everything
seems so pretty ?
? But if you're tired
and you're ?
ANDREW: So we're out here
in the sticks
to track down Tim Hutton.
I met Tim in the early '80s
before the Brat Pack of it all.
He was in
Ordinary People in 1980,
won the Academy Award--
deservedly so.
He was spectacular
in that movie.
And you could argue that
the origins of the youth film
started right there.
Obviously, Ordinary People
was not a youth--
or a teen movie in any way,
but he was a teen.
And it took young people,
his character in that movie,
very seriously.
Oh, I think that was it.
I think I just passed it.
So, yeah,
it'll be great to see Tim.
I haven't seen him in forever.
And I'll get
his take on all this.
Because he was certainly
in the heart of it,
in the center of it back then,
yet somehow evaded
the Brat Pack label.
Hey.
[laughs]
I'm wandering up
to some random house
hoping not to get shot.
[laughs]
TIM: Welcome.
ANDREW: Hello, Tim.
TIM: How are you, man?
Good to see you.
ANDREW: Nice to see you.
TIM: Yeah.
ANDREW: Hi.
Thanks.
TIM: Yeah, absolutely.
ANDREW: You look great.
TIM: I got bees.
Those are-- that's--
ANDREW: Are you beekeeper?
Yeah, 60,000 bees.
ANDREW: Jesus, dude.
TIM: Yeah.
ANDREW: Look at you.
I see you now.
I still feel like, in a way,
your showbiz younger brother.
Because you were one
of the first people I met.
You seemed to take me
under your wing.
And like, you were living
in upper west--
what street?
Do you remember what street
you lived on in that--
- 82nd.
OK, you were living
in that place,
and we used to go down
to Arthur's restaurant,
the pizza place--
- Arturo's.
- Arturo's.
- Yeah.
Yeah. And anyway,
and then we did that show,
the Steven Spielberg--
TIM: Amazing Stories.
ANDREW: Amazing Stories.
TIM: Yeah.
ANDREW: I so looked up to you
and admired you
because, you know, if Lou Reed
was the godfather of punk,
you're like the godfather
of the Brat Pack...
[laughs]
ANDDREW: In a certain way.
You know what I mean?
Because we did--
we all stood on your shoulders.
During that time,
there was a lot
of really interesting scripts
by interesting filmmakers.
It mostly featured
young people
in their 20s during that time.
ANDREW: Yeah, it was an
amazing time to be that age,
and we were there, you know,
at the center of it.
Do you remember where you were
the first time
you heard the term "Brat Pack?"
What do you remember
of that time?
I just thought, you know,
that it was honestly
kind of a cheap--
both of those words,
"brat" and "pack"--
I felt like I was just
starting my life and my career.
Are you getting offered
the kind of parts you want?
Or do the people
who make these things up
view you in a certain way
that's limiting?
ANDREW: [laughs]
I think you get in a rut--
not a rut necessarily,
but people see you in one way,
and they like to keep
seeing you that way
because it's--
you know, people like
to use as little imagination,
really, as possible
all the time.
I guess I asked
that because I--
ANDREW: All we ever want
in life is to be seen, right?
See me.
- Right.
ANDREW: Hear what I have to say
and see me.
And I felt suddenly--
[claps]
like that happened,
where it felt like--
experienced like a slap
and then a redirection
that I didn't turn.
I suddenly felt like
I wasn't being seen.
It was making a comment on,
you know,
in a really cynical way,
young actors and young people
with tremendous success...
- Yeah.
Based on nothing.
It was just sort of like,
I've decided this.
[chuckles]
And then so suddenly,
one learns protectiveness.
And that's--
if you're an actor,
being protective and shut off
and closed in
is the last thing
one can afford to be
if you're gonna work properly.
TIM: Yeah.
Have you talked to the others
about that?
"The others."
Like, again, it feels like
a cult or something.
ANDREW: Well, that's
interesting, right?
I don't know them, and yet,
I know them because
they experienced this thing
and it has been
dragging around with them
for 30-odd years.
- Branded.
ANDREW: Branded.
We share a brand.
Well, I just didn't know how
to address it or deal with it,
you know?
TIM: Yeah.
So I just tried to run
and whatever.
And then 35 years later,
I guess I sort of
stopped running,
and turned around,
and go, "Oh,
so you're still there? OK.
Let's-- let's look at you."
[laughs]
You know what I mean?
- Yeah, yeah.
I'm surprised because
I'm not a sentimental person.
I'm not a nostalgic person.
And yet,
I'm finding it deeply moving.
Like, I see you, and I'm like,
"Wow, there's Tim."
[Alphaville's "Forever Young"]
? ?
I came out here to LA
this weekend
to try and talk
to some of the g*ng,
and they've proven
to be a bit elusive.
Judd is at some undisclosed
location and not available.
And Rob, suddenly,
was in Orlando.
When I told my wife
I was gonna make a movie about
talking to the Brat Pack,
she said that it would probably
be very good for my humility.
And now, I understand
what she's talking about.
? ?
I'm not sure I like it.
MARIAN:
? Sitting in a sandpit ?
? Life is a short trip ?
? The music's
for the sad men ?
ANDREW: Ah, good.
We're late.
[laughs]
What a sh*t show, huh?
There you are.
I hope the vicious dogs
don't attack us.
MARIAN:
? Getting in tune ?
? The music's played by the ?
? The madman ?
? Forever young ?
? I want to be forever young ?
? Do you really want
to live forever? ?
? Forever and ever ?
DEMI: Good to see you.
ANDREW: Yeah, how are you?
DEMI: Good. Welcome.
MARIAN: ? I want to be
forever young ?
DEMI: Do you want to sit here?
ANDREW: Maybe so.
Are you guys good?
- I'm playing with my hair.
I don't want my ears
sticking out like an elf.
Slippers good?
[laughs]
ANDREW: The slippers are good.
I remember the first time
I saw you.
You walked into--
we were on the sound stage
at Columbia there
for St. Elmo's Fire.
And my memory is you came--
Joel kind of
brought you in
and presented you
to the room as this--
this creature
that he's created.
And it's like--
and it was just so weird.
And I just remember going,
"Oh, why is Joel
treating her like that?"
[laughs]
You know, it was--
DEMI: But you know what was
so beautiful is he really
stuck his neck out for me
'cause it's not like
I had any box office draw.
I-- we were all just beginning.
I didn't-- I didn't have
anything to really
warrant him sticking by me.
They paid to have a companion,
a sober companion with me 24/7
during the whole sh**ting.
ANDREW: Did they?
Yeah.
ANDREW: I didn't even notice.
I didn't even notice.
- And I literally was--
like, they could have easily
just found someone else.
Going to treatment,
they were like,
"We want you to check in.
I'm like, "No, no,
I'm starting a movie."
And they said, "Yes, but
what's more important to you,
the movie or your life?"
And I said, "The movie."
ANDREW: The movie.
[laughter]
Come on.
Come on.
What they talking about?
I mean, for me, like, I didn't
have any value for myself.
I think I was so fearful
of failing, fearful of losing,
and desperate to kind of
fit in, belong.
And my need to please
was definitely on high alert.
I think that's been
the nice thing
with Joel's casting.
He's been real insightful in--
in placing us.
Because it's--
we're all playing extensions
of ourselves that are real--
are real, you know, inward.
Inward places that we've
probably not yet looked at.
ANDREW: Do you remember where
you were the first time
you heard the term "Brat Pack"?
I remember it coming out
and being like, what the f*ck?
[laughs]
Why did we take it
as an offense?
That's the thing.
Why did we take it as
something bad as opposed to--
Well, because
you're called a "brat."
You're called a f*cking "brat."
[laughs]
DEMI: I know,
and it's because we were young
that we thought,
"Oh, if we're--"
And we were afraid
we were brats, you know?
DEMI: It definitely
really irritated me.
I felt like a sense of it
being unjust.
I just think it--
I just felt like it
didn't represent us,
and I felt like it was
a real limited perspective.
It stayed with me
for a while, you know,
just as I did press things.
You know, "The Brat Pack,"
blah, blah--
you know?
ANDREW: Yeah.
But I don't know if I took it
as personal over time
maybe than as you did--
or even the impact
that you may have had from it.
I'm still wrangling
with that notion
of, like, I allowed that--
even though I said it didn't.
But it was like there was
a belief that you were
holding underneath that
you made that mean something
about you that
then created a limitation
in your expression,
and that's-- you know, and in--
ANDREW: Say that again.
That's exactly right.
[laughter]
No, but that's exactly right.
Fear was such a dominant part
of my life when I was a kid.
And it's still something
I contend with
on a daily basis, right?
So-- and my fear--
I always felt like
I was being stabbed
right between
my shoulder blades
by some unknown kind of thing.
And that's what I felt like
when I first heard
the term "Brat Pack."
I have a similar one in--
in an old pattern.
And mine was the rug being
pulled out from under me.
Yeah, Jules, why do I feel
like I'm not here by accident?
I have been needing
to talk to you.
[laughs]
It sounds like
one of our infamous
conversations is coming.
I look at everything as
happening for us, not to us.
And you can't be selective
with that.
The fact that that came out
and it tried to diminish us
was also an opportunity
to rise above it, to say,
"No, I am much more than that.
"I am not, you know,
for whatever reason,
the offensive part of being
kind of seen as a 'brat.'"
ANDREW: For me,
that's years in the process
to come to that kind of thing.
That's really just wise.
You know?
That took me years to--
because all I felt is it was
negative for so long, and--
But I think that that is a
common part of our conditioning
is to see these things
that have been, in a sense,
what we hold as against-ness.
It was like
an against-ness to us.
It was a-- it was.
It was a--
ANDREW: Ooh, I like that--
an "against-ness."
DEMI: It was.
- Yeah, it was.
But against-ness
only provokes against-ness.
And so when we hold things
that way, we create...
- Totally.
- That pattern.
Like, that idea of being
stabbed in the back
is something you related to
as something much earlier
in your life.
ANDREW: Yeah.
So I'm predisposed
to interpret it that way.
Not only that,
you're predisposed
to recreating it until you
hit a point where you're...
Well, yeah.
You don't want
to do that anymore.
You go to enough therapy,
and you kind of go--
And here you are.
You're working through this
just with that same purpose.
And now here we are, Doctor.
Dr. Demi, listen.
[laughter]
There's the brink
of insanity,
and then there is the abyss...
- Kev, there's nothing to be...
- Which obviously...
- Ashamed of.
- You've fallen into.
I had ambition.
And yet part of me--
I have one hand
that really wants something,
and to this day,
I have one hand
that really wants something,
and on the other hand,
I just want to go,
"I just want to get
the f*ck out of here."
I'm so similar in that way.
The other kind of story
I had is, like,
wanting to hide
and make myself small.
I think when
my life started to become
more important than my career,
I started to see--
to step back and have
the perspective
on the Brat Pack that it
allowed me to do
what we're talking about now,
to see it as
a as a good thing
as opposed to--
Right.
When I stopped
pressing so hard,
I think that shift,
which comes with age
and/or failure.
[laughs]
The event is the event.
What we make it mean
is the value
that it all of a sudden has.
Does that--
ANDREW: Yeah, I gave it
so much power.
You gave it so--
exactly.
When you really
look at that now,
we thought we were like so--
And, of course, we thought
we were like-- yeah.
So grown up.
But we were babies.
What?
[laughter]
REPORTER: OK.
- Andrew.
[laughter]
I mean...
[soft dramatic music]
? ?
ANDREW: Things that happen
to us when we're young,
they're really intense,
and they go deep.
You know, had the same thing,
the Brat Pack--
if the Brat Pack happened
when we were 40,
we would have gone like,
"Whatever, dude."
You know, because you're young,
you just take it so personally
because you're not sure
of yourself yet, and so I think
that article tapped into
doubts and fears
that we had about ourselves.
My God, are we maybe
really undeserving of this?
Are we this or that, you know?
If it didn't touch something--
you know, it's that old saying,
"If it gets you, you got it."
If it didn't touch some fear
that we had
harbored about ourselves,
it wouldn't have mattered,
you know?
Was it touching truth?
It was touching fear,
and fear is a powerful thing.
? ?
So who's in the Brat Pack then?
I would--
[laughs]
No, it's interesting.
I mean, it's not---
it's ridiculous.
But it's--
BRET: No, no.
It's true. It's--
- Because it's '80s culture.
It's you.
It's Judd Nelson.
It's Emilio.
I've been trying to answer
this question for years.
ALLY: Yeah.
The Brat Pack was just us.
People would say
Molly's in the Brat Pack.
- Really?
- Molly Ringwald.
I don't see Demi
or Ally being part of that.
Demi.
Ally.
- Jon Cryer.
- I am not in the Brat Pack.
What are
the Brat Pack movies?
I don't know.
Is Fast Times at
Ridgemont High Brat Pack?
No dice.
[laughter]
Is Young g*ns
a Brat Pack movie? No.
MICHAEL: The Outsiders,
well, Emilio and Rob Lowe
were in that,
but is Tom Cruise
in the Brat Pack?
[Yello's "Oh Yeah"]
I've got to do
what's good for me.
Would you put Matt Dillon
in the Brat Pack?
- I don't know.
- Sean in the outer ring.
Relax.
Well, you were probably
the center of the nucleus
because of the article.
And then you were
in the two movies.
But then so was Judd.
Judd Nelson,
Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald,
Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, um...
- Who are we forgetting?
- Demi Moore.
- Demi Moore and me.
- And you.
And--
[laughs]
And that it didn't really exist
doesn't matter.
? ?
All right,
we are headed over here
to see Howie Deutch,
who directed
a movie called Pretty in Pink.
We're passing all
the hikers going up in--
up for their Sunday hikes.
God, look at them all.
LA, baby.
HOWIE: Andrew McCarthy.
- Howie.
HOWIE: Oh, my gosh.
- [laughs]
How are you?
[laughs]
Good.
HOWIE: 30 years.
ANDREW: That's what
I was just saying.
I think it's, like, 30 years.
HOWIE: You're gonna be
out of focus.
ANDREW: Come here.
HOWIE: How are you?
ANDREW: [laughs]
Good. How are you?
Great to see you.
ANDREW: Good to see you.
It's cool that
you're doing this.
ANDREW:
Yeah, well, we'll see.
[laughter]
So the Brat Pack--
what is it about that label?
I don't know.
I mean, the Brat Pack--
I was on the outside
of all that.
- Yeah.
- But my wife, Lea, wasn't.
And a lot of other actors,
like yourself, weren't.
And I feel like that is,
like, the headline sometimes
that they're stuck with.
That's the reason
I want to do it, why 35--
how many years later?
HOWIE: Well, but ask yourself.
Why don't you want
to be included in that?
That's part of why we're
doing this interview, I think,
this doc.
- Those movies--
and our movie
included in that--
represent a moment
for a certain generation
of people that is their youth.
And they're like,
"I feel just like that girl.
That's me."
And taking ownership
like that in movies--
that's why movies
are so powerful
because people can identify
and connect
and they're not
so alone anymore.
I hated the Brat Pack
for decades
because of my own defensiveness
of, I'm not a brat.
But let me look at,
what does the Brat Pack mean
to me then
and then what does it mean now.
And when I--
it finally kind of dawned
on me that maybe there's bounty
in that and not just brats.
Everybody's haunted
by something like that.
And sometimes, it makes you
do better work, you know,
and sometimes not.
[door rings]
BLANE: Jesus.
[soft dramatic music]
? ?
HOWIE: And I remember
every time we were
about to do a scene,
Andrew, you would say to me,
"OK, tense up."
Like, that was--
- I do remember that.
Jesus, I forgot.
- Yeah, you'd say, tense up.
And I'd laugh.
And it relaxed me,
actually,
'cause I thought
you actually were nervous
and that it helped, the humor.
And action.
ANDREW: So the end of
Pretty in Pink--
we changed the whole ending.
You know better than me.
HOWIE: The test screening
was a disaster.
The original ending
was she goes with John.
You have a date,
and they walk into
the dance circle,
and they start to dance,
and it becomes
a swirl of pink,
and it's over.
And booing like
I've never heard in my life--
screaming, booing,
you know, yelling,
throwing things.
It was like, what?
And that was it.
It was just a disaster.
And they gave us one day
to sh**t all of it,
which you know,
which is insane,
but that's what they did.
And you had to do it
on a stage even though--
ANDREW: Yeah, yeah.
We did it on the stage.
You were
in New York sh**ting.
Yeah, I was in New York
doing a play,
and my head was shaved because
I was playing a marine,
so they had to make me a wig,
and it was such a bad wig.
I always joked that
if they'd known
that we'd still be talking
about it 35 years later,
they would have paid
for a better wig.
[laughs]
ANDREW: It was a terrible wig,
and it just sat on my head
like some bird's nest
and gave me
such a forlorn and sad look.
So all I had to do was go up
to Molly and say, you know,
"I love you,"
or whatever the line was.
I love you.
ANDREW: I just looked so sad
that it did
all the acting for me.
Always.
ANDREW: You know, our youth
is there for us to look at.
You know,
and how has it evolved
then over the years,
your relationship
to early success?
Because early success
is something else.
It's like, you know,
Tennessee Williams wrote
a great article called
"The Catastrophe of Success"
when Glass Menagerie
was successful.
And it just, like,
blew his whole life up.
It's fortunate to have it,
but it's also a struggle
to escape being pigeonholed
into just
that category and that arena.
There's an inexplicable thing
that happens when something
really cooks and works
like the movie we did.
And it's funny,
trying to get back
to doing something--
sometimes, a little knowledge
is dangerous.
That innocence is--
yeah, we spend a lot of time
trying to get back to that.
[laughs]
HOWIE: Yeah, because
you're using more of yourself.
Honesty is something
you really can't fake.
FEE: This is Fee Waybill
for MTV here
at the premiere for
Pretty in Pink
at the lovely
Mann's Chinese Theater.
My mother was
a reporter for The LA Times,
and she also often
covered movie premieres.
I remember going with her to
the Pretty in Pink premiere
and walking up the red carpet,
and I got to shake
John Hughes' hand.
Howie Deutch,
Mr. John Hughes--
respectively,
the director of the film
and the producer
and writer of the film.
ANDREW: That same night
when we were in that room
together, as the credits
started to roll, I got up...
MICHAEL: Yes, you got drunk.
And went across the street
to the Hamburger Hamlet...
MICHAEL: Hamburger Hamlet.
ANDREW: And got drunk.
I could not sit in that room.
I just found that
just so nerve-wracking.
Well, I've seen the video
of-- of you
in the-- you and Spader--
- Oh, my God.
Yeah, that lives on.
- At the after party. Yes.
- I just look at that.
And I just-- I'm just so lost.
Andrew McCarthy
and James Spader.
James is the not-so-good guy.
ANDREW:
So I just look at that,
And I go, "Oh, my God, I was
just so young, and like--"
You were
a living, breathing...
Ill-equipped.
MICHAEL:
Public service announcement.
[laughter]
Kids, don't do this.
Yeah.
But-- and yet,
at that moment,
I am the aspirational--
- 100%.
You know?
Andrew, did you actually
go to your high school prom?
- No.
- No?
Why not?
I couldn't get a date.
That night encapsulated
my entire '80s career, really--
thrilled, yet terrified,
the ambition,
and yet the wanting to run,
and then getting clouded
by alcohol.
That sort of--
that night was the '80s for me.
[laughs]
MICHAEL: Yeah.
You know?
Party at the Palace
continues after these messages.
? ?
JEANNIE: [laughs]
Herb, he's mine now.
Lay off.
He's mine.
[laughs]
HERB: Jeannie?
JEANNIE: Yes?
HERB: Back off before we start.
? ?
Hey, could I get
a cheeseburger
with lettuce, tomato, onion,
and pickle?
Oh, we're just doing
this documentary.
It's about--
that's a good question.
It's about looking for people.
[laughs]
Oh, yeah?
It's about
a group of actors
from the '80s
called the Brat Pack.
Do you know who they were?
The Brat Pack.
You ever hear of that?
Yeah, there you go.
Ancient history.
Thanks, man.
? ?
These people I don't know
and hadn't seen
in 30-odd years, we all
share this monumental moment
in our lives together
and all had
exact similar reactions to it.
It just lets you know
why people need community
and why people
don't live isolated.
Because knowing
that everyone else
went through the same thing
somehow is, you know...
? ?
That's good.
? ?
So I'm still trying
to pin down Judd,
and I think this is
my third or fourth time
trying to meet up with Rob.
When we were young,
Rob and I were not close.
I think we were--
we were fairly competitive.
I was, like, this
New York, serious actor--
or wanting to be.
And Rob was the gorgeous
LA, you know,
young movie star.
And we each had
our little niche.
I should probably keep
my hands on the wheel here.
[laughs]
Hey. Hey.
ROB: Hey, there he is.
ANDREW: [laughs]
ROB: God, when was the
last time I actually saw you?
ANDREW: 30 years ago.
ROB: No, it can't be.
I think.
[laughter]
Jonathan, this is my mom.
Uh, very nice to meet you,
Mrs. Burroughs.
Hello.
Hello.
ROB: We were so lucky to be
in the right place
at the right time
as the movie business
was beginning the transition
to where it landed
and still exists,
which is movies made
almost exclusively for 18-
to 20-year-olds.
I mean,
every summer movie that's out
is geared towards
that audience.
It wasn't always like that.
But we were there
at a time when that began.
Maybe we had something to do
with it,
which would either be
the good news or the bad news.
But not only being
in the Brat Pack,
but being around
at that time not only
changed all of our lives.
It changed
what entertainment is.
It's so weird to talk about
this because we're giving--
because we're focusing on it,
and I'm focusing
on making a movie,
but it's giving it
such import, you know?
But that's the way it is when
you're focusing on anything.
It's--
ROB: Yes.
And when you--
you have to take a step back.
Well, any time there's
a documentary about anything,
it's very important.
- [laughs]
But you're always been
very good
at kind of going,
"Dude, it's not,
you know, curing cancer.
It's the Brat Pack."
[laughs]
Yes.
And do you think
it affected your career
on the immediate level?
There's always gonna be
some perception that bumps up
against how you see yourself
and what you think
you can do as an actor.
And that never changes,
I don't think.
Did you like
the label at first?
I mean, I don't recall
anyone liked it.
No one liked it.
And look, I don't want
to come off seeming
like I'm so Pollyanna
that I don't realize,
or didn't know at the time,
what a f*cking disaster
and how mean-spirited
and what an attempt that was
to minimize all of our talents.
I get why it happened.
There were just too many of us.
So there had to be
a catch-all name,
and Brat Pack is a good name.
These young actors
and these movies
about these young actors
and these people making them
like John Hughes and so forth,
are gonna start to lead
the business in a way
where there are gonna be
TV shows like Glee.
And there's going to be--
- I mean, look at Friends.
The CW.
There's gonna be
all of these things
that we now take for granted--
don't happen
without the Brat Pack.
They just don't.
- I had never thought
of it like that,
to give it such--
to be such a linchpin toward
the pivot in popular
movie culture.
- Yeah.
I guess I'm just too sort
of shame-based to sort of--
- [laughs]
- Really.
To, like-- I would just go,
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no."
And not be able to take it
in in a certain way,
which is one of your gifts,
that you've
always been able to do that.
- I get this all the time.
It's like, "Oh, my God,
I love those movies. Oh.
God, I was a big
Andrew McCarthy guy."
And I'm like--
- [laughs]
- What the f*ck?
- I know.
But that's because they
treat us like we're not real.
I get all that all the time.
It's like,
"Oh, Rob was so good."
I'm like, "Dude, no
you're talking to Andrew."
ROB: Hi, hello?
- [laughs]
Ah, forgive me
for not getting intimate.
Here, it's a long ride.
- You shouldn't have.
- I know.
It was like being in a group.
I mean, I'm not gonna say
we were the Beatles
or anything,
but I gotta tell you,
there were some times where
the frenzy around it
was certainly up there with
anything any of those guys did.
Well, we didn't fill
Shea Stadium,
but I mean, there were moments.
[laughs]
We could have.
1985, I think we could have.
- [laughs]
- It was fun, excitement.
The world is your oyster.
You can't believe
what's happening.
Confusion.
And it was at the height
of the Brat Pack,
and it was super unbelievable.
Agreed.
And--
ROB: [laughs]
- And--
I don't believe you one--
ANDREW: Even for me.
No, but even for me, agreed.
Like, begrudgingly,
like, this is awesome.
[laughs]
- OK, good.
OK, yeah.
Begrudging, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
- All right.
What's your memory of
the night at Sammy's house?
- That happened, right?
- That--
[laughs].
Right?
So what's your recollection?
- It started at Spago.
- Yeah.
Right?
ANDREW: You asked me
to come out,
and I was like, "Really?"
We were sh**ting
St. Elmo's Fire.
And, like, I remember
following you over the hill.
And I'm like, "Where's Spago?"
You're like, "Follow me."
- Follow me, kid.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Idiot.
I just remember sitting down
next to the person being--
this is Liza.
And I went,
"I'll have a double vodka."
[laughter]
Yeah you didn't know
Liza Minnelli
was gonna be there.
- I'm sorry?
ANDREW: No idea. And it was--
she was lovely.
The best.
ANDREW: She was lovely.
And-- but there came
a time where
there's that moment where
it's clear the evening is over,
and I think we were literally
getting up out of our seats.
You went,
"Let's go to Sammy's."
So we follow Liza Minnelli
to Sammy Davis Jr.'s house.
I mean,
who's not gonna do that?
ANDREW:
Right, and you were pretty--
Hi. Come on in.
ANDREW: Cool and savvy
and been to some things.
And even you were just like,
"Holy sh*t."
- Holy sh*t.
- He was so gracious.
He was playing--
he was long sober,
but he was playing bartender,
and I was getting
drunker and drunker.
and me and Sammy were,
like, splitting cigarettes,
and he's like,
"I got my eye on you cats.
I love what you're doing."
- "I love what you do."
"Keep it up."
You know?
And it's the only time,
in my experience,
that the Brat Pack
met the Rat Pack.
ROB: That is when the
Brat Pack met the Rat Pack.
When I think of the Brat Pack,
I think of nights like that
because that stuff
routinely happened,
as it does
when you were in that moment.
And you see that moment
recycles every generation
with different people,
with different names,
and different places,
but it's the same story.
Someone is having that moment.
It can f*ck you up,
or it can be fun,
or it can be all of the above.
But there are very few people
that are ever in a place
to go through that moment.
And yet,
there always will be people
who will go through that moment
every generation.
And it always pains me when
I see some of the other folks
who don't realize how much love
is infused into the Brat Pack,
and it makes me sad for them.
ANDREW: This is what
I've come to realize.
There's so much goodwill there.
By the way,
it's nothing but goodwill...
- Yeah.
- Now.
Where does it end,
the Brat Pack?
I mean, does it follow us
to the end?
It'll for sure.
I mean, it should.
ANDREW: The great surprise for
me has been how much affection
we all seem to have
for each other now
in a way that
we didn't then, and,
you know,
the people I've talked to.
And so that's been
really nice to kind of--
there's a lightness
that comes with it now
that did not exist back then.
Because back then,
we were all just pressurized,
and trying to figure out
what to do,
and trying to have a career,
and like, oh, my God,
something just happened,
and they're calling us
this negative name,
and, oh, sh*t, what do I do?
Now it's all just like--
[laughs]
You know, who cares?
And if you do still care,
it's--
So if you had told me
10, 20, 30 years ago,
I'd be walking up to see
David Blum's apartment,
the writer of
the "Brat Pack" article,
I would have said,
"You're f*cking crazy."
Let's see what happens.
David?
[laughs]
Hi.
- How are you?
- Hi.
And how are you?
- Good to meet you...
Nice to meet you.
- At long last.
- Yeah.
- I'm Dave.
- I'm Adrian.
That's Adrian.
I asked you this the other day,
but I--
I was rushing.
Do you prefer David or Dave?
- Dave.
- Dave.
OK, Dave.
So thank you. Thank you.
Was it a pitch to go do
a thing on Emilio?
Or did the mag-- were you
freelancing in New York?
Or were you--
- No.
I was on a contract
at New York Magazine,
and I had to do eight stories
a year, something like that.
And so it was just
gonna be a story
about a feature on Emilio?
DAVE: Mm-hmm.
He said, "Hey, we're
having dinner tonight,
me, and, you know,
Judd, and Rob."
They were in full flower,
having a great time,
drinking and toasting
and nostrovia.
Nostrovia.
DAVE: You know, a lot of people
were coming around the table.
And especially--
you know, no surprise, Rob Lowe
was getting a lot
of the special attention,
but everybody was.
I was getting the least
attention of all, you know,
which was, you know, fine,
and I was just really able
to observe.
Did you like Emilio
when you interviewed him?
I really did, all the way
through the whole process.
I didn't dislike any of them.
I thought they were
all quite nice.
It's hard to explain,
but I didn't think at the time,
ugh, these brats, at all.
So you come home
to New York then.
DAVE: Well,
before I came back--
the night before
this all happened,
I had gone out to dinner
with some friends who happened
to be in LA, journalists.
We had a very large meal
at this dinner.
And one of--
this guy from People Magazine,
who was a very funny writer
named Alan Richmond,
referred to us as
the "Fat Pack," which
I thought was very funny.
So at some point
while I was in LA,
I was driving from
one place to another,
and that joke
re-emerged in my brain,
and I said, "Brat Pack."
And then I thought, "Ha,
a light bulb has gone on,
and I now have a title."
I thought, "Well, this is fun.
It's fun."
I just thought, "Oh, oh, yeah."
And Emilio did that thing where
he got the cheaper ticket.
And I don't know.
I just start listing
all the things.
You know, they said that thing
about Tim Hutton.
Oh, yeah.
They're brats.
You know, it's funny.
It honestly didn't
cross my mind, really,
that it was
all that big a deal.
The article comes out,
and, you know, the cover--
Hollywood's Brat Pack,
those guys.
It really--
you know,
people were like, "Wow."
And the phrase definitely--
people dug it, you know.
Well, one or two people
were like, "Wow,"
that's like really mean."
You know?
I thought it was pretty,
like, whoa.
DAVE: Well, you referred to it
in, I think, that Today Show
interview as "scathing."
That was the word.
I thought it was-- yeah,
I did think it was scathing.
Didn't you?
Um...
I mean, I guess
in retrospect, yes.
Um, at the time, no.
I was proud of my creation
of the phrase.
Look, I was--
I don't know
how old you were then.
I was--
- I was, like, 22.
OK.
I was 29.
And I definitely knew
it was gonna have a reaction.
Yeah.
I mean, it certainly was--
my recollection is that
it was instantaneous,
and burned deep, and...
I just remember seeing
that cover and being like,
"What just happened?"
Really, it hit like that--
like a car wreck.
And I felt instantly--
and it proved to be
the experience--
that I'd lost control
of the narrative of my career.
Well, that's very well put.
What really upset me
about the article
was that it felt like
they're not that interested
in doing the craft of it.
They want to be famous
and be-- and party.
And what I was--
you know, I took offense
at that because I felt like--
Well, you had gone
to acting school,
and you had gone to college.
You got--
did you graduate from NYU?
I did not.
I was kicked out.
Oh, oh.
But I did go
to acting school, yeah.
I think part of my point
was, you know,
guys like Tom Cruise,
who went straight
from a production
of A Christmas Carol
to being in--
- Being in Top g*n.
[chuckling]
It worked out for him.
It felt like to me,
and I know to the other people
at the time--
putting words
in their mouth--
we have to reposition this,
or deflect this,
or get away from this,
or whatever
because it certainly
wasn't perceived in
the industry as a compliment.
It would take
a Herculean ability
to be sort of cool
with yourself to,
in June of 1985, go,
"Hey, this is a good thing."
I get that.
I mean, nobody was gonna,
like, immediately go,
"Oh, my God,
we're gonna be famous forever.
This is like a--"
[laughs]
Who would think that?
To me, when I look back on it,
I actually feel more redeemed
than ever
by the fact
that I was not wrong.
You were a bunch of talented
and interesting people
to write about
at a point when Hollywood
had finally decided
young adults
should be in movies.
Why not?
But in fairness,
you didn't write it
with any affection toward them.
You wrote it with more of a--
You were all adults.
I would not have written
that story about minors.
Yeah, sure.
DAVE: No, I mean, I felt
that I could do that.
And I felt that--
this is maybe
not the best analogy,
but Woody Allen,
at one point in his travails
of recent memory, said,
"I'm in it--
I'm cool with it because
of the Knicks tickets."
[chuckles]
And I thought, "Wow, really?"
That's-- you know,
for him, that's what it is,
getting to sit courtside
at the Knicks.
OK, and I don't even know
what that means, but--
DAVE: Well, it's just like,
there's trade-offs
to being a celebrity.
- Uh-huh.
DAVE:
And some of it is positive.
You get whisked around the gate
to get into the nightclub.
These people wanted
to be written about.
These people agreed
to talk to me.
These people behaved
the way they did.
I'm doing my job
as a journalist.
It wasn't meant to destroy
or hurt anyone
but really just to define
a group of people
in a clever
and interesting way.
There were a couple of things
in the article that were
just plain-old not nice,
and I'm sure
I should have
been scolded by somebody,
and I was.
I was just trying to be funny.
And I actually think I may--
I hope I won't sound
too arrogant by thinking
that I might have succeeded.
They were all on
Donahue one day
for promoting St. Elmo's Fire,
and Donahue was, at the time,
you know, a very popular show,
and they were
all together on stage.
And he's running around
with his microphone.
And Richard Schickel, who was
the critic of TIME Magazine...
TIME Magazine, yeah.
Was there, it seemed to me,
to attack me.
The article reviewed
the life and apparently
followed the so-called
Brat Pack for a couple of days.
RICHARD: Could I apologize
for my profession for that?
[laughter]
- Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
RICHARD: I really thought that
was a scurrilous article.
[applause]
And I'm like, "Really?"
That seems a little harsh,
you know?
The film critic
at TIME Magazine.
Well, St. Elmo's Fire became--
and, you know,
again, it became a hit.
And ultimately,
I think I should have gotten
more credit
for helping that along.
[laughter]
Honestly, no, I'm serious.
You know, controversy sells.
Did it affect your career?
DAVE: Not as much as I thought
it was going to.
I really thought that
I was gonna be suddenly ushered
into Tina Brown's office.
I've spent my whole--
honestly, really, whole life,
it comes up sooner
or later with people I know.
You created the Brat Pack?
I mean, people just
literally don't know
how to process
that information.
Like I said, I'm proud of it.
It's fine.
I think-- I think
I have no regrets,
and I'm glad
it's lived on forever,
but it's not the great--
I hope it's not
the greatest thing I ever did.
I really do.
When you say that,
I hope I'm not known for--
you sound like a member
of the Brat Pack.
So if you could
wave a magic wand
and do anything different
about that article, would you?
No, partially because,
you know, you're 29--
look, I think
I can say this to you
and you hopefully will get it,
is that you make--
that's when you make mistakes.
- Yeah.
You know?
And even if it was a mistake--
and I still don't think
it was--
you got to take chances
and just swing
and do crazy things.
When I talk to you here now,
I have this sort of affection
for you in spite--
No, I totally understand.
We have--
even though we've never met
and never been in contact,
we have something.
We share something.
And I actually think
you've actually
found the emotional
beating heart
of the story, which is,
you know,
that we all share something.
Who would have ever thought
we'd even be here?
ANDREW: Yeah.
- It's crazy.
But that's cool, I think.
- Thank you.
DAVE: It was really great
to meet you.
ANDREW: Thank you.
DAVE: Stay in touch, and let me
know how this is going.
I will.
And we'll get out of your hair.
Um, but do you think
you could have been nicer?
- [chuckles]
- Seriously.
I mean,
it's collateral damage,
in my view,
to making the point that
here was a bunch of people
that had become very famous
and popular,
and I'm calling them
the "Brat Pack,"
and here's how I'm saying it.
But there was
collateral damage?
DAVE: Oh, yeah.
I guess I feel like, you know,
sticks and stones.
? ?
ANDREW:
We went through something.
ALLY: Yeah.
ANDREW: And it was real.
And the fallout was real.
And it affected our lives,
my life, profoundly.
Yeah, me, too.
ANDREW: To this day.
Me, too.
ANDREW: And so
we're members of a club
we never asked to join.
And so there is
an unspoken kind of like--
just that.
It's like, oh, hello, hello.
ALLY: Yeah.
And I am really grateful
for that,
for having the people
that I know I have
this connection with.
Do you know what I mean?
The fondness that
I feel for everybody,
that's real.
I mean, that's--
that's genuine.
You know?
? ?
And, you know,
on your tombstone--
I think I heard you say this--
"Emilio Brat Pack Estevez"
will be your epitaph.
I did.
I said it last year.
Did you?
Yeah.
And it's--
EMILIO: Yeah.
And-- and what
do you think of that?
I think that
we have no control
of how we're remembered.
The toothpaste is--
it's out of the tube.
It's not coming back.
- [laughs]
And so I think for us,
it's like
there's a--
there's a surrender to it.
ANDREW: It is part of--
warts and all,
part of who I, you, we are.
And you, and I, and the
other people in the Brat Pack
are in--
are bound together--
Inexorably.
ANDREW: Inexorably.
That's the word.
It's true.
ANDREW: But it's like,
I don't know you
in 30-odd years.
I hadn't seen Demi
in all these years,
and yet,
if I saw someone else
I'd been in movies with
30 years ago,
I'd have nothing
to talk about with them.
Right.
ANDREW: Nothing.
And yet, we have this
deep thing in common.
That's-- I don't--
the look in your eye--
No, it's unusual.
ANDREW: It's certainly unusual.
At best, it's unusual.
ANDREW: And it's--
and I don't know.
I find it a beautiful thing
to actually get to go
and see you and talk to you
about that.
I find that exciting
and, like, liberating
in a certain way.
Thank you.
EMILIO: Of course.
Hey, man.
Nice to see you.
ANDREW: It's great to see you.
And we're both wearing
the same shirt.
In my opinion, it was kind of
the end of old Hollywood.
I mean, even the idea--
the Rat Pack, Brat Pack--
was trying to, like,
hold on to the last vestiges
of old Hollywood.
And you guys were involved.
Well, that's kind of cool.
[laughter]
You know, like Al Pacino
because of The Godfather--
he goes,
it's taken me a lifetime
to accept The Godfather.
- Exactly.
If it takes Al Pacino
that 50 years
to accept The Godfather,
I'm in good company.
Exactly.
Al Pacino.
I mean, God bless us,
but Pretty in Pink
is not The Godfather.
But you know--
[laughter]
- Agreed.
We all made it mean something
and in varying degrees.
That's right.
We all made it mean something.
And it actually wasn't even
about really any of us.
It was about the person
who wrote it
trying to be clever
and get their next job.
- Yeah.
- [laughs]
ANDREW: Yeah.
? ?
Yeah.
My youth, I ran from.
The very thing that I was
identified as and/or with,
I dissociated from it
because I didn't
want that to be who I was.
And so to bring that up
into my present,
like, oh.
Yeah, that personally of value.
I'm more than the sum
of my parts
because of being a member
of the Brat Pack.
Yes, it gives you cachet.
You were part of the lexicon,
and that gave you great cachet.
Maybe not at the time
you didn't think that,
but it did.
So we are part of the sort of
'80s cultural lexicon.
Yes, we are.
Yes, we are, and proud of it.
You're awesome.
Come here, Lauren.
[laughter]
Listen, to be a part
of anything that anybody
still talks about
30-plus years
is really, really
a special thing.
And when we're 21, 22,
you're just sort of
cusping into the world.
Your life is a blank slate
to be written upon,
and it's a thrilling time
in life.
And we represent that
to that generation of people
who are coming of age
at that moment.
And they look at you.
They look at me.
And they go, "Oh,
the Brat Pack movies."
And I see their eyes
glaze over because they're
really, in many ways,
talking about themselves...
100%
ANDREW: And their own youth.
ROB: Yeah.
And we are the avatars
of that moment in their life.
ROB: Yeah.
ANDREW: And I've come
to realize
that's a beautiful thing.
- Totally.
Something that was
so hated by me
and I felt did me damage
has become a blessing
is kind of amazing.
DAVE: Wow.
Sometimes,
we need some distance.
We got mixed up with each other
on this crazy thing
that none of us intended.
It all just turned into
tremendous, deep fondness
for you and for everybody
who was involved in it,
you know?
It was a complicated time,
a really complicated time.
But the good memories
I have are--
are deep, you know?
And they're-- they're in there.
So if somebody said,
"Was it worth it?"
Yes, it was.
Oh, yeah.
ALLY: Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Well, we're very
different people personally.
And if you threw us together
outside of
that kind of situation,
I don't know if we'd get along.
But somehow,
when we were
all there together,
the ship kind of
balanced itself out.
[Zoe Fox and the Rocket Clocks
"Don't You (Forget About Me)"]
ZOE: Won't you
come see about me
I'll be alone dancing
And you know it, baby
Tell me
your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything
inside and out
Love's strange,
so real in the dark
Think of the tender things
that we were working on
Slow change
may pull us apart
When the light gets
into your heart, baby
Don't you forget about me
[phone ringing]
ANDREW: Hello.
Judd?
[Simple Minds'
"Don't You (Forget About Me)"
JIM: Hey, hey, hey, hey
Ooh
Whoa
Won't you
come see about me
I'll be alone dancing
You know it, baby
Tell me
your troubles and doubts
Giving everything
inside and out
And love's strange,
so real in the dark
Think of the tender things
that we were working on
Slow change
may pull us apart
When the light
gets into your heart, baby
Don't you forget about me
Don't, don't, don't, don't
Don't you forget about me
Will you stand above me
Look my way
Never love me
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Brats (2024)
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