‘Brats' director Andrew McCarthy reflects on Brat Pack legacy, reuniting with '80s icons, and possible ‘St. Elmo's Fire' revival

Yahoo

28-05-2025

"The movie is really about the passing of time," Brats director Andrew McCarthy tells Gold Derby. "I turned 60 not that long ago and I realized that I had begun to look at events of my life in a different way than I used to."
For the first time in decades, McCarthy reunites with fellow Brat Packers Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, and Ally Sheedy, along with other stars of that era like Jon Cryer, Timothy Hutton, and Lea Thompson, to discuss their rise to stardom in the 1980s and how the term "Brat Pack" — coined by journalist David Blum in an article for New York Magazine — impacted their careers.
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Reflecting further, McCarthy says his fascination lies less with the Brat Pack itself and more with how perspectives on life evolve with time. "When I was 22, we hated it — all of us," he says. "We felt stigmatized — it was very limiting. It was long before it became this soft and fuzzy, incredibly affectionate moniker that it is now. Somewhere along the line, I realized this was perhaps the best professional blessing of my life and nothing had changed except my relationship to it. I wanted to go seek out the other guys and gals and see if their experience was similar."
McCarthy says the greatest surprise in making the movie was realizing how much affection the actors had for each other. "It was not the case back in the day," he reveals. "We were all very young, scared and competitive. Now, so much time has gone by so, who cares? We were the only ones in this club we never asked to join. All we had to do is look at each other and we had this recognition. Someone asked me, 'Do you want to send me a list of questions first?' and I said, 'I don't have any questions. I just want to come talk to you. I imagine when we just look at each other we will have a lot to say.' I didn't want to make a talking heads movie — I wanted to just go see these people and talk to them."
Hulu
The director's goal was to show what the Brat Pack felt like from the inside — a very different perspective from what outsiders perceived. "I wanted viewers to nod and think, 'I don't have the Brat Pack, but I can substitute [my own group or experience] in my life.' I was hoping to create that identification with the viewer by making the film a subjective and open experience."
According to McCarthy, time hasn't fundamentally changed anyone in the group. "They had become themselves, only more so," he says with a chuckle. "Rob, at the beginning, was no more of a fan of it than any of us, but Rob is a very savvy guy. He realized sooner than a lot of us that this is a beautiful thing. We had become the avatars of youth for a certain demographic and a certain generation. That's a beautiful thing. When people come up to me and talk about Pretty in Pink or St. Elmo's Fire, pretty quickly their eyes glaze over. They're talking to themselves in their own youth — they're not really talking to me anymore. What I can do for them and for myself is just receive them. It took me a long time to realize what a gift that was."
Hulu
McCarthy recalls that Demi Moore was the first person to agree to participate in the film. "It was very uncomplicated," he recalls. "With other people it was a bit like herding cats. When I called the writer of the article, David Blum, who I had never had any contact with, his first question was, 'What's your agenda?' I said, 'I don't have an agenda. My agenda is to find out what your experience was.' He, in a certain way, was like the fifth Beatle. It affected his life and his career as drastically as it affected ours."
Not everyone from the Brat Pack wanted to participate in the film, which McCarthy acknowledges. For instance, Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson are absent from the project. "It was proof of concept," McCarthy says. "This really affected our lives. Forty years later, some people still don't want to talk about it. That's really interesting."
McCarthy says he's not sure if Ringwald or Nelson watched his film, but he has spoken to them since. "I didn't ask, 'Hey, did you see the movie you didn't want to be in?' That's their business. The movie was made with love for everybody. If they didn't want to do it that's fine."
With the renewed spotlight on the Brat Pack and Hollywood's ongoing obsession with reunions and reboots, McCarthy hints at the possibility of revisiting St. Elmo's Fire."There's been talk about it — picking the characters up before we all die," he jokes. "We'll see if that actually happens or not, but they're talking about it."
Brats is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
This article and video are presented by Disney and Hulu.
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