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