A few months back, we featured a nostalgic homage to the BMW 2002a car your author drove in high school but lost to a tragic wreck. After its publication, we tweeted out a request for our followers to share stories of beloved cars theyd lost, and soon received a note back from Andrew McCarthy about his 1967 Camaro convertible.
Given that were big fans of Andrews roles in films like Class, Pretty in Pink, and St. Elmos Fire (as well as his recent travel writing), we replied right away, suggesting we meet up in New York for a drive in a contemporary Camaro SS convertible and a chat about his new travel memoir, The Longest Way Home. Andrew was game, and so once recent summer afternoon we spent an hour chauffeuring him, topdown, around Manhattan. We then pit-stopped at an East Side specialty-foods store and allowed Andrew to drive home.
He thought the new car felt weirdly puffed up compared with his vintage model and insisted we disable the heads-up display that projected our speed, spectrally, onto the windshield. But he loved the cars rigidity, as well as its gobs of instant-on V8 power. He also understood the way that talking in a moving car can loosen an interviewees tongue, even if he was powerless to resist this. Highlights of our wide-ranging discussion are below.
Brett Berk: Im so glad we could make this happen. Tell me a bit about your book.
Andrew McCarthy: It looks at the I Love You, Ive Got to Go syndrome, figuring out what the **** is it, from my perspective. Id been with a woman for years, we had a kid together, and yet, though wed been engaged for a number of years, I didnt seem to want to get married. So its a look at my life as a travel writer, and how my experience of travel changed my life and my view of the world. And its an exploration of some manly journeysgoing down the Amazon, climbing Kilimanjaroand addressing the question, how does a solitary person come to terms with intimacy?
What was the answer?
What I think I ultimately came up with was that its impossible, but that we do it anyway. Its a paradox. But someone once said, The barometer of a mans enlightenment is his relationship to paradox. I think thats true.
Lets talk about your old car a little.
I bought that car when I was working on Pretty in Pink with the help of the prop guy, who was a total car nut. He took me to a swap meet in Pasadena, and I saw a 1967 red Camaro convertible, and I said, Thats a cool ****ing car. Is it any good? And he did whatever it is car guys do, looked under the hood, and I paid $7,000 for it. I left it in L.A. for when I was spending time there, because I was still living in New York.
Eventually I decided to drive it home, cross-country, with a buddy of mineMatthew Laurance, who was in St. Elmos Fire with me. But, last minute, he bailed, so I decided to go alone. I made it as far as Las Vegas, and I stopped for the night. A week later, I was still in Vegas. I called Matthew and said, Dude, you got to come get me. I have to get out of here. So he came, and we drove back to L.A., and I shipped the car to New York.
What happened to that car?
It got totaled on the Harbor Freeway one time when I had it back in L.A. I was in the fast lane, and somebody way to my right was changing lanes and got clipped from behind, and they spun and came straight across the highway and pinned me into the median. Then I got smashed from behind, and then hit again as we spun. It was an amazing crash. The car was ****ing crushed. It wasnt even my faultthough I did enough things in that car that were my fault that I was lucky it hadnt happened before. When I had the car in New York, we used to drive it to Atlantic City a lot. That kind of middle-of-the-night, lets-drive-to-Atlantic-City, great one a.m. bar decisions.
So, youve been doing travel writing for quite a while. How did you get into that?
Before I had kids, I used to take big tripsbuy a one-way ticket and give myself two months in Africa or Southeast Asiaand I had big experiences. They werent always fun, but I found them instructive. I mean, in my early 20s, instead of taking a semester away from college and traveling around Europe, I was making Hollywood movies. So travel gave me a certain distance that was useful in my life. Travel is something you have to do for long enough to get really miserable, and then it starts to get really good.
Is that true of relationships too?
[Laughs.] I dont know. Thats a good one. Anyway, when I was on one of my trips, someone suggested I keep a journal. And I tried to, but it felt so lame. But then I started writing scenes of what had happened. I knew about scenes from being an actor, and I knew about dialogue, and I knew about pace, and I knew about arc. And it turned out kind of cool. And I thought, I like doing that. And I did that for years. And then I decided to do something more with them. So I met an editor of National Geographic Traveler through a friend, and I convinced him to let me write a story, and, fortunately, it worked.
And when was this?
This was in 2004. And then I started writing for other places. I did stuff for The Atlantic, and The New York Times, and Travel+Leisure. I figured, I should just write for good magazines, because I thought, Before Im outedbefore people start saying, Wait, the guy from Pretty in Pink thinks hes a travel writer?until somebody puts those two things together, Im going to write for as many good magazines as I can, so by the time Im outed, Ill have credibility.
Do you ever bring your family along, or is this always a solitary thing for you?
No. I bring them sometimes. I took my son to the Sahara. I took my daughter to Tahiti. I bring them when I can. I never went anywhere as a kid, so I think its great for kids to be in the world.
Why didnt you ever go anywhere as a kid?
I lived in Jersey. Its the center of the universe. Why would you leave? [Laughs.]
And youre still acting as well.
Yeah, I was just in Canada for three weeks acting in a television movie. Its a Christmas movie. A Hallmark Christmas movie.
So do you play someone with a life-threatening illness, or the spouse of someone whos dying?
[Laughs.] Being that its a Christmas movie, theres no medical ailments or death. I play someone who is on the corporate ladder, but somethings missing in my life. And I have to learn to ballroom dance for the corporate Christmas party, so I fall in love with the ballroom-dance instructor and I learn whats important in life. I find proper love.
As opposed to the love of career, or the shallow, empty love that you were experiencing previously?
Exactly.
Are you getting nervous about the book coming out? I have a friend who works in publishing, and she described the weeks before ones book is released as the calm before the calm.
Yeah, every day I feel it notch up a bit. But thats exactly it. Thats the fear. The book comes out, and nothing happens. The calm before the calm is a terrifying way to put it.
Well, theres always the chance that someone will want to make a movie out of your book, with Julia Roberts or something.
I wonder if Julia would play me?
Thats a good question. Who would play you in the movie version of your book?
I like that. I dont have an answer for you. But somethings gone terribly right if I have that dilemma.
__________________
Page 1 of 1 sorted by
McCarthy Road -> McCarthy Road -> Stars & Cars: Brat Pack–er Andrew McCarthy on Camaros, Car Crashes, Christmas Movies, and His New Travel Memoir
