PASADENA, California — Actor Andrew McCarthy isn’t quitting his day job. And his day job is not acting. While he’s portraying his first role in five years, it’s travel writing and directing that usually fill his nine-to-five.
Still, playing a role in ABC’s new drama The Family, airing at 9 p.m. on Sundays, was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“I had no intention or interest in acting,” he said recently.
“And I thought this part was really interesting and sort of came out of the blue. And I thought if I was going to act again I wanted to go back to what I first loved about acting —which was sort of that feeling of letting go of all vanity.”
“Acting becomes a vanity show at a certain point. So it’s nice to go back to why I initially did this. It was this love of the actual deed of doing it. So this part’s been a real good blessing to me in that regard. I’ve really enjoyed the acting in a way that I haven’t for 15 years.”
It’s surprising that he loves the role because McCarthy plays a predator. “He’s an open wound walking around, he has this nature. And there’s nothing worse in our society than a sexual predator toward young children. There’s nothing worse. It’s worse than a murderer,” he nods.
“And I have three young children, so if anybody harmed them I would be in jail for killing that person. So it’s horrific, and yet there’s something about it — what makes someone that way? What makes the wounded wound? I was intrigued by that.”
A one-time a member of the infamous Brat Pack, McCarthy has been performing since he was 15. When he was cut from the basketball team in high school, his mom suggested he try out for the school play. He did, and snagged the part of the Artful Dodger in Oliver.
“I was a very shy kid, an observer,” he confesses. “Then once I acted, I changed because I came into myself. Before that I was a shy kid, withdrawn.
“When you get older you’re not called shy anymore you’re called anti-social,” he laughs, “so shy becomes misanthropic.
“I’m certainly an introvert as opposed to an extrovert. The whole notion of introversion in America is it’s something you need to get over, as opposed to a character trait. At a certain point you don’t care what people think, so it doesn’t matter.”
The veteran of projects like Weekend at Bernie’s, Pretty in Pink, Less than Zero and Lipstick Jungle, McCarthy had just been kicked out of college when he landed the lead in the film Class.
“I went to an open call, saw an ad in the newspaper that said: ‘Wanted 18, vulnerable, and sensitive for a lead in a movie.’ I thought: ‘I’m 18, vulnerable, and sensitive.’ So I went to the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway and 73rd and waited with 500 other 18, vulnerable, sensitive kids. And 20 auditions later, I was the lead in the movie. I was plucked. The hand of fate plucked me, and that changed my life,” he said, resting his chin on his hand.
“I was thrilled to the core. But without knowing, I knew that would happen to me. I was thrilled, but when it happened, I just said: ‘There I am.’ ”
He is sure that acting saved his life when he was a teenager. “Later it almost took it away in a certain way. But it saved my life when I was a kid and who am I to say … all we need to find when we’re young is a passion to get us through adolescence. Anything — the trumpet or basketball or acting — for the kid to find focus so they can get through the horrific journey of adolescence.
“The second I acted I discovered who I was. I said: ‘Oh, there I am.’ What would I have done? I was a terrible student, I smoked pot and didn’t do homework, so I never would’ve gotten into college and wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, so it saved me.”
