Men’s Journal’s Everyday Warrior Podcast With Mike Sarraille is a podcast that inspires individuals to live more fulfilling lives by having conversations with disrupters and high performers from all walks of life. In episode 60, he spoke to Andrew McCarthy, an American actor, director, and writer. He's best known for directing Orange Is the New Black and starring in Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo's Fire.
McCarthy talks about his upbringing in New Jersey and how he discovered a love for acting when he was cut from the high school basketball team. He also shares his struggles with alcoholism and how it affected his life and career.
Listen to the full episode above (scroll down for the transcript) and see more from this series below.
This interview has not been edited for length or clarity.
***
Mike Sarraille [00:00:11]:
What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Men's Journal Everyday Warrior Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Saraille. I'm excited. We've got Andrew McCarthy. If you don't know who Andrew McCarthy is, you may be a millennial and you should be listening to this. That's your fault. I'm kidding. Dating ourselves. But Andrew, when his team reached out, and Michelle, who's 24, is like, hey, Andrew McCarthy wants to come on. And I'm like, at first, she's like, who's Andrew McCarthy? I'm like, he's the Brat Pack. Of course. This is my genre. Bring him on. I told my sister, who's older than me, and she was all excited. But if you don't remember that and they set, you were ranked within the top, like, 50 team TV stars of all time, weren't you?
Andrew McCarthy [00:00:55]:
It depends, I guess, on VH One or something like that, maybe.
Mike Sarraille [00:00:59]:
But these guys set a genre for teenage groups, and the films were just great. These are the films I grew up on. But more importantly, he was pivotal behind The Orange Is the New Black, which was a long running series on Netflix and set records. And as Andrew will tell you, it has changed the way we watch TV. But what I think I'm most excited to dive into is your travels. And I know you were a travel writer in releasing a book here, and we'll get to that. But Andrew, welcome for everyone. If you could give them the Cadets version of how you grew up and how that brought you to Hollywood, we'll take it from there.
Andrew McCarthy [00:01:42]:
Yeah, I grew up in Jersey, and, yeah, 15 years old, I was cut from the high school basketball team, and my mother told me to try out for the school musical. And I was like, I don't want to be in a musical. I want to be the point guard. And anyway, I did try out for the musical, and I ended up being cast as the Artful Dodger and Oliver, and it changed my life. I walked on stage at 15 years old in my high school auditorium, and I suddenly was revealed to myself, and I knew what I was going to do with my life. And I knew it was important because I told no one. It was one of those things that was just such a sort of personal white light experience that I knew it was a very frail thing, so I didn't tell anybody. I kept it my secret until it was sort of strong enough to have Roots and then the college for acting. And then I kind of won the lottery. I went to an open call for a movie, and there was an ad in the newspaper looking for 18 vulnerable and sensitive to be the leading a movie. And I was like, Dude, that's me. Anyway, I was cast in a movie kind of plucked from the weeds, and my career in Hollywood began.
Mike Sarraille [00:02:50]:
And what movie was that?
Andrew McCarthy [00:02:51]:
It was called Class it was in 1982 to play Jacqueline Visit's young lover. If you you were you're probably too young to remember Jacqueline Visit, but I think Time magazine at that time had called her the most beautiful film actress of all time. And, yeah, I played her young lover in the movie, and that changed everything for me.
Mike Sarraille [00:03:14]:
What was it you said, your white light moment? What was it? Was it the audience? Was it that everyone was looking at you?
Andrew McCarthy [00:03:23]:
It was just sort of, my wife is Irish and she has all these good Irish sayings, and one of them is, I felt like myself from the toes up. I just walked out there and I felt tennessee Williams, the great American playwright, has a thing talking about love. He said it's as if a room that was always half in the dark was suddenly in the light. And that's who I felt when I acted the first time. I just felt like, oh, my God, there I am. And I didn't even know. I was sort of half in shadow in my life before that. When that revealed itself to me, I just felt comfortable in my skin for the first time in a way I hadn't before and knew I wanted to.
Mike Sarraille [00:04:00]:
Follow that feeling, you know, two points to that one. Did you go back to the basketball coach and thank him for coming? I think there's a good point to take from that. And I remember reading a book called Range by David Epstein, and basically he was advocating for people, young people, trying so many things, because it creates such a broad range of experience that they're more equipped to deal with hardship and stress. But I think that does apply to what I would recommend to people in their teenage years, in their 20s, is try everything. You'll be surprised. What sparks your passion?
Andrew McCarthy [00:04:42]:
Well, that's you have to find something when you're a teenager. Too often it's sports or music or something. If you don't find something as a teenager to help you get through that insane time, people often turn to drugs and alcohol and stuff. They're going to turn to something. You need to have something to engage you on a deep level. And you also you're exactly right. You have no idea what you're going to like and what you're not going to like. I said that to my nine year old the other day. I said, you haven't tried broccoli in a couple of years. You have no idea if you like it or not. And he said, Well, I'm not trying.
Mike Sarraille [00:05:11]:
Hey, that's like sushi for me. When I was younger, I remember spitting it out. So I know you live in New York. You were born on the east coast. Did that casting call happen in New York or did you have to go out to La?
Andrew McCarthy [00:05:24]:
Well, I mean, it was in New York. I had just been kicked out of college. I went to college for two years at NYU, and I'd just been kicked out because I didn't go, basically. And a friend of mine called me and said, there's an ad in the newspaper that they're casting this movie and anybody can go. You should go. It sounds like it's, right? And so I did. I went and waited with 500 other 18 vulnerable and sensitive kids for hours and went into metacasting Guy, and ten auditions later, I was in the movies.
Mike Sarraille [00:05:54]:
That's insane.
Andrew McCarthy [00:05:56]:
It was totally insane. And then I was given the part, and then they said, okay, now you have the part, except we have to fly you out to California to meet Jacqueline visit, to have her approve you. And so I just remember going up to her house in the Hollywood Hills and just having her sort of give me the once over. And I said something innocuous, and she said, oh, he's cheeky. I like him. And I was like, then I was in the movies.
Mike Sarraille [00:06:24]:
I've always said we were born in north California, northern California. La. Is just a it's a great place. It's also a strange place if you're not from there. It is a unique culture, man, La. Very unique.
Andrew McCarthy [00:06:35]:
It's its own beast, for sure. I mean, I've never really been that comfortable there. I think at certain points in my career, I certainly would have benefited from living there, but I just never could. I drive down Sunset Boulevard and I would look up at all the billboards of things, and I'd be like, I never even heard about that movie. And all my resentments and envies would sort of flare when I was in La. So I said, I got to go home.
Mike Sarraille [00:06:58]:
So you got thrust into Hollywood very early because you were young. You started again casting for these, what I would call teen to young 20 roles. And you ended up in a genre of films that, again, I mean, one, I know you were tight with all of them, the Brat Pack. As you look back on that, what did you really learn from being part of that genre? I mean, you guys have to be.
Andrew McCarthy [00:07:27]:
Wildly proud, I suppose it's come to that. That's a whole long story to unpack. But what we forget about now is that the Broad Pack and those youth teen movies that happened in the early mid 80s, that had never happened in Hollywood before. Hollywood entertainment was not about young people until that moment. Hollywood discovered in the early 80s that kids went to the movies and went often and went a lot. They went five, six, seven times to a movie. Grown ups go to a movie once, and they realized suddenly that kids are going to make the most fortune. And so they started making teen movies. And that had never really happened before. Movies before that in the 70s were and before were about grown ups and grown up entertainment. And so when that change happened. It was like a seismic shift on the cultural landscape, and it's never recovered from that. I mean, movies are still about an adolescent mentality. All the Marvel movies are all about their kid movies, and they're adolescent, and we're used to it now, and we just assume that's the way movies are. But it wasn't not always that way. And those 80s genre John Hughes Bratpack movies started all that and changed the way entertainment is viewed. And that's not something you realize at the time. When you're a young 21, 22 year old kid just trying to get a job, you just think, oh, I got another job great. And you scramble to get the next one. But looking back on it, it was a seismic sort of cultural shift that we didn't really, I certainly didn't perceive to be a part of it. I just knew my life suddenly was very different. And then the bratpack thing comes along, and that came about because of a magazine article in New York Magazine. A guy dubbed the term Bratpack in talking about this group of young actors. And it was cast originally in a real aspersion and negative term, as if we were just these entitled punks who just wanted to party and had no interest in really serious acting. And it was really detrimental to all our careers. We hated the term. All of us hated it and felt like we'd been blindsided by this guy. And what's interesting is that many things that I find interesting about it now, but there was no social media. There was no nothing. It was one magazine article in one thing for one week. And within days, the country was using the term Bratpack because it's such a good phrase. And it took off. And 35 years later, it's still going to follow me. And when I'm introduced one of the sentences is going to be a Bratpack member. It's still there. And over the decades and centuries since that happened in the Brad Pack has morphed from being kind of a real albatross to being this iconically, affectionate term that we recall with rose colored glasses about a certain generation recalls their youth in that.
Mike Sarraille [00:10:22]:
So that's interesting. I know when he wrote the article and based off the research, he basically was saying, hey, these are a bunch of privileged white kids that lack substance when it couldn't be further from the truth. And hey, got writers, journalists, it's their job to create controversy. But I do want to take it and pause for the listeners if you don't know what the Brat Pack is. That's. Emilio Estevez, of course. Andrew McCarthy. Anthony michael hall. Rob Lowe. Judd Nelson. Molly Ringwald. This, again, was the crew that was in all these films, again, sort of creating this genre for our generation, but with a Brat Pack. And again, I know it's a term not to even compare myself to you, but I was a Navy seal for 20 years. Whenever anyone introduces me, it's always Navy Seal. I mean, it's almost like it becomes like the qualifier for who you are. But it is a term of endearment now. But that's interesting. So you guys hated the term right, when it came out?
Andrew McCarthy [00:11:25]:
Oh, yeah, everyone did. I mean, it was really a negative thing and I think it affected our careers in a negative way initially too. Who wants to be called a Brat and who wants to be thrust in a pack? Particularly when you're a young actor, you want to be an individual, you want to be seen. I mean, I think any of us ever want is to be seen. See me, see me. And I suddenly I felt personally like I was not being seen then and I was just being thought of in this way that had nothing to do with who I was. And so I personally didn't like it at all and I didn't have the wherewithal to escape it in a certain way. But like I say, over time, people of that generation will see me or look at me and their eyes kind of glaze over and they go, oh, the Brat Pack. And they'll start calling something about a movie and really they're talking about their own youth. And I've become and other members of Bratpack, the avatars of people of that generation's youth and looked at with great affection. And so it's like 180 degrees from where it started and to where it has landed now. And it took me decades, though, to sort of come to terms with that and realize that that was kind of a beautiful thing and not something to.
Mike Sarraille [00:12:35]:
Be avoided, which is exactly the way I opened up this podcast. And I meant it as a term of endearment because you do it's amazing. I don't know about you. For me, if I hear a song that comes on, I can tie that to an exact memory in my youth, high school, college, or even young years in the Marine Corps. And I love that. I love that. It's so visceral. It evokes that memory.
Andrew McCarthy [00:13:04]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I'm a sort of embodiment of that to a certain generation. They see me and they go, oh my God. And they think about because there's no more sort of thrilling moment in life than when we're 1820 and your life is a blank slate to be written upon and anything can happen and you're just it's like, get out of my way. I'm coming in their world. And to help people recall that moment or represent that to people, it's a beautiful thing.
Mike Sarraille [00:13:33]:
So you can almost call the Brat Pack a cultural phenomena now.
Andrew McCarthy [00:13:40]:
And you.
Mike Sarraille [00:13:41]:
Wrote about this in your memoirs, the Bratpack in 80 Story. Let me ask you this, because as these films started to come out and you all started to appear in multiple films together, how did that affect the casting call? Or did films just naturally say, no, we're bringing in Andrew McCarthy and Emilio Estevez and Molly Ringwald. We already know who we want. I mean, did it start to work like that, or did you still have to compete for these roles?
Andrew McCarthy [00:14:09]:
I don't think I was offered a movie until I did movie called Mannequin, which is I was offered for the first time, I was offered a role overall, and I took it simply because they offered it to me. And then I remember rereading the script and going, oh, my God, this is terrible. I got to get out of this movie because I didn't have to audition for it. I wanted to do it. I think it's a lovely movie. Now. It's a very simple, sweet, open hearted movie. But one interesting thing about the Bratpack is once that term was coined, it kind of stopped the very thing that it was talking about because no one wanted to be in a movie together again after that. So the instant that came about, everyone scattered and wouldn't be in a movie. So all these youth ensemble films that were happening stopped because the term Bratpack was invented. People suddenly didn't want to be in movies together.
Mike Sarraille [00:14:55]:
Now, it was always said you guys were close. Again, the cast characters I just sort of named. Were you guys, in fact, in real world close? Did you guys hang out? Was that your circle?
Andrew McCarthy [00:15:07]:
In a word, no. I mean, I lived in New York, and I was very much alone, and very few of my friends were actors. So no, I thought they were nice people and fine, but they were not my friends in that way, and I never really hung out. I recently did that memoir you mentioned that I wrote a few years ago, Brat. It got me thinking that I had not seen any of these people in 30 odd years. So I may have just been finishing making a documentary about the Brat Pack where I went and sort of sought out all the old gang and went to Amelia's house and talked to him and hadn't seen him in 30 odd years. The same with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. And he like, I hadn't seen them decades and decades. And I went to kind of said, this is my experience of the Broadback. This is what I felt then. This is what I feel now. What's your story with it? Because it affected all our lives in such a seismic way. We were like members of this club we didn't ask to join. And I know it had and it turned out it had a very similar effect on all of our emotional lives, if not our careers. But it was a really interesting thing to go back and see everybody again because I had, and we all did had much more affection for each other and for our own youth than I ever could have imagined. So that was really a great feeling to kind of go back and really like to see Rob and just go, my god, dude, we did a movie together when we were 19 years old, and we're now old, and it's like we're still here. And to see you again, it's a beautiful thing. It was really nice.
Mike Sarraille [00:16:38]:
You're older, not old.
Andrew McCarthy [00:16:41]:
I just turned 60. Let me tell you something. 60 is the beginning of being old, and it's a really weird thing, particularly for someone if you were famous for being young, as I was, and you sort of are that for your whole life to suddenly be 60, it's like, oh, my God, that's the beginning of old. Where'd the middle go? So it was an interesting thing. I've never, ever thought about age 40, 50. I didn't blink, but 60 kind of made me go, wow, what's going on here? And it gave me pause for a few months there, and now I've kind of could see some benefits of it, but I just found it shocking, and I was shocked how shocked I was at by it.
Mike Sarraille [00:17:23]:
Yeah, you wake up one morning, and all of a sudden you're 40. You wake up one morning, and you're all of a sudden you're 45. You just wait, hey, if I make it to 60, I will contact your team and let you know, man. So you were vulnerable, and thank you. I think the greatest thing anyone can do is pass along both what led to their success and also the obstacles they face. But you were successful at a very early age, and that brought fame, and that brings complications. And, in fact, my wife and I were just watching the Aaron Carter story. I think he passed away at 35, received fame at a very early age, I believe nine, and it just sort of destroyed his life and led to substance abuse. And you talked about your addictions and the struggle and fight for sobriety, and I know there's probably a lot of people that are young listening to this that want to break into Hollywood, that want that fame, and maybe it's not necessarily fame. They want to work in Hollywood because of their passion for acting. What would you tell them? Sort of the cautionary tale that they have to be cognizant of as they step into these environments, because I know fame, money, again, like I said, brings complications.
Andrew McCarthy [00:18:47]:
Well, those are different things. I'm an alcoholic. I stopped drinking 30 years ago. But I've always said that my alcoholism and my abuse of alcohol was not caused by my success or fame or any of that stuff. I mean, it was not I think I'm an alcohol because I drank too much, and I had a tendency to drink, and I had an attraction to alcohol, and that would have happened whether I was in the movies or not. I got to drink better vodka because I was in the movies and made money. But I do not in any way blame my success, my alcoholism, on my early success that I was too young perhaps, and didn't know how to parlay my success into something or didn't have enough stable roots inside myself at that point to manage it appropriately. There's little doubt. But my caution, I told, would be, don't blame alcoholism on outside circumstances because outside circumstances do not affect or cause alcoholism. That's just bullshit. And people blame alcohol is cunning and wants to blame all sorts of outside things for it. And alcoholism is itself and no matter what you're doing, my success had nothing to do with my alcoholism. And I'm always very adamant about that, but yes, it certainly did, and it derailed my career and it railed my life for years. My alcoholism, it took me several years to realize I had a problem and then several years to do something about it. There were years where I'd go, yeah, I'm addicted to alcohol. Drink up. And I was also very more to the point, I think I was very fearful in life, and it helped me deal with fear and keep fear at bay. But alcohol is one of the sayings I like about alcohol is the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man. And you don't know when that's going to happen. It's helpful. It's helpful, it's helpful. Lubricates socially, it makes you feel sexy, powerful, strong, all these things you might not feel in real life. And then slowly invisibly, it turns in on you and devours the very thing that you thought it was helping. So it's a very slippery slope, alcohol, and something everyone has to navigate, navigate for themselves. I talk to my kids about this all the time. And also knowledge and awareness will never keep anybody from drinking and doing drugs. So anyway, that's my soapbox about that. I just think alcohol takes no prisoners and it's not fame or success because you're not prepared for it. That's too easy.
Mike Sarraille [00:21:34]:
So you just took me there with how you described and took full ownership of your then substance abuse, because that is very counter to what you hear today. People like to blame external factors for their substance abuse or for their loss or failure. That's rare. Andrew I appreciate that. And more people need to hear that. You did say something.
Andrew McCarthy [00:22:06]:
You said freedom in that. There's great freedom in just owning that as opposed to this. Because also if I wanted to go on for years, I kind of associated my being successful with I didn't blame my alcoholism on success, but I associated them. I had an image in my mind like as if one was a rock and the other was a sheet of metal that were soldered to each other. So I always thought if I became after I had stopped drinking for a number of years, I harbored a doubt that if I became successful again, I would start drinking again. And it took me years for that to kind of that image of that piece of metal soldered to a rock to dissolve and realize they had nothing to do with each other. So it allowed me the freedom then to be successful again and to have my own. It took the power back as opposed to giving the power to alcohol. It's going to prevent me from being successful because it will make me drink nonsense, if that makes any sense.
Mike Sarraille [00:23:02]:
No, it does because again, one I've seen that my failures in life are rarely driven by external factors. Almost predominantly 99% of the time are driven by my decisions.
Andrew McCarthy [00:23:18]:
Yeah. And often our decisions are based in fear. And fear I think, is our big enemy. And fear is the thing that drives us so much that we and people don't acknowledge fear because it sounds like weakness and no one wants to admit being weak. And so I think fear is the real enemy for so many of us. And I think a lot of people manifest fear manifested cover it with anger. And there's all sorts of anger going on in the world because anger feels better and more in control than fear feels. But anger in my experience is always based in fear and fear is the real enemy here.
Mike Sarraille [00:24:00]:
You couldn't be more on point to blame others point fingers and cast blame which does nothing but waste time. You're basically disregarding the faculties and that you are ultimately in control of your life.
Andrew McCarthy [00:24:14]:
I don't know if you but you're responsible for it.
Mike Sarraille [00:24:17]:
Yes, you did say something when we started. You said, I've been 30 years clean but I'm an alcoholic. If I can ask, why do you still refer to yourself as an alcoholic?
Andrew McCarthy [00:24:32]:
Well, once a pickle, you can't become a cucumber again. I think I used up my drink chips a long time ago and any good alcoholic who doesn't drink will tell you that all bets are off for tomorrow. To think you've got some and there's great again, great freedom in that. And it just reminds me that that's part of my daily life. I often don't think about it for days, weeks on end. And I don't care when people around me drink but it's not something I was if I were to pick up a drink now I have no doubt that I would be drinking a quarter of vodka a day again within days. If not weeks perhaps, but probably days. I still see that obsessive personality of mine and my thinking and my emotionality, it's all still there. And that's fine because you can sort of parlay it into useful things too. But everything is still there is no past. It's all still living inside us.
Mike Sarraille [00:25:44]:
Yeah. It reminds me of know thyself. You got to know your weaknesses. You got to know your strengths and your weaknesses.
Andrew McCarthy [00:25:53]:
It's not even what's that great. The crack phase lasts longest. It's become my greatest source of strength, without question. Not only that I recovered from it, recovering from it, but that it actually happened in the first place. Because from that, everything has the depths to which I emotionally and internally sank through that have become my greatest strengths. And it's given me empathy for other people. It's given me sort of innate. It's given me a humility that I often don't access. But that the truth is, hey, buddy, you have clay feet like everyone else and everything. So it itself is my greatest strength. Recovering from it is fantastic good. I can get on with life and have opportunities. But the nub of it, the alcoholism, that disease itself is actually the strength and that it no longer rules me as great freedom.
Mike Sarraille [00:26:51]:
You talked about fear, and I know there's a great difference between internalized fears and external fear, which comes from fear of judgment. When you're throwing and I'll give you an example for me, nobody knows who the hell I am, and that's fine. I've written two books, but even when I get a bad review, like a three star review and I read the review, it still hits me hard. And one of the things I hate about reviews is, man, I wish I could talk to that person just to hear them out, because they've probably got some nugget where I'd agree with them and I can improve my performance in my next writings. But to be young in Hollywood and as you said, and we looked it up, david Blum was the one who wrote that. The article. That's got to be overwhelming when you've got so many people writing about you both good, and I know there's good, but how did the negativity impact you at a young age? Did you learn to disregard it? And again, another example is you always hear Joe Rogan says, yeah, I don't read reviews or comments anymore.
Andrew McCarthy [00:27:58]:
I don't know that you can ever. Maybe some people can disregard it. I do read them less and less because the good ones are never going to be good enough and the bad ones are always hurt. And I found myself having a thinner skin. The older I get, it's often why I stopped acting a lot and did other things is because I wasn't going to put myself in a position to be rejected by someone I didn't respect. And so I find them of less interest, actually, reviews, sometimes they have a good point and they sort of were saying it in a bad way because they need to be provocative and have a personality on paper or on screen, too, for their style of reviewing. But sometimes they have a point, but a lot of times it's just like, who cares what you think? The older I've gotten, I have grown to believe and know to be the case that the doing of. The work is the reward. If it's successful, that's great because it just allows me easier opportunity to do the next thing that I want to do. But the reward itself is in the dirt and that I've learned to enjoy. The actual doing of it is my greatest freedom. And so, yes, you want to have a good review and it's a sell and to be successful so that it makes it easier for people to ask you to do the next one so you don't have to push a rock up a hill. But I have finally, overall grown to believe what my teachers always told me at the beginning. The reward is the work. And I think whatever work you're doing and I think that's deeply true because that's all you have. That's all you have. If you're waiting for validation from outside, you can never tell me I'm great enough. You can never tell me I'm sexy enough. You know what I mean? All that stuff, it's impossible to fill that, so it's just got to take it off the table at a certain point.
Mike Sarraille [00:29:52]:
I've always found that the the best learn the best lessons and the most enjoyable moments were the journey, not the destination. And I know that sounds like a freaking postcard, but I've never felt pride once we got to the end of a major project or major mission, but as I've grown older, learned to reflect on where we started and where we ended. And that's the beauty of it now. You beat the odds, having entered into Hollywood so young, where some people just sort of fade into the shadows. And I know some want that. But as you said, you decided to act less, but you dove into directing and writing and most notably, again, the Orange is the New Black, which was a record setting show on Netflix and as you said, has sort of changed the way we watch TV. How did you even get involved with Oranges is the New Black and talk about that? Because it was an awesome series. I remember we used to binge on that overseas on deployments.
Andrew McCarthy [00:30:54]:
Yeah, I mean, it was a terrific show. I had nothing to do with creating it. Genji Cohen did that. But I had just started a directing career, and I had directed a show for a friend of mine. Was the producer on it or someone I knew at the time weren't a friend yet. They asked me if I would want to do an episode because they couldn't get anyone to direct it because it was on this thing called Netflix, which it was like, well, what's Netflix? Don't they mail DVDs? I mean, what's it going to be on? Well, they're going to stream it. Okay, fine, but what channel is it going to be on? So nobody wanted to direct the show, which had been because nobody knew how it was going to be seen. And so I said, well, I'll do it until I did a bunch of them the first season. And then suddenly and I remember being in the producer's office when they announced, when they said, and they're going to release them all on the same day. And I remember sitting and I said out loud at the time, well, that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. And I was right again. And then suddenly the show gets on and Netflix goes through the roof, and it's this sort of cultural touchstone, and it changes the way stories are told on TV now, because now we tell these one big stories as before, that didn't used to be rarely was the case. So it was a wonderful thing to be involved in right at the ground floor. And it was wonderful, particularly with and I directed all through the seven years it was on. I'd come back and do the show often and to watch the ladies who were just so thrilled to be there at the beginning, sort of blossom into these divas and stars. It's so interesting how success affects people. It makes some people more themselves and other people get swept away.
Mike Sarraille [00:32:39]:
Was it different directing? Pretty much. It wasn't all but predominantly female cast.
Andrew McCarthy [00:32:47]:
No. I mean, the actors are actors, and I have every actor neurosis there is, so I understood them completely. And a lot of them were quite green and hadn't done a lot of things before. So you forget now. But back then, SWAT said eight, nine years ago, I guess, when it came on, and it was maybe more ten, there were very few parts that were non white, and if you were non white, you were playing a maid, basically, or something, you know what I mean? Largely. And that's how quickly things have changed. And Orange is one of the shows that helped launch that happening. But as far as working, it was just actors or actors, and a lot of them were very green and young and inexperienced. And like I said, I know all the actor tricks and fears and anxiety, so I was able to communicate with them very easily. So they liked me and trusted me. As an actor, you start with two strikes for you, not against you when you're directing, because actors know, oh, you're one of us.
Mike Sarraille [00:33:48]:
Okay, so they all knew who you were, they knew your past. Did you find a lot of them? You said they were green, come to you one on one for coaching or mentoring or advice throughout the series?
Andrew McCarthy [00:34:02]:
No, and that's not my place. I'm just here to again, it's like nobody listens to anything anyway. People just watch you and learn by example and things. So, I mean, if I taught them anything, it's just the way I worked and just sort of, we're going to work now. We're not messing with this isn't we're going to work and work is great and it's fun, but we're working. So some people who were scattered would suddenly go and focus in. And so that was nice to be able to lead by example in that way. But it's like this is working we're doing now. This isn't about getting fluffed and puffed and being getting a lot of attention. We're trying to figure out how to make this scene work. So focus over here is what we're doing.
Mike Sarraille [00:34:44]:
You just said my favorite three words, lead by example, which leadership is about behavior. And that is what we call the golden rule of the military. So do you consider yourself when it's time to work? Like, no more small talk. We're focused, we're lasered in. Do you have a certain operational rigor when it's go time?
Andrew McCarthy [00:35:09]:
The answer is yes. And it took me a long time to own that, that I know how to go to work. Not everyone knows how to go to work. Like, you're just saying it's like, when it's time to go, get out of the way because we're going and get on board and it's over here. We're right here now. We're not anywhere else, guys, we're over here. Come on. And whether it's I don't know. I can only imagine what you did in the military, but I imagine the same kind of thing. Focus here, go and be ready to go. And when your opportunity comes, be ready because it's not going to come a second time. So that's one of the things, like when I was young, I had this opportunity and I wasn't particularly emotionally ready. Whether my acting talent was ready or not, it's debatable. But that I emotionally wasn't ready, there's no question. So I learned from that. And so when I got other opportunities later, I knew go back to the work and be ready to go. When the call comes, be ready to go and step into it. I direct a lot of television now and I have many people, what they call shadowing new people come and watch me direct so they can learn how to do it. And because I've directed like 100 hours of television now and so I know how to do it because I've been on a movie set and TV set my whole life and I've directed lots of different shows and I do it a lot. So I know how to do it and I have an aptitude for it. And what I say to people who are coming in and watching, I go, look, at 07:00 a.m. 50 people are going to look at you and go, what are we doing? And if you don't know, you fake it. You go, we're here, everybody, we're here, we're doing this. Go. And you can have somebody come up to you and whisper and go, andrew, it would be better if we did it over there. And you can change your mind, but you have to make a decision and you have to go. You know this better than me. I'm sure. And then you're accountable for that decision. And that's a wonderful feeling to have that opportunity, and you have to step into it. You can't kind of at 07:00, when 50 people look at you go, what do we do? You can't go, I don't know. Let's see. In that instance, the entire crew. You'll lose them, you will lose everyone. They'll go, oh, jeez. You know what I mean?
Mike Sarraille [00:37:17]:
It doesn't matter what profession you're in. I had Sammy Hagar on who. God, what a great episode like this. But I asked him, I said, hey, were you just more talented than all the other vocalists? He said by no means. He's like, was I on par? Yeah, but I outworked them all. While they were out drinking, I was in the studio singing. And it's the same every person I've had bernie Marcus, the billionaire, founder, CEO of Home Depot everyone attributes their success not to their innate talent, but rather the amount of focus, discipline, and hard work that they put in. And everyone wants to be a director until they probably shadow you and realize it's 07:00 A.m. Until 12:00 p.m.. And they're like, yeah, I don't want this. I don't want to do that.
Andrew McCarthy [00:38:11]:
Ben Hogan, the great golfer, people say, what's the secret? He goes, the secret is in the dirt. Meaning he just practiced over and over and over and over. And then so when the game time comes, you just automatically hit that shot. And there's nothing to boast about. It's just knowing how to and luckily, the beauty of going to work and working hard is that it's very stabilizing and grounding. So when the shit hits the fan, you can just go back to that. And there's great relief in work. I found as I've gotten older. That's just the great relief of work.
Mike Sarraille [00:38:45]:
Again, just societally, we're seeing people struggling to find their passion or the inability to find relief in work. I don't know if this is my nurturing, my raising by my parents. Part of my DNA is found in work, and I can tell and sense it with you. One, you found your passion, but you still pride yourself in just working hard. And once you can, I find that life's a lot more enjoyable. I don't actually hate coming into work. I love it. I look forward to it. I can't wait to get out of bed. So, no, it's good to hear somebody from a completely different profession say that. But Andrew, I do want to get into go ahead.
Andrew McCarthy [00:39:26]:
I'm sorry. I always say it's just laying brick. You're just laying brick. You go to work and cement it up, put it in, make a nice corner. Next, do it again. Sometimes inspiration hits and you relay a beautiful brick, but most of the time, you're doing what you know. You're laboring.
Mike Sarraille [00:39:46]:
You can't see it, but the white board says, get shit done. The black board says, make shit happen. And the one behind me says, do it all again tomorrow. That's the warrior away. And warrior is about being a mindset, not the profession of arms. Andrew so you do have a passion, which hey, man, this is one of my passions, travel. Early on in your career, were you traveling or was that something you started doing when you started to step outside? Acting. I know you became actually a travel writer, an award winning travel writer. That seems like an odd leap from acting to travel writer.
Andrew McCarthy [00:40:24]:
Yeah, I'm not a very good businessman. It's pretty downwardly mobile. But, yeah, I mean, that started because in the early 90s, after my sort of acting career, of that flutter that happened when I was young that we were talking about in the Brad pack and all that. And then I stopped drinking, got my life together a little bit, and then I walked across the Camino de Santiago, which is this ancient pilgrimage route in Spain. I walked 500 miles across Spain, and that was a real life changer for me. And that to go back to fear. There was a moment in that when I sort of broke down in the middle of a field of wheat walking across Spain, and had this sort of white light experience and realized how much fear had been a dominant factor in my life. So much so that I was never aware of its existence until that moment of its first absence. And that really changed my life. Fear doesn't go away the minute you have recognized it, but anything you can kind of see like that, it loses its blind power over you. So I'm then able to sort of see when it's seeping in and creeping up on me. So it liberated me from the dictatorial rule of fear in a real way. And so, anyway, I started to make a long story longer. I started traveling a lot because I loved the feeling. I felt like myself. Suddenly, when that fear was lifted for me, I felt like myself. I felt the same way I felt when I was 15 years old and I walked out on stage and went, oh, my God, there I am. That's what I want to be. And I felt myself in that field of wheat in Spain. I'm like, oh, my God. There I am, without fear. Here I am. And so I wanted more of that feeling, and I got it when I was traveling. So I kept traveling, and I traveled the world alone a lot. And I think traveling alone is a really important thing and is life changing, and people don't do it because they're afraid anyway. So I started writing about my travels for myself. Not journaling, because I didn't like journaling. I found it indulgent. But I started writing about people I met, things I did. And eventually that grew into a travel writing career. I started writing for a magazine. I met an editor and I said, Dude, you ought to let me write for your magazine. And he said, you're an actor, dude. And I said, yeah, but I can tell a story. That's what I do. And if you don't like it, you don't have to pay me. And he said, OOH, I can live with that. So anyway, I wrote an article for magazine, then I wrote another, and then it just took off and got a life of its own and became this sort of accidental second career. And I loved doing it. There was no one who loved doing it more than I did. And that always shows. If you love your work, it shows. And it made me feel like myself. I felt like myself when I did it. And that's all I ever wanted in life, was to feel the best version of me, right? And so I became a travel writer, and I worked with National Geographic Traveler for years, and I loved it, and that grew into books and whatnot, and it was a great creative rebirth for me in a time when I needed it.
Mike Sarraille [00:43:16]:
What was it about? So I'm a proponent of travel. I think everyone should travel more, especially outside the United States, because it broadens your perspective. It gives you one perspective is huge. I do find myself fortunate to have traveled to so many horrible places where there are great people, horrible places, great people, war torn. But it broadened my perspectives. Every time I came back to the United States, I'm like, okay, what am I complaining about? I just saw probably a four year old boy and a six year old girl in the Kumbu region of Nepal bathing in 50 deg weather, and they weren't screaming their heads off, because if I jump in that water, you see me jump right out. What was it about travel that you enjoyed so much? Was it the growth in learning, or was it simply seeing new sites and talking to people culture? What was it?
Andrew McCarthy [00:44:06]:
Well, I used to travel sort of a university of my life. I was revealed to myself the further from home I got, the more at home in myself I became whenever I travel. And I think travel elicits a sense of wonder in us, and that when we have a sense of wonder, we're open again. We're open hearted again. We're not cynical. We're not too cool for school. Wonder is a very open feeling and open hearted feeling, and I think that we could all use a little bit more of that. I mean, Mark Twain had the great line, travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness. And I do think when you say traveling out of the country, I think Americans should travel much more than we do. I think America is a great country. I'm proud to be American. I wouldn't want to be anything else but American. But I think America is also very, very fearful in many ways, and we're sold a bill of goods about how the rest of the world to be feared, and they're after us, and that's bullshit, and it's not my experience. And they're amazing people out there. They may not agree with our government, but what's interesting is many people in the world, as you can attest to, I'm sure people can tell the difference between the government and the people. Like, we just lump them all in one thing, whereas other people go, I don't really like your government, but Americans are wonderful because we're open, we're interested, we're curious, we're polite. If more Americans traveled, the world would be a very different place. What's? 38% of Americans have passports. Half of us have ever used them. I think if Americans got off the couch and went out into the world, you'd see that guy doesn't hate you, isn't trying to kill you, probably. I'm talking not work that you did, but I'm talking about the people, and I think they'd come back different and changed by that. And I think we should make up our own minds about what the world is like and who's in it, and not being sold a bill of goods by people who have a very specific agenda to keep us fear based.
Mike Sarraille [00:45:57]:
Travel is the university of life. I am stealing that from you. I love that. It's poetic. No, you're right, dude. So it's easy to say if I went to war, to Iraq and Afghanistan so often that I hate these type of people. No, it's not. What I found was when you talk to the people over there, one, they didn't choose to be in a war torn country. Two, there is such a shared commonality. When you talk to a father in Iraq, he just wants peace and prosperity for his family. That's it. Which is no different than any Americans you talk about. And this took me a while. When I left the military, pretty much 20 years in special operations, it was a good business vendor that looked at me and said, mike, not everyone's an enemy. And it sort of been bred into me.
Andrew McCarthy [00:46:51]:
That's a good line.
Mike Sarraille [00:46:55]:
Well, again, I'm going to tie back to something else. It's so funny, but there are more commonalities between humans than there are differentiators. And the fact that government is run by this elite pool for every country that has their own agenda, naturally they want to pin us against China. And there's a mentor of mine who was a four star admiral, and he said, we have to stop looking at China as an enemy. They're a pure competitor. But there are some things we can consider a joint venture where we can better the world, and it just creates you got to have dialogue, man. You just got to enter dialogue, and you can always find common ground. But if you view everyone as an enemy, it's a zero sum game. Somebody wins. Meaning with a zero sum game, someone has to lose. I just had Renee morbon on. She wrote Blue Ocean Shift, which is one of the top selling business strategy books, and it talked about creating these new market spaces. And we often use the word disruption, but when you use the word disruption to enter into an existing market space, that means you're coming into a pool that already has multiple competitors. And basically you're saying, I'm going to disrupt your company in order to take a piece of the market share, and no company is going to say yes to that. They're going to be like, no, we're going to fight you tooth and nail. Well, she's saying true innovation is going where there is no marketplace, that you don't disrupt other companies, force people to lose jobs and disrupt society. And we just had her on and her book released Beyond Disruption this Tuesday or yesterday. Again, it's amazing. It reframed. I'm like, you know what? That is genius, because so many business leaders are like, hey, we're going to go into the space and they're our enemy when they're not. I appreciate that, man. It's good hearing that from you.
Andrew McCarthy [00:48:57]:
And it creates an internal space, too. Like, you do your thing, I'm going to do my thing, and we're not in competition. There's this idea that there's only so much of the pie and I'm getting mine and you are not getting it. And you can just feel the tension in that and the negativity and the strain in that, and it's easy to fall into that. But I think certainly creativity doesn't operate that way, and original thinking doesn't operate in that with that kind of tension. I think that something else is a broader roomier way to operate.
Mike Sarraille [00:49:37]:
It is studying other cultures, but more importantly, going to see those cultures in action and talk with people is just a spiritual experience. And I'm appreciative for the opportunities because I know financially, some people just don't have that opportunity, and that sucks. Do you still intend to travel? You still make every opportunity to travel as much as you can?
Andrew McCarthy [00:50:03]:
I just came back from Botswana two days ago. I was there doing an article for a magazine. I took my nine year old son with me and we were in Botswana. Yeah.
Mike Sarraille [00:50:12]:
What was the one thing he learned? Is there something in particular he took away from that trip?
Andrew McCarthy [00:50:17]:
Well, how deep to dig the hole in the ground where he had to take a poop?
Mike Sarraille [00:50:25]:
It makes you feel appreciative for what you have when you get home.
Andrew McCarthy [00:50:29]:
Well, and it also besides that. Yes, of course. But also that you can do that and take care of yourself out in the world and that you're safe out in the world. And then when you feel safe out there, you feel an internal safety and so you don't have that kind of strain. And yes, of course you come home and you go. This is great, of course, because we are very blessed and lucky here. But there's also something with all the stuff we have, it takes away from ourself in a very real way. There's something about digging a hole and taking a shit in the ground that's deeply satisfying.
Mike Sarraille [00:51:04]:
Again, even if it's not travel, let's say you can't travel. Find a way to get out into nature. Nature is next to god.
Andrew McCarthy [00:51:09]:
Well, nature will change the way. Yes, absolutely.
Mike Sarraille [00:51:13]:
So I've got to assume you also got heavily into photography as well, with your travels.
Andrew McCarthy [00:51:20]:
I'm not a great photographer, no. They're different beasts. Writing about it and photographing are different sort of jobs and different mindsets, and I don't have the technical facilities for that kind of thing.
Mike Sarraille [00:51:33]:
Do you try to document anything photographically? Yes. Okay, good buddy. Just bought a leica. They're beautiful cameras.
Andrew McCarthy [00:51:43]:
Oh, they are beautiful cameras.
Mike Sarraille [00:51:45]:
Expensive. Well, Andrew, I know one. You've got a new book coming out next week, next Tuesday. Tell us a little bit about that and why you're so excited to share that with the world and what you hope they can take away from it.
Andrew McCarthy [00:52:00]:
Well, it's a lot of all. What we've been talking about the books are called Walking with Sam. It's a walk I took about the Camino de Santiago that we were talking about earlier that I did 25 years ago. I took it this last year with my son, my 19 year old son. And we walked across Spain for 500 miles together. And it was in an effort to kind of transform our relationship from one of father child to sort of adults. My relationship with my dad ended when I was 17 and left the house, and we never had one for the rest of his life. And I didn't want that to happen with my kids. So we walked across Spain together and all the things, really, that we've been talking about and finding space for ourselves and for each other and discovering who we really are as people as opposed to the dynamic that had existed in our home which was loving and good. But I was still the dynamic of father child, parent child and trying to sort of transform that in a way to see. I see you. I see who you are as a young man. And I'm allowing you to see me as a flawed person with clay feet who is trying their best in the world just as you are, as opposed to the dad who knows everything. So it's a book about the journey, the physical journey and the emotional one that we took across Spain for 500 months.
Mike Sarraille [00:53:19]:
I love that Native American tribes do that for their young man. They hold a ceremony where they see them. They recognize them now not as a child, but as a man. And I think that is, again, spiritual. I think it helps with the maturation of young men and young women, and.
Andrew McCarthy [00:53:39]:
It helps see them to stop seeing them as children and to see them as if we don't hold them as men and women, then they're going to turn away from us because you're, like, you don't see me, so I'm not allowing you in. And all I want is my kids to be allowed in and allow them into me.
Mike Sarraille [00:54:00]:
Powerful. Powerful. How long did it take to write that book?
Andrew McCarthy [00:54:05]:
The book? I wrote a draft in four months. Messed around for several months, got some read. It takes about a year.
Mike Sarraille [00:54:11]:
It took you a year?
Andrew McCarthy [00:54:12]:
Okay.
Mike Sarraille [00:54:13]:
Much quicker than I am. It takes me about two years to turn out a book. Not as skilled or astute as you. Well, Andrew, I can't thank you enough for the opportunity. I learned so much about you that, again, I didn't know. Appreciate the fact that and I say this for a lot of people in my genre, you are a part of our youth, and that is awesome. You evoke certain memories, but we end this podcast in a certain way. One, we believe in breadcrumbs. You talk to people who've met with both success and failure. They'll give you breadcrumbs to follow. Some will work for you, some won't. We ask people, much like you would look at your children and say, hey, if you do these three things, these tenants, they'll lead to a higher probability of success. What have been those three things for you that you consistently stick with? I mean, you said hard work is that when it's time, you you grind. What are those three things that that you would hope those lessons you'd pass to your your kids.
Andrew McCarthy [00:55:17]:
Show up, find your most thing. I would say what I try and give my kids is learn to recognize your inner voice and follow it. That's all you have at the end of the day, is that internal guidance and learn to recognize it and trust it.
Mike Sarraille [00:55:41]:
That is powerful. And I know you talked about the white light moment, both first on stage at a young age and then on the walk with Sam, I know, years earlier, but additionally, last question. You've lived one hell of a life. Millions have watched you. Millions. At the end of the day, what do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people's memories of you to be? What impact would you have wanted to have on the world?
Andrew McCarthy [00:56:13]:
Dude, am I that old?
Mike Sarraille [00:56:15]:
No, we're talking 40 years. 40 years from now. 50 years, maybe.
Andrew McCarthy [00:56:19]:
I always say when people ask you things, I always say it's none of my business. I think that's sort of this grand self regard. It's none of my business. I just suit up and show up and the chips fall where they may. And it's not for me to say.
Mike Sarraille [00:56:37]:
You know what? You're not the first one to say that. And that is absolutely fair. It's good. Some people. It's like saying are you a good leader? I don't know. That's for other people to determine and I have no effect on their perceptions or their opinions.
Andrew McCarthy [00:56:55]:
That strike me as a bit disingenuous, I think, at times, because people do know if they're a good leader because that's either active part of your job in a certain way. But I do think it's none of our business what people think of us.
Mike Sarraille [00:57:06]:
Once you understand that that's powerful is people's perceptions of me are no concern of mine. That is theirs. And they're entitled to that, much like free speech. And I love that. Where can people find the book again? It's out next Tuesday.
Andrew McCarthy [00:57:20]:
Yeah, I mean it's out May 9. So wherever books are found, online stores.
Mike Sarraille [00:57:26]:
Yeah, the typical answer. Okay, Amazon anywhere else guys go look it up. We'll drop all the links. Walking with Sam I'm excited for it because one I think that is a beautiful thing between a son and a father and that you took the time to walk 500 miles across. Paid. Andrew, I can't thank you enough for joining us and for everyone. This has been the men's journal everyday warrior. I'm your host Mike Sorelli. Again, we'll see you next time.
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/BMh81mC
via IFTTT