{"id":272242,"date":"2026-02-07T11:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T11:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/272242\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T11:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T11:07:17","slug":"perks-of-fame-involve-vanity-ego-and-sex-all-three-get-you-in-trouble-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/272242\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Perks of fame involve vanity, ego and sex \u2013 all three get you in trouble\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTry to keep your cool,\u201d my 16-year-old daughter instructed as I left the house to interview Andrew McCarthy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The night before we had rewatched one of his most enduring movies from the 1980s, Pretty in Pink. That movie turns 40 years old this year, but the universal language of teenage longing is so perfectly expressed in John Hughes\u2019 script (and exceptional soundtrack) that it seems to defy the decades, appealing to 16-year-olds both then and now. <\/p>\n

Key to the film\u2019s endurance is the performance of fresh-faced McCarthy, who plays sensitive high school heart-throb Blane to Molly Ringwald<\/a>\u2019s red-haired thrift store heroine Andie. It\u2019s a movie that perfectly captures what it\u2019s like to be a teenager in love. <\/p>\n

Everybody, including my daughter, knows those teenage feelings are so powerful, so deeply felt that they can easily resurface in, say, a journalist in her mid-50s, even in a professional setting. Of all the movie stars of the 1980s, McCarthy, star of St Elmo\u2019s Fire, Mannequin, Less Than Zero and the gloriously silly Weekend at Bernie\u2019s, was the heart-throb who stole my teenage heart. As he sits before me sipping coffee in an inner-city Dublin hotel, 63 now, brow slightly more furrowed, but still unmistakably Andrew McCarthy, I try to keep my cool. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s here to talk about his role in The Crucible, Arthur Miller<\/a>\u2019s allegorical play about the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. It\u2019s a play about mass hysteria, paranoia and false accusations. It feels timely? \u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s always timely,\u201d says McCarthy.<\/p>\n

Rehearsals for the show, which also stars Charlene McKenna<\/a> and Rory Nolan<\/a>, are taking place nearby. He\u2019s enjoying the challenge; it\u2019s 20 years since he has acted on stage. \u201cI always thought, when I got old I would go back to it. And now I\u2019m old I think I should go back to it while I can still walk,\u201d he smiles. He does a fair bit of hot yoga, so the not walking part is probably still a while off. <\/p>\n

In the past 20 years he has carved out two other careers, becoming an acclaimed travel writer and editor-at-large for the National Geographic<\/a>, and the author of several compulsively readable travel books\/memoirs. His work as a director includes shows such as Orange Is the New Black and Gossip Girl. But it was acting that always helped him \u201cmake sense to myself … when I look back on being in plays, it was the happiest time. It was just a lovely way to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

His role in The Crucible was the bright idea of casting director Maureen Hughes. McCarthy hired Hughes 25 years ago when he was working on his first feature as a director: a short film of the Frank O\u2019Connor story News for the Church that was shot in Ireland and later screened at the Galway Film Fleadh, where he first met his Dublin-born wife, the film-maker and playwright Dolores Rice (more on that real-life romcom later). The couple have homes in Dublin and New York, and two children, Willow (19) and Rowan (11), together. McCarthy has another son Sam (23) from his first marriage, to actor Carol Schneider. <\/p>\n

At the moment, Rice is back in New York. \u201cI was walking down Dame Street earlier, on a call to her, and she was saying how strange it is that I am here and she\u2019s over there,\u201d he says. \u201cShe asked if I was enjoying myself, and of course I am. No matter where they are, actors always enjoy it when they are doing good work.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"DemiDemi Moore and Andrew McCarthy in St Elmo’s Fire <\/p>\n

The Crucible, one of the plays most frequently performed around the world, is \u201cgood work\u201d. Writing in the New York Times in 1996, 50 years after he wrote this theatrical allegory for the anti-communist McCarthy era in America, Miller reflected on his inspiration. He could have been writing about America today: \u201cGradually, all the old political morality had melted like a Dali watch … the thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a very smart man, wasn\u2019t he?\u201d McCarthy says when I read him the quote. <\/p>\n

In his memoir Brat: An \u201980s Story, the actor gave a compelling account of another McCarthy era, when young actors such as James Spader, Rob Lowe<\/a>, Demi Moore<\/a> and Ally Sheedy came to prominence under the Brat Pack tag coined by a writer in New York magazine. <\/p>\n

McCarthy made it big but got lost for a while in a haze of fame, fear and alcohol addiction. His early life in showbiz had a much more wholesome origin story. At 15, he was cast as the Artful Dodger in his New Jersey High School\u2019s production of Oliver! <\/p>\n

\u201cActing saved my life,\u201d he writes in the book. \u201cWhen I stepped on stage as the Artful Dodger, all those years ago, a light went on inside me that has never gone out. I came close to extinguishing it through alcohol, but my subsequent recovery, like a crucible, has only changed its form and added another you to its flame.\u201d He has been sober for 34 years. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting, given his latest role, that he used the crucible metaphor for his struggle with alcohol. We talk about our shared experiences of giving up drink, him decades ago, me more recently, the miraculous gift of it. For McCarthy, quitting was \u201can example of grace, exerting itself in my life. Something happened to me that I did nothing to earn, and it\u2019s my obligation to acknowledge that every day. Because as any good drinker will tell you, all bets are off for tomorrow. My part of the deal is to acknowledge that grace acted upon my life. If I just acknowledge it every day, it\u2019s like I\u2019ve paid my parking for that day.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew McCarthy: ‘Acting saved my life when I was young. Anybody who gets to do that for a living, to have a creative life, is very lucky … it\u2019s a wonderful gift.’ Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are moments in your life when you\u2019re in a crucible, and they\u2019re just awful. And the only thing you can do is wait for the transformation and just keep going. In hindsight we look back on them and say, \u2018Okay, that moment happened in a crucible and thank God it did.\u2019 But at the time, you know, it\u2019s just hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what McCarthy finds so captivating about the play. McCarthy plays Deputy Governor Danforth, the judge presiding over the witch trials. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in the middle of it, in this f**king hell, and everybody is right, everybody on every side is right. It\u2019s just like in life. I\u2019m playing this guy, he\u2019s absolutely right, as far as the information they had at the time. There are witches, they are absolutely real, and my character thinks, \u2018If we don\u2019t do this as a society, we will perish and our souls will be damned to hell. I seem to be alone in having to save this,\u2019 you know what I mean? It\u2019s all life and death … Miller is accused of being such a moralist and you can take whatever side of that you like.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarthy was in London recently to watch another Miller play, All My Sons, starring Bryan Cranston<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s the same thing, the inexorable tightening of the screws to the end. It\u2019s just monumental on an emotional level. And Arthur Miller demands the truth.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the ultimate challenge. \u201cYou have to go there otherwise you risk a very embarrassing, cringey moment if you don\u2019t fill it with truth … you can\u2019t casually act your way through Arthur Miller. There are shows you can cover your ass with, but you can\u2019t do that here. There\u2019s nowhere to hide. You have to meet it and whether you\u2019re able to meet it or not is another question. You\u2019re going to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He seems to be relishing his impending return to the stage. As a young man he was a member of the \u201coff, off Broadway\u201d company Ensemble Theatre. He studied acting in NYU before he was kicked out for not attending classes. <\/p>\n

\"JonJon Cryer, Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy on set of the film Pretty in Pink, 1986. Photograph: Paramount\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cAll I ever thought about was being in plays, that\u2019s what I was hoping to do. Then I was plucked from the weeds to be in a movie [Class] that changed the whole trajectory of my life. But it wasn\u2019t the plan … there\u2019s that sense of camaraderie in theatre. Because it\u2019s a lonely business, right? You are on your own doing it. I happen to be a person who likes to be on their own, but when you get in the company of people it\u2019s a nice feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1985, after filming Pretty in Pink, he starred in Boys of Winter on Broadway, a play about Vietnam veterans, with Matt Dillon, Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes. \u201cIt was a wonderful play. It was before Vietnam became fashionable, at the time it wasn\u2019t spoken about.\u201d <\/p>\n

His head was shaved for Boys of Winter, which became a problem when he was called back to Los Angeles to shoot a new ending for Pretty in Pink. The original ending had Andie, Molly Ringwald\u2019s character, getting together with her kooky friend Duckie. But in test screenings teen audiences loved the movie but hated that conclusion, demanding the fairytale, Andie ending up with McCarthy\u2019s character Blane. McCarthy had to wear a wig to shoot the reworked final scene at the prom where he whispers, \u201cI love you, always,\u201d into Andie\u2019s ear. \u201cIt was a terrible wig. It\u2019s really just bad wig acting,\u201d he smiles. <\/p>\n

It took McCarthy years to come to terms with how deeply people like me felt about his films, especially Pretty in Pink. In his memoir, he says the film represents \u201ca moment of youth that transcends acting, that freshness was a quality not a skill\u201d. <\/p>\n

Forty years later he has come to understand why the film means so much to so many. He describes it now as being \u201clike that five minutes at dawn … that moment in life when you are blossoming and it\u2019s a beautiful, precious, fleeting moment. It\u2019s thrilling. And everybody wants a piece of that, they want to recapture what that felt like … people come up to me and other people from that era or the Brat Pack and their eyes start glazing over. They\u2019re not talking to me. They are talking to that moment in their own lives when your life is a blank slate to be written on … it took me decades to appreciate it and to realise what a gift that is, so I could just stand there and receive that gratitude from them. That\u2019s what I think I am. An avatar of youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m hoping my eyes aren\u2019t glazing over (\u201ctry to keep your cool\u201d) as we talk and I ask, as a sensitive person who enjoys solitude, whether he was suited to the level of fame he experienced in the 1980s. He doesn\u2019t think anybody is. <\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew McCarthy on fame: ‘Everyone loses their shit over Hollywood success … sometimes when I observe it I lose respect for people.’ Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

\u201cI always understood that it had no inherent value and that it wasn\u2019t going to do what you hoped it would. I like the perks of it, but then again are they particularly good for me? No. Because the perks of fame involve vanity, ego and sex, and all three of those get you into trouble and we want them all. But is that the best thing for our development as human beings? Probably not, and yet you can still crave it because there is no stardom like movie stardom. I\u2019ve seen people who are wildly successful in other fields lose their dignity over someone who is show business famous. And I\u2019m amazed. Everyone loses their shit over Hollywood success … sometimes when I observe it I lose respect for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably, fame altered some of his friendships and family ties. He already had a volatile relationship with his father as a younger person. \u201cNo son of mine is going to become a f**king thespian,\u201d was his father\u2019s reaction when he wanted to study acting. Later, when McCarthy became well known and wealthy, his father would often ask him for money. Later still, when his father was dying, McCarthy went to his bedside despite the fractured bond. <\/p>\n

\u201cI went for simply selfish reasons, to be a better parent to my own kids. We didn\u2019t solve our past, we just put it down and that was wonderfully liberating.\u201d How did it help his parenting? \u201cIt helped me get back to the love as opposed to the fear and resentment.\u201d <\/p>\n

For a long time, fear was a constant in McCarthy\u2019s life. He has spoken and written about it a lot. \u201cFear was so ever-present that I was unaware of its existence. It\u2019s like the old joke of the fish. Two fish swim by each other and one says, \u2018Ain\u2019t the water fine today?\u2019 and the other one says, \u2018What water?\u2019 Many people refuse to acknowledge the fear, because it can be construed as weakness, particularly for a man. I found fear to be a dominant characteristic in my life. Why? I don\u2019t know and it doesn\u2019t matter. But I\u2019ve experienced a great deal of it.\u201d <\/p>\n

His mother died recently; she had left his father decades before. He was with her, too, when she died. He mentions in passing that it was his wife, Dolores, who encouraged him to go to his father at the end. \u201cShe said, you need to go see your dad and I realised she was right.\u201d In the acknowledgments of one of his books, he thanks Dolores, \u201cwho raises the bar on everything\u201d. \u201cWomen tend to be wiser,\u201d he says when I bring it up.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew McCarthy with his wife, the Dublin-born film-maker and playwright Dolores Rice, in April 2008. Photograph: Charles Eshelman\/FilmMagic <\/p>\n

The story of how Andrew McCarthy ended up with Dolores Rice would make a fantastic, if slightly unbelievable, movie plot. At the age of nine, the story goes, Rice watched Catholic Boys at home in Dublin with a friend and announced, \u201cWhen I grow up I\u2019m going to move to America and marry that boy.\u201d In 2004, all grown up, she spotted McCarthy in the lobby of the former Great Southern Hotel after a screening of his film. She went over to say hello and compliment his movie. They shook hands \u2013 a brief encounter that stayed with the actor for weeks afterwards.<\/p>\n

In one interview, Rice told a journalist that during that short meeting she jokily relayed her childhood prediction of marriage to McCarthy. McCarthy is unsure about this. \u201cI think if she told me that I probably would have run for the hills,\u201d he says with a grin. Either way, a couple of weeks later he emailed the festival organiser for Rice\u2019s contact number, pretending he\u2019d mislaid it. They met for coffee when he was back in Ireland and spent the next several days together. His excellent and deeply personal book The Longest Way Home: One Man\u2019s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down tells the story of how in the months leading up to their wedding day he went travelling alone to places as remote as Patagonia and Kilimanjaro as a way to prepare himself for that next momentous step in their relationship. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat whole book is about the questions of how do we have intimacy and keep our inherent solitude? I think the answer is that it\u2019s impossible but it\u2019s the only game in town. I couldn\u2019t be in a relationship where it\u2019s \u2018we\u2019re together, we\u2019ll do everything together\u2019. His wife, he says, is \u201cwildly extroverted and I\u2019m on the other end of the scale. I can tip over from my solitude easily into isolation, which isn\u2019t good for anyone. So it\u2019s a balance game.\u201d <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think people or countries get rich gracefully and Ireland certainly didn\u2019t<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Andrew McCarthy on the Celtic Tiger<\/p>\n

It all worked out nicely in the end. In August 2011 McCarthy returned from his travels and Rice married \u201cthat boy\u201d, celebrating with an al fresco party in Dublin\u2019s Dartmouth Square.<\/p>\n

McCarthy\u2019s first trip to Ireland was back in 1986 where he met Tommy Ahern, a former captain of Lahinch Golf Club, who gave him an overseas life membership to the Co Clare course. He\u2019s written a lot about Ireland, tracing his roots to Duagh, Co Kerry. How does he feel about how the country of his ancestors has evolved? <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first came things were pretty tough economically and then I saw the Celtic Tiger, when I think the Irish would be first to say they lost the run of themselves. I remember seeing someone decant white wine, that was a moment. I don\u2019t think people or countries get rich gracefully and Ireland certainly didn\u2019t. And then when it all fell apart, it came back to itself. I can\u2019t speak politically, I don\u2019t follow Irish politics, but Ireland seems to be in a nice place.\u201d<\/p>\n

His next book is called Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America. The idea for it started with his son Sam. A couple of years ago Sam was sitting on the floor with his guitar, telling a story about one of his friends. \u201cAnd then he looked up at me and said, \u2018You don\u2019t really have any friends, do you, Dad?\u2019 The way a kid will just sort of say the truth from his perspective. And I said, \u2018I do have friends, Sam, I just don\u2019t see them, but I know they are there and that\u2019s enough.\u2019\u201d His elder son went off to see his girlfriend. \u201cI sat there with that. And I thought, \u2018That\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarthy thought about the friends that were instrumental in his life. Like him, they\u2019d moved on, had kids and lived whole lives. He hadn\u2019t seen some of them in decades. \u201cI needed to go and see these people. So I got in my car and drove 10,000 miles across 22 states and saw my old friends.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew McCarthy on The Crucible: ‘The deeper you dig the more gold there is.’ Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Along the way he started talking to other men, strangers, approaching them on the street to ask about their friendships. \u201cThere\u2019s this loneliness epidemic. The statistics are staggering about men without friends. There are so many men that have no connections with other men. I\u2019m very much a loner, someone who is happy in my own company. I can spend days without talking, but at a certain point it crosses that line, so it was great for me to go back and see my friends. It felt like suddenly there was a safety net under me that I don\u2019t usually have or usually feel. That was a relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Palestine: Peace de Resistance review \u2013 A tricky attempt to extract laughs from bleak materialOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

As he drove across the US, he talked to his friends and strangers about the value of their platonic relationships. He didn\u2019t talk politics with the new people he met. \u201cIt was clear where most people stood, and anyway, when you talk politics, there\u2019s anger and defence and judgment. I wasn\u2019t interested in that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Does he tend to avoid politics generally? \u201cNo, I get into it,\u201d he says, laughing at the contradiction. \u201cJust myself, on my phone, I try not to, I fail. I actively have to remind myself that I don\u2019t need to listen to him speak again.\u201d (He doesn\u2019t need to explain who he means by \u201chim\u201d.) \u201cYou definitely come to the point where the time in front of you is limited, it\u2019s like, I don\u2019t want to be wasting my f**king time here.\u201d<\/p>\n

How are The Crucible rehearsals going? \u201cI\u2019ve spent so much of the last decade and a half directing television, where you\u2019re the grown-up in the room solving problems quickly. This is not that. This is much more about process … this is a big play. The deeper you dig the more gold there is.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Blindboy: \u2018I\u2019ve been called a pr**k every day for 20 years by a stranger. It chips away\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He\u2019s interested in observing himself as an actor. He\u2019s noticing things: \u201cOh, this is easier now. Oh, that\u2019s harder now. Oh, this is no effort at all.\u201d He mentions Bob Dylan, \u201cnot that I am comparing myself to Dylan\u201d, who was once asked to sing one of his early songs and said \u201cI don\u2019t do that any more, I do other things now\u201d. Understandably, McCarthy can no longer capture the innocence of something like Pretty in Pink, \u201cbut I have other things I can do\u201d.<\/p>\n

Two of his three children are actors. His daughter Willow starred in Matilda on Broadway. His son Sam has been in television shows, most recently Goosebumps. Do his children ask him for advice about acting? \u201cWell, not any more,\u201d he laughs. \u201cMy son is smart enough to go, \u2018If anybody else told me that, Dad, I\u2019d think it was good advice. You telling me? I just can\u2019t.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Given what he said earlier about fame, you might expect him to be wary of his children being actors. In fact, he is happy for them. \u201cActing saved my life when I was young. Anybody who gets to do that for a living, to have a creative life, is very lucky … it\u2019s a wonderful gift. It\u2019s a wonderful life. When all is said and done it\u2019s been pretty good to me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Andrew McCarthy stars in The Crucible by Arthur Miller at the Gaiety Theatre from February 9th to March 21st<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTry to keep your cool,\u201d my 16-year-old daughter instructed as I left the house to interview Andrew McCarthy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[118265,122122,153846,1099,153845,4974,111,139,69,153847,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-272242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-arthur-miller","9":"tag-bryan-cranston","10":"tag-charlene-mckenna","11":"tag-demi-moore","12":"tag-gaiety-theatre","13":"tag-magazine","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-rory-nolan","18":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}