THE WRITE STUFF either, explaining, “I’m not particularly tic: “You think the reality has always been How about this for good timing: McCar- great in a bunch of them.” right there. But when you really look back thy—who still speaks softly and looks No topic was off -limits. Still, he did and start to cobble things together in boyishly handsome—is Zooming on a vacillate on a few things—especially your life, you start to learn that you’re just Wednesday afternoon from a production his shaky relationship with his now- the accumulation of events that you’ve offi ce at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. Th at’s deceased father, a former stockbroker. “If interpreted.” where he’s directing his latest episode of NBC’s hit drama Th e Blacklist, starring MAN IN MOTION James Spader—his onscreen cohort from Th e third of four boys, McCarthy was Pretty in Pink and Less Th an Zero. Do a shy kid who grew up playing sports they have a shorthand with each other? and seeing movies like Jaws at the local “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “We’ve known theater in Westfi eld, N.J. Acting wasn’t on each other for so long that we just meet his radar until his mom, who sold adver- eyes after a take and just kind of go, ‘OK,’ tisements for a local magazine, encour- and cut right to it.” aged him to try out for a part in the high For many years, McCarthy admits that school production of Oliver! When he he blanched at such questions. He wasn’t nailed his audition for the Artful Dodger, interested in strolling down memory lane, something inside him clicked. preferring instead to focus on his wide- He soon crossed the river and enrolled ranging interests of the present. (Th is is in New York University, determined to a man who once climbed Mount Kili- study acting and pursue it as a profession. manjaro and boated down the Amazon Much to his parents’ chagrin, there was River.) When his publisher suggested that no backup plan. “Th e great gift of youth is he revisit his 1980s Brat Pack career, he that you don’t listen to anybody and don’t instinctively said no. doubt yourself,” he says. “I was so naïve Th en he thought about it. In his best- and stupid. It seemed so utterly impos- selling 2012 travel memoir, Th e Longest Clockwise from top left: McCarthy’s new sible that [success] could have happened, Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Cour- memoir; New York’s June 10, 1985, issue; and yet it did.” age to Settle Down, he made an emotional McCarthy atop Mount Kilimanjaro in 2011 And it happened in a hurry. During his breakthrough about his relationship with sophomore year, he went to an open-call his now-wife, Irish writer and director you’re asking someone to take time to audition for a big-screen comedy called Dolores Rice, while trekking around the read about you, you have to share with Class and landed one of the lead roles. “I globe alone. He fi gured that “turning them all the pieces of the puzzle,” remember on the fi rst day they put tape over rocks” in his early career would yield McCarthy says. Once he managed to on the fl oor near my feet and I was too similar results. “I like to write to know write about his father’s death, “I felt embarrassed to ask what they were do- what I’m feeling,” he says. Never a journal liberated to go back and include more ing,” he says. “I wandered off and a crew keeper or picture taker, he was surprised material. And at the end, there was a member said, ‘No, dude, you have to hit by how easily the memories started fl ood- great love between us.” your mark.’ ” He was guided by a fellow

CLOCKWISE FROM KILIMANJARO: COURTESY ANDREW MCCARTHY; PARAMOUNT/EVERETT COLLECTION; COLUMBIA/EVERETT COLLECTION PARAMOUNT/EVERETT CLOCKWISE FROM KILIMANJARO: COURTESY ANDREW MCCARTHY; Indeed, the writing process was cathar- actor who played his prep-school room- continued on page 10

PRETTY IN PINK (1986) “I haven’t seen it in a while” he says of the John Hughes–penned classic. In the original ending, his preppie rich-kid Blane stood up Andie (Molly Ringwald) at the prom. Test audiences hated it, so McCarthy and Ringwald did re- shoots and sealed it with a kiss. PHOTO CREDIT

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