Andrew McCarthy shades his own movie ‘Pretty in Pink’: ‘I didn’t think it was very interesting’
Not so pretty.
Andrew McCarthy said that he wasn’t a fan of his 1986 coming-of-age film “Pretty in Pink” at the time that it came out.
“I didn’t think it was that interesting,” said McCarthy, 61, in an interview with PEOPLE published Saturday.
“I didn’t quite get the movie at the time. I thought, this is a movie about a girl wanting to go to a dance and make a dress, [and] if so who cares?” he added.
Directed by Howard Deutch and written by John Hughes, “Pretty in Pink” follows middle-class student Andie (Molly Ringwald), a budding designer who creates her own clothes. She falls in love with rich kid Blane McDonough (McCarthy).
The film, which also starred Harry Dean Stanton, Jon Cryer, Annie Potts, and James Spader, has stood the test of time and is considered a classic from the ’80s.
Nearly 40 years since the movie came out, McCarthy acknowledged that he was “wrong” in his criticism at the time.
“I finally got it years later, but at the time, I didn’t think it was very interesting. It just sort of escaped me,” he said.
The actor also explained why he thinks the film is still so beloved today.
“They gave people credit for [being] young people, credit for real emotions and they took them seriously,” he said. “That’s why those movies hold up because of the emotions.”
He added: “The hairdos are funny, the music kind of old fashioned, but the emotions are the same.”
“Pretty in Pink” was one of the many movies from the ’80s to feature members of the Brat Pack. McCarthy, Ringwald, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy made up the group of actors who appeared in the ensemble of classic movies at the time, including “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “The Breakfast Club.”
McCarthy created a new Hulu documentary called “Brats,” where he reunited with some of the other Brat Pack members and they looked back on how the label changed their lives.
In the doc, Deutch, who directed “Pretty in Pink,” said that the test screening for the film was “a disaster.”
He said at the test screening, there was “Booing like I’ve never heard in my life.” Viewers were also “screaming, booing, throwing things.”
Deutch also revealed that they got one day to reshoot the movie’s real ending, which sees McCarthy and Ringwald’s characters end up together. The original ending did not have them together.
