'Brat Pack' actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy speaking at Canton Palace Theatre

Andrew McCarthy sounded every bit of four decades removed from his "Brat Pack" Hollywood glory days while discussing the 500-mile trek he took with his teenage son across the famed El Camino de Santiago in Spain.

Far in the rearview mirror were his starring roles in the '80s movies "Pretty in Pink," "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Weekend at Bernie's."

McCarthy was merely dad, not a celebrity. Sometimes dismissively referred to as "bro" by his 19-year-old son, Sam. Other times tapped for advice while the younger McCarthy grappled with the aftermath of a breakup from his girlfriend.

Along the blister-inducing journey in the summer of 2021, the father-son dynamic was often as bumpy as the rugged terrain. However, by the end, there were bonding moments, even transcendent ones, where the parent was schooled by the child.

Standing outside the splendor of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the elder McCarthy was dejected because the portico was locked. Touching the Tree of Jesse was also forbidden due to erosion. Neither could he hug the statue of St. James.

"It's OK," the son said while draping an arm over his dad's shoulder. "This one truly was about the journey." Earlier on the trip, Sam had blown off similar advice from his dad. Now he espoused it.

Asked if such revelatory moments still happen with his son today, McCarthy turned to a recent anecdote.

"About three days ago, he called me up and said, 'Dad, you got seven minutes?' And I was like, 'Go,'" the father recalled with affection. "And he just wanted to work through something he was going through, and he just wanted to bounce it off me, and that's a phone call that probably wouldn't have happened if we hadn't of walked together."

McCarthy relays and explores those father-son moments profoundly, humorously and candidly in the New York Times bestselling book, "Walking with Sam: A Father, A Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain." His other works include "Brat: An '80s Story," "Just Fly Away" and "The Longest Way Home."

McCarthy talked openly during a 25-minute phone call promoting a book tour that will bring him to the Canton Palace Theatre at 6:30 p.m. May 11 as part of the Stark County Library's Speaking of Books Author Series. Admission is free but reservations must be made at https://www.starklibrary.org/ or by calling 330-452-0665. VIP meet-and-greet tickets also can be purchased.

McCarthy has lots to tell. So many films, so many Hollywood encounters, so many lessons learned, so many miles logged across the globe as an award-winning travel writer, including a stint as editor-at-large of National Geographic Traveler magazine.

During the interview, McCarthy touched on it all, plus some unexpected subjects, including what he thought of a Taylor Swift concert he attended with his teen daughter and which of his '80s movies most deserves a sequel.

Walking across Spain: 'It's a life-changing experience for anybody.'

McCarthy had walked the El Camino 25 years earlier while in the throes of a professional and personal crisis.

"It's just a place where I feel very at home in myself," he said of travel in general. "I often joke that the further from home I get, the more at home in myself I feel. The more out of my normal comfort zone I am, sort of the better I respond.

"The Camino was a transformative experience for me the first time I did it," McCarthy said. "... As my son was growing and our relationship was sort of evolving, I wanted it to evolve into like two men. How does one do that? I didn't have a template for that in m own life, so I thought (walking the Camino) would be a wonderful way to transition our relationship from dominant parent to submissive or rebellious kid to adult learning to communicate on an equal level. So I thought the Camino would sort of jumpstart that process, which it did."

Of "Walking with Sam," he said: "It's really about fathers and sons and your place in that and how do we manage that.

"And that's one of the great things about walking and walking that long of a distance," McCarthy said. "You can try to be however you're going to be, but yourself comes out pretty quickly when you're walking 15 miles and you've got blisters and you're tired and you need a place to sleep. You're you. That was just a great experience to share with (Sam) in that regard.

"On day two on the walk, he said, 'Dad, what's the point of this? And on the last day of the walk, he said, 'That's the only 10 out of 10 thing that I've ever done in my life,' so something happened."

The intimate relationship of author and reader

Being recognized and appreciated as a writer is rewarding, McCarthy said.

"I was lucky enough to be on TV and in movies," he said. "When people come up to you about a book, it's a very different thing, and it's much more personal in a certain way because you know it's a very intimate relationship with someone reading a book.

"They take you to bed at night usually, and they're alone with you in bed for an hour before they go to bed. And to ask someone for their time in that way, you have to sort of meet them and come clean with them."

And "I'll put down things on paper that strangers will read that I'd be very hesitant to say in the rest of my life," he added. "There's something about the act of writing that you disclose these kinds of things."

The 'Brat Pack' is an avatar 'of a certain generation's youth.'

McCarthy is clearly still more widely known for being a member of the "Brat Pack," however.

"I think it's kind of an amazing thing at this point," he said. "The 'Brat Pack' (actors and movies) are the avatars of a certain generation's youth.

"You look at those things and you start talking, 'Oh, I love that movie,'" he said. "You're talking about your own youth, and I come to represent that. I just hold up a mirror to that because there's no more exciting and wondrous time in life than when we're in our late teens and 20s. You're just cusping into your own life and you're taking the world by the tail, and your life's a blank slate to be written on, and it's a thrilling moment in life. And I and other members of the 'Brat Pack' and the other people who were in those movies represent that for a group of people.

"And it took me a long time, but I realize that's sort of a wonderful gift I've been given, to be that role for certain people, and there's great affection and fondness for those movies for me as well," McCarthy continued. "You know, they're flawed certainly (and from) another time, but I loved those movies."

McCarthy is open to a sequel to 'St. Elmo's Fire'

When asked which of his '80s movies deserved a sequel, McCarthy didn't hesitate − "St. Elmo's Fire."

"It always pops up occasionally," he said of the talk of a sequel. "Sure, I'm game. I love that character (Kevin Dolenz) in 'St. Elmo's Fire.' I thought he was a great character for me at that time in my life, and what happened to him 30 years later, I think that would be interesting.

"I mean, sure, why not," McCarthy said. "Somebody comes up with a good idea (and) has some money to do it.

"That character was really the closest to me of any of those characters I did when I was young. I had that sort of rotten before I was ripe cynicism to cover up my fear and vulnerability, I think. I really related to him a lot.

"Mostly people keep coming up with these 'Weekend at Bernie's' 3 ideas," McCarthy said with laughter. "I'm like, 'Dude, he's dead, he's still dead, he's been dead a long time. I have great affection for Bernie."

When does the 'Brat Pack' documentary come out?

Written and directed by McCarthy, the documentary, "Brats" is scheduled for release on the Hulu streaming service on June 12, McCarthy said.

The film will premiere on June 7 at the Tribeca Festival.

The 92-minute documentary follows up the book, "Brat: An 80s Story," authored by McCarthy and released in 2021.

"The 'Brat' book was just my my own sort of exploration of, 'Well, what the hell happened during that time?,'" he said of being thrust into stardom. "It was just a seminal moment in my life, and it was one that I sort of ran from for decades, and I finally just turned around and said, 'Well, what's under that rock?'"

The documentary, however, sought out answers and insights from his fellow "Brat Pack" actors, including Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy.

"And so when I finished that (book), it was quite liberating in a certain way," McCarthy said. "But I felt, 'What in the hell did everyone else think?,' because I know it was life-changing for everybody... We hated that ('Brat Pack') label, and it was very pejorative at the beginning, and that it's come 180 degrees to represent this wonderfully iconic thing in pop culture is kind of a beautiful thing. So I wanted to go see what everyone else's experience was. So I just called up people I hadn't seen in 30 years, and I went to see them and just sort of brought a camera and chatted with them.

"I could call it a homemade movie," he added. "Some of it I shot on my iPhone. It's just very informal. There's lots of moments of sort of nostalgia as it were with clips from films and old interviews and songs and things, but it's also very much a look back from someone looking back at their youth from a period of no longer being young.

"So I was reconnecting with all the old gang as it were, which was fantastic. A big takeaway from that for me was all the affection we had for each other after all these years, where we didn't when we were young. We were young, competitive and scared and trying to start our careers, and it was a very fraught time, where as now, none of it matters anymore."

What do McCarthy's kids think of their movie star dad?

McCarthy said his kids have only seen a few of his films or snippets.

"Those are old ancient history things," he said.

"When they discovered that I did a movie with 'Iron Man' (Robert Downey Jr.) when they were young, they go, 'You worked with 'Iron Man!' They thought that was pretty impressive."

"My son ... when he was like 15, he watched 'Weekend at Bernie's,'" McCarthy recalled with laughter. "And he said, 'Dad, I love you, but that's the stupidest movie I've ever seen,' and I was like, 'That's the point.'"

"And my daughter, one of her classmates said she should watch 'Pretty in Pink.' And she watched the trailer online, and she said, 'I'm not going to watch some movie where you're kissing another woman; I don't want to see that,' so as it should be, I'm just their dad."

Is McCarthy a Swifty?

The actor and writer attended a Taylor Swift concert with his teen daughter, Willow McCarthy. She even surprised him with the gift of an outrageously glitzy sport coat for the event.

"To experience my daughter experiencing it was a beautiful thing for me, and I thought Taylor Swift was terrific," McCarthy said. "I've seen a lot of big shows in big stadiums, and I've never seen anybody be able to hold the crowd in one hand looking live and then at the same time on the Jumbotron being played intimately into the close-up.

"I thought she's able to do that in an extraordinary way. I've seen The Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen. They're just playing to the crowd … or they're mugging for the camera. But (Swift) was able to be intimate with the camera and yet expansive to the crowd at the same time, and I thought it was a real lesson in stardom. I thought it was great. I really enjoyed that."

McCarthy is working on his next book

McCarthy has been on the road working on his next book, which he describes as "a cross-country exploration on male friendship."

He's reuniting with friends in Kentucky, Dallas and San Francisco, people whom he hasn't seen in decades and knows from outside the spotlight of Hollywood.

"There's all sorts of documentation now about this recession in male friendship and all these kind of things," McCarthy said. "And particularly, the older men get the more isolated they become, and so I just found that very interesting … and have been traveling for the last few months sort of gathering that, which has been really interesting."

Reach Ed at ebalint@gannett.com. On X (formerly Twitter) @ebalintREP and Instagram at ed_balint.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Andrew McCarthy on 'St. Elmo's Fire' sequel, Taylor Swift, 'Brat Pack'