Why Andrew McCarthy Hated the ‘Pretty in Pink’ Script
Andrew McCarthy plays the dreamy role of Blane in Pretty In Pink. Yet regardless of how essential his character is to the film, he hated the script when he first read it. After reading Pretty In Pink, he started looking for ways to get out of the film. The actor even went so far as to call the story “ridiculous.”
Molly Ringwald pushed to get Andrew McCarthy in ‘Pretty In Pink’
Initially, the Pretty In Pink producers wanted a “masculine hunk” to play Blane. According to the Brat Pack memoir titled You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried, they looked for another “Jake Ryan” type of character. Essentially, they wanted a “square-jawed jock.” (John Hughes thought Charlie Sheen would be perfect for the role.)
But Molly Ringwald fought against this. Instead, she wanted someone like Andrew McCarthy for the character. She told Hughes, “That’s the kind of guy I would fall in love with.”
Hughes responded, “Him!? He’s just sort of this shy, twerpy guy.”
But Ringwald pushed for him to get the part. “I did push for him to get hired,” she revealed, according to the memoir. “I was involved in all of the auditions, and I actually read with everyone, and I thought he was cute,” she laughed. “And I thought, if I thought he was cute, then Andie would think he was cute! I liked that he wasn’t typical, and he seemed so right for the part. Andrew McCarthy has always seemed so tortured with indecision, at least at the time, and so was Blane, who really is a tortured soul. And Andrew and his eyes,” Ringwald gushed. “There’s just nobody who has those tortured eyes.”
Andrew McCarthy hated ‘Pretty In Pink’ and found the concept ‘ridiculous’
According to the Brat Pack memoir, McCarthy only took the role because he needed a job.
“I needed the job, I wanted to go to work, and I was thrilled that anybody would give me another job,” said McCarthy.
“But once he read the script, the blood slowly drained from his face. He hated the script,” the memoir revealed.
“This is a ridiculous movie about a girl going to the dance,” he thought to himself. “This is the whole movie?”
After reading the script, he “wanted out.”
Yet over time, he came to appreciate the film and what it was able to offer him.
Andrew McCarthy didn’t get along well with the rest of his castmates
Apparently, the actor didn’t get along very well with the rest of his co-stars. He openly admits that he couldn’t tolerate Jon Cryer (who iconically portrays the role of Duckie.) Of his co-star, McCarthy said, “Jon was very Duckie-like when we were making that movie. He was very sweet and very needy, and I had no patience for it.”
And similarly, according to the film’s director, Howard Deutch, McCarthy and Ringwald “hated each other.”
“They hated each other,” Deutch told Den of Geek. “They hated each other because Molly had a crush on him, and he did not have a crush on her. And then he resented that she was the foundation of it, and then it escalated. I had to lie to them. I had to lie to Molly and say, ‘Oh, no, he really does have a crush on you, but he’s a guy, so he’s afraid to show you.’ I had to play that in order to get this. Luckily for me, it added to the sexual tension. It helped the whole sense of ‘are these guys really gonna get together or not?’ I don’t think they were that conscious of what I was doing, but I think they knew it was working. That relationship was filled with conflict. You can’t manufacture that.”
