'Brats' Revelations: Biggest Bombshells from New Brat Pack Documentary

The title -- used to describe the group of stars who became household names in the '80s as movies about high school students and young adults started making big bucks at the box office -- was first coined in a New York Magazine article, one which didn't exactly paint the group in the best light.

In his doc, Brats, McCarthy opened up about why he felt the phrase had a negative affect on his career, before sitting down for one-on-one conversations with many other Brat Pack-ers, including Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Jon Cryer, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy and Brat Pack-adjacent star Lea Thompson.

He also met up with the New York Magazine author who coined the phrase in the first place, to see whether the writer, Dave Blum, had any regrets.

Keep reading for the biggest takeaways from Brats, out now on Hulu.

There are two pretty big names absent from the doc, though it's not for a lack of trying. Throughout the film, McCarthy is seen trying to get both Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson to participate in the documentary ... without success.

"I, of course, asked Molly if she'd like to speak and she said she'd think about it but she would probably like to just keep looking forward," McCarthy told Cryer at one point in the doc. "I think Molly wants to move on," Jon responded, acknowledging that "we all want to be taken without the baggage of our pop cultural references. As an actor we want to just act. "

While McCarthy said nobody even had a phone number for Judd, he eventually got one through a manager, but was unable to connect with him. "Judd is at an undisclosed location and not available," said Andrew -- who is seen finally answering a (likely fake) call from Nelson in the credits.

Setting the scene for the doc, McCarthy explained the "Brat Pack" label came thanks to what was initially supposed to be a profile about Emilio Estevez. The actor, however, took the writer out for a night on the town with Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson and the focus shifted a bit to the whole group of young stars whose profiles were on the rise at the time.

"I just remember seeing that cover and thinking, 'Oh, f--k,' I thought it was terrible, instantly," recalled McCarthy. "The article was scathing ... from then on ... [we were] branded without any wiggle room as the Brat Pack."

The purpose of the doc, per McCarthy, was to check in with others in the "Pack" to "see what their experience was at that time and what it's come to mean decades later." His first visit was Estevez, who he hadn't seen since the premiere of St. Elmo's Fire.

Estevez explained the New York Magazine article was his first real profile and admitted "it was naive of me to think this journalist would in fact be my friend." He said that when the article came out, he "felt derailed," and said the fallout from the piece made him decide against doing a movie with McCarthy at the time, despite it being "one of the best scripts I'd read in a long time,."

"They told me you didn't want to do it," said McCarthy, before Estevez assured him it wasn't a personal decision. "I didn't want to have anything to do with any of us. Working together, it almost felt like we were kryptonite," he explained, saying he still turns down doing retrospectives about films from that stage of his career.

"I'm not interested in dredging up the past. If you're too busy looking in your rear-view window, you're going to stumble," Estevez added, before being asked whether he'd prefer the group's label didn't exist.

"That's a difficult question to answer. Was it something that we benefited from? Maybe. But in the long run, I think we did not," said Emilio. "I think there was more damage done by it than good. It created the perception we were lightweights, we didn't take it seriously."

McCarthy agreed, saying Martin Scorsese wasn't going to call up someone from the "Brat Pack" for a role.

When McCarthy sat down with Ally Sheedy, he admitted he "had a crush" on her back in the day. Sheedy was shocked, exclaiming, "You did not, Andrew! You did not!" He told her that he was "so scared" and "busy being aloof" at the time to do anything about it, with Sheedy agreeing he was, in fact, "aloof."

She went on to say The Breakfast Club was the project that keeps on giving, sharing how much she loved the experience of that film. "In high school I did not have many close friends ... it still astonishes me how many people found themselves in that film," she shared.

While they both agreed the '80s were a thrilling and exciting time, Sheedy said "it all stopped" after the Brat Pack article came out. "We kept working, but there was this feeling ... it was being shell-shocked. I started feeling this weird vibe in the room if I went in to audition for something, just a weirdness," she recalled.

"It felt like, let's just write off everybody's lives, experiences, their work, it's getting written off," she said, while McCarthy said it felt like they were all "members of a club we never asked to join."

Sheedy, however, added that she was "really grateful" for the connections she made with her peers.

"The fondness I feel for everybody, that's real, that's genuine," she told McCarthy. "It was a complicated time, really complicated time, but the good memories I have are deep and they're in there. So if somebody said, was it worth it? Yes, it was."

As McCarthy visited Demi Moore at her home, she spoke about the support she received from St. Elmo's Fire director Joel Schumacher when they were working on the film.

"It's not like I had any box-office draw. You know, we were all just beginning. We were all just beginning. I didn't have anything to warrant him sticking by me," said Moore, who has been open about her issues with substance abuse in her memoir. "They paid to have a sober companion with me 24/7, during the whole shooting. They could have easily just found someone else."

McCarthy said he never noticed her "companion" on set at the time.

Of the "Brat Pack" article, Moore recalled her initial reaction also being, "What the f--k?"

"It definitely really irritated me. I felt a sense of it being unjust. I felt it didn't represent us and I felt it was a real limited perspective," said Moore. "It stayed with me for a while. But I don't know if I took it as personal over time, as you did, or the impact you may have had from it."

"The fact that it came out and tried to diminish us, was also an opportunity to rise above, to say I am much more than that," she said of how she was able to get past the label -- something McCarthy said took him years to accomplish. "When we hold things that way, we create that pattern. You're predisposed to re-creating it," she added.

When McCarthy met up with Rob Lowe -- who Andrew said he was "fairly competitive" with and "not close" to back in the day -- they opened up about a night they followed Liza Minnelli to Rat Pack-er Sammy Davis Jr.'s place one night after grabbing food at Spago.

"He was so gracious. He was long sober but playing bartender. I was getting drunker and drunker. Me and Sammy are splitting cigarettes," recalled McCarthy. "He was like, I got my eye on you cats, I love what you're doing. It was the only time in my experience when the Brat Pack met the Rat Pack."

Of the group's label, Lowe said "no one liked" it.

"There's always gonna be some perception that bumps up against how you see yourself and what you think you can do as an actor," he continued. "I don't want to come off seeming like I'm so Pollyanna that I don't realize or didn't know at the time what a f--king disaster and how mean-spirited and what an attempt that was to minimize all of our talents. I get why it happened, there's too many of us, there had to be a catchall name."

He went on to theorize the popularity of the Brat Pack, however, caused a shift in Hollywood and a pivot toward content aimed at a younger audience. He pointed to the success of YA shows and networks like The CW, something Andrew hadn't realized previously.

Lowe also said it's "a really, really special thing" to be part of anything people still want to talk about 30+ years later, adding that every generation has its own group of young stars who find themselves thrust into the spotlight. After speaking with Lowe, McCarthy said he was happy how much "lightness" they have when they look back on that time now.

Toward the end of the doc, McCarthy sat down with Dave Blum, the man who wrote the article labeling them all the "Brat Pack."

"I was just able to observe," he said of his night out with Estevez and friends, adding that he didn't dislike any of them and felt they were all nice. "I didn't think at the time, 'These brats,' at all," he said, adding that he thought the name was just a "fun" title for the article.

He explained that it came to him after he and a group of journalists jokingly referred to themselves as the "fat pack" during his trip to Los Angeles for the piece.

"It didn't cross my mind that it was all that big a deal," he added, before McCarthy asked whether he felt the article was "scathing."

"I guess in retrospect, yes. At the time, no. I was proud of my creation of the phrase. Look, I was 29, I definitely knew it was gonna have a reaction," said Blum, as McCarthy let him know how much it affected him at the time.

"I just remember seeing that cover and going, what just happened? I'd lost the narrative of my career," said the actor. "What really upset me is [how it made it seem they were] not that interested in doing the craft of it, they want to be famous and party. I took offense to that. It felt like, to me, we have to reposition this or get away from this. It wasn't perceived in the industry as a compliment."

While Blum felt he was "not wrong" in deciding to highlight that group, who went on to become very successful, McCarthy pushed back, saying he didn't write the article "with any affection."

"You were all adults. There's tradeoffs to being a celebrity. Some of it is positive. These people wanted to be written about, these people agreed to talk to me, I'm doing my job as a journalist. It wasn't meant to hurt anyone, but to define a group in a clever and interesting way," Blum said, defending himself while also admitting there were parts of the piece that were simply mean and not nice.

"I was just trying to be funny. I have no regrets, I'm glad it's lived on forever, but I hope it's not the greatest thing I ever did," he added, saying that he wouldn't do anything differently.

After the pair hugged it out, McCarthy once again asked, "Do you think you could have been nicer?" -- with Blum responding, "I guess I feel like, sticks and stones."

While it's clear everyone knows the term "Brat Pack," there's some debate about who's actually part of it.

"The Brat Pack was just us," said Moore, seemingly referring to the cast of St. Elmo's Fire. When McCarthy noted that many people think Ringwald is also part of the group, Demi seemed surprised -- exclaiming, "Really?"

Estevez also said Jon Cryer was part of the group, though Cryer himself was seen on camera saying, "I am not in the Brat Pack." Others also wondered whether Tom Cruise or Matt Dillon would also be considered part of the group, with Lea Thompson -- who admitted she was only "Brat Pack-adjacent" -- saying Cruise definitely wasn't.

The commonly accepted group: Judd, Emilio, Andrew, Molly, Ally, Rob and Demi.

Brats is streaming now on Hulu.