When Anthony Michael Hall burst into Hollywood, he quickly became known as the baby-faced sarcastic teen in the John Hughes movies, "Sixteen Candles and "The Breakfast Club."
It led to instant stardom and an official membership into the beloved 1980s clique, The Brat Pack - the label used in a famous New York Magazine profile in 1985 for the actors who starred in "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire."
But today Hall looks back on all that attention with nothing more than an eye-roll. Don't get him wrong: He loved the films he starred in, he told Insider, but the idea that he, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, and Andrew McCarthy ever hung out together is a tabloid-induced dream.
"It didn't exist," Hall told Insider of the famous group.
It took decades for Hall to run out The Brat Pack label, but when he did he resurfaced as a respected character actor giving impressive performances in such movies as "The Dark Knight," "Foxcatcher," and "War Machine." Now Hall, 53, has nabbed a meaty role as one of the leads in "Halloween Kills."
In the sequel to the 2018 "Halloween" release, Hall plays the adult version of Tommy Doyle, the young boy, who in the original 1978 "Halloween," is terrorized by Michael Myers alongside his babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). In "Kills," he leads the town in an uprise against Myers.
Hall chatted with Insider about being part of the beloved franchise, sets the record straight about what The Brat Pack actually was, and explains why he regrets not taking the lead in the 1980s classic "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
[quote] In the past decade-plus you have really turned into a reliable character actor compared to your superstardom as a kid. Has that been intentional?
I have always had this workman's attitude about it. I always knew when I was a kid that I wanted longevity so you don't often have the luxury of "what part am I playing" or selecting things. So yeah, I just have tried to mix it up.
But even when I was a kid and doing the John Hughes movies and doing one year on "SNL," I was never in a clique. I never benefited from being in a gang in Hollywood -
[quote] Alright, hold on. Hold on. You cannot say you were never in a clique. You were in the clique that started all cliques in modern-day Hollywood. You were a part of the Brat Pack.
Okay, here we go. It didn't exist. It was a media ploy. Whoever was the editor of New York Magazine at the time, it was a set up. "Let's get all these guys together and get them talking shit." The truth is in that time frame, I was at the very young end of that group. I was literally still in high school. When we did "The Breakfast Club," Emilio and Judd were in their early 20s and they are going out and having beers and I was a teen. So when they did that article I did feel that was a ploy to get all them yapping.
[quote] Fellow Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy has said he's never met you. Is that true?
Yeah. I have never met him.
[quote] So my whole childhood has been a lie, thinking all of you were hanging out in the 1980s.
(Laughs) And I also think audiences want the actors that they watch together in projects to be actually connected in life. They expect that. People will be like, "How are Emilio and Judd?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I haven't seen them in 14 years."
[quote] Which role do you regret not taking the most: Ferris Bueller or Duckie in "Pretty in Pink?"
Hughes wrote Ferris for me. I was busy with other work so I wasn't able to do Ferris. It turned out to be the biggest hit he had at that time. And I thought it was a great movie for [Matthew] Broderick and for John [Hughes].
Ducky was also written for me. What happened was when I was a kid, John really wanted me to do both of those projects. To be very frank with you, he was offended and was hurt that I didn't do the roles and we started to lose touch after that.