What a 10,000-mile trip taught actor Andrew McCarthy about friendship
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What inspired Andrew McCarthy to write about friendship?
Actor, director, and author Andrew McCarthy is taking a closer look at something many men quietly struggle with, friendship. In his new book, Who Needs Friends?, McCarthy travels across the country reconnecting with people from different chapters of his life, using those encounters to explore what gets in the way of deeper connection and why those bonds can be so hard to rebuild once they fade. Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm USA Today books reporter Claire Mulroy. Today is Thursday, March 26th, 2026. Who Needs Friends is on bookshelves now, and I'm joined now by Andrew McCarthy. Andrew, thanks for making the time for us.
Good to be with you.
I wanted to start by asking you just kind of generally about, you know, I think in the book world now we know you as a travel writer, but I think a lot of people at home are probably watching and thinking of you from your acting days. And there was this quote that stuck with me from your book where you said, travel has become the university of my life. And could you tell me a little bit about that, about why travel writing is so meaningful? Sure.
I mean, that's a bit of a long story, but I'll cut it. Well, travel changed my life. You know, I was young and in the movies, and then I started traveling the world alone.
How did Andrew's road trip evolve into a journey of self-discovery?
And I believe travel is not about Instagram posts and, you know, bucket lists, but I think travel is really meaningful, good use of your time. And travel changed my life. It helped me feel at home in the world. The further at home I get, the more at home in myself I tend to feel. I'm someone who came into the world with a lot of fear for whatever reason, and travel has helped obliterate that for me. It's fostered connection between me and the world. The great travel writer Paul Theroux always said, it's about the traveler, not the destination. I think that's totally true, and most people don't do it. Anyway, I was traveling, and then one day I just picked up a pen, and I just wrote down something. I was in Saigon.
I remember very clearly I was in Saigon. I had this extraordinary day and I came back to my hotel room and I was just buzzing. I didn't know what to do. I had all this energy.
What insights did Andrew gain about male loneliness during his trip?
So I just wrote down what happened that day and I finished it and I realized it wasn't a journal. It was a story. And I had the same feeling when I finished that writing that, that I had When I was 15 years old and walked out on stage, it's the Artful Dodger and Oliver in my high school play. And I knew, I felt like my wife is Irish, has these good Irish sayings, and one of them is, I felt like myself from the toes up. And that's how I felt like when I was 15 when I did that play. And I knew in that instant that's what I was going to do with my life. And then... 15 years later, I had the same sensation when I wrote that in that hotel in Saigon. And I'd never written anything. I was not a reader. I wasn't a writer.
I didn't do any of that. But I had that sort of white light experience again of feeling, wow, I really feel like myself when I just did that. So then I just started.
How do friendships change over time according to Andrew?
And I became successful at travel writing. More answer than you wanted, isn't it? But I became successful traveling quickly because I knew two things. I knew that traveling, I've been saying, is really this profound, important use of your time. It can change your place in the world. And I also knew, tell a story, don't sell a destination.
Did you know that this was going to be a book when you started out on this journey?
No. I mean, this was totally an accidental 10,000-mile road trip, completely. I set off to reunite with some of my friends I hadn't seen in years and years. And so- I went down, drove down to Baltimore to see one friend, and that was a really lovely reunion. So I thought, well, my other buddy lives in Kentucky. That's not that far. I'll just drive to Kentucky.
What common themes did Andrew encounter when talking to men about loneliness?
And then I was in Kentucky, had a nice reunion. I went, well, how far really is Dallas from Kentucky? Oh, well. Well, it's another thousand miles. And then I was halfway across the country.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired Andrew McCarthy to write about friendship?
0:05–1:22
2
How did Andrew's road trip evolve into a journey of self-discovery?
1:22–2:11
3
What insights did Andrew gain about male loneliness during his trip?
2:11–2:59
4
How do friendships change over time according to Andrew?
2:59–3:39
5
What common themes did Andrew encounter when talking to men about loneliness?
3:39–4:12
6
How does Andrew define true friendship based on his experiences?
4:12–5:08
7
What role does vulnerability play in male friendships?
5:08–6:00
8
What advice does Andrew McCarthy offer for maintaining friendships?
6:00–18:00
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Excerpt
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