Drew and Andrew met when 10 year old Drew visited the set of St. Elmo’s Fire with her mom. She told Andrew about her crush on Corey Feldman and Andrew introduced the word “smitten” to her vocabulary. The next year, her friend’s babysitter was an extra in the Pretty in Pink prom scene, which made Drew and her friend jealous. Andrew talks about reshooting the prom scene six months later because the ending of the movie was changed (originally Molly Ringwald’s character went to the dance with Ducky) because it didn’t test well with audiences. Andrew had shaved his head for a play he was doing in New York so he had to wear a (bad) wig for the reshoot. Andrew said he related a lot more to his character in St. Elmo’s Fire because he was more similar to him.
Andrew had a core group of friends who became his chosen family when he first moved to New York at the age of 17. He said eventually people moved to other places, got married, had kids, etc. His son asked, “Why don’t you have any friends?” Andrew told him, “I have friends. I just don’t see them but I know they’re there.” This inspired him to take a road trip to go reconnect with his old friends. He said that the important thing is showing up and then connection feeds on itself (just as isolation feeds on itself). He ended up driving 10,000 miles to see various friends and then he wrote a book called Who Needs Friends about his trip and reconnecting with his friends.
source
