Anthony Michael Hall reveals that The Brat Pack never existed and why he's excited to play the hero in 'Halloween Kills'

• Hall spoke to Insider and revealed how The Brat Pack in the 1980s was nothing but a media ploy.
• He also spoke about his role in "Halloween Kills," out Friday.

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."

Hall said The Brat Pack never existed

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 -

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.

Fellow Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy has said he's never met you. Is that true?

Yeah. I have never met him.

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."

Hall regrets passing on 'Ferris Bueller's Day' off when John Hughes wrote the role for him

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.

It's one of the saddest things of my life because I loved the guy. He was a big brother to me. I spent a lot of personal time with him. I was his third kid. Back in the day when we did those films, I would hang out with him, and his wife, and two kids, so I was their third son in a way. I had a real close relationship with John.

Did it hurt you that he didn't understand you wanted to spread your wings beyond him?

You have to remember, he wrote all these movies and there was a high level of sensitivity, almost like he still was a teenager in some regards because he would take things very personal.

If you could have talked to him before he passed away in 2009, which role would you say to him you should have done?

It would be Ferris because what I felt reading "Pretty in Pink" was it felt like a reboot of "Sixteen Candles." The girl wants the handsome kid and the dorky kid is after her. To me it was replicating "Sixteen Candles." But I thought there was a real uniqueness to Ferris. I thought that would have been a lot of fun.

If you think back at "Sixteen Candles" - that scene where I'm with the prom queen and I crash the Rolls-Royce and I break the fourth wall and I look into the camera? There's the basis for Ferris. We discovered on set together. He would see that would work and that led to him creating a character like Ferris, who is always breaking the fourth wall.

Hall said he learned Paul Rudd was excited he was playing Tommy Doyle

So what is your take on Tommy, the repeated survivor in the "Halloween" franchise? Is he a good guy in your eyes?

I totally think so. ["Halloween Kills" director] David Gordon Green gave me this hero's part, which is incredible. A lot has been said about this mob mentality in the film and the fact that with all the societal issues that have happened in the past few years since this movie was made, it's almost like life is imitating art.

Is it different watching it now compared to when you made it due to the world being so crazy since then? The riot in the hospital has this feel of the Capitol riots.

Yeah, but it's all happenstance.

Honestly, I love what you said. I did none of that. [Laughs.] But I was taken off guard by one thing: A couple of weeks into the shoot, David texted me and said he got a call from Paul Rudd and he was excited I was playing the part. So I did get the blessing from one past Tommy Doyle.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.