Andrew T. McCarthy was born November 29, 1962 in Westfield New Jersey. He attended Edison Intermediate School from grade 6 through 9. At the age of 16 his family moved to New York where he attended his high school years at the Pingry School, where he performed in plays and musicals and played basketball. At 18, he went to New York University as a theatre major and wound up as the lead in the 1983 film, Class. He also studied at the Circle in Square Theater School in New York. He has been in several on and off Broadway shows, such as 'Long Day's Journey', as well as over 50 movies.

In 1983 Andrew made his film debut in the Movie Class playing the opposite role to actress "Jacquelyn Bisset" and "Rob Lowe". Andrew had been taken ill with the flu the day of the audition  for the screen testing, and by odd forces of nature had he not been so self- motivated who knows where he would be today. Andrew then continued to move on to other hit films such as Heaven Help Us, St. Elmo's Fire, and who can forget the memorable Pretty in Pink.

Andrew's long term film career, he juggled back and forth between movies and theater. Some of his work included Boys of Winter, Psychopathic Sexualious, and The Hartford production of Long Days Journey into Night. The Hartford Stage was so impressed with McCarthy's role as Edmond during Long Days Journey, they invited him back to take the lead role in the  Death of Papa  which was originally slated for Matthew Broderick, who respectfully had to back out due to other commitments. This lead to Andrew's role as Clifford in the successful hit Broadway play Side Man.

Andrew is successfully making films such as his most recent movie Standard Time, and still doing a bit of theater where his last performance was March 5, 2001 at the "Hartford Stage" playing the role of "Tom" from the Tennessee Williams play Glass Menagerie.