Who were the members of cinema’s ‘Frat Pack’?
Comedy fans who came of age in the last couple of decades will be very familiar with the ‘Frat Pack’, a loose collection of some of the funniest actors in Hollywood. This group – which has always resisted being clearly defined – dominated the box office in the 2000s with a succession of hugely successful studio comedies.
Some members regularly worked together and became bankable duos, but there were also ones who floated in and out of each other’s movies. Whenever one or more of them turned up in a film, though, audiences knew they were in for a good time.
A casual observer’s first question may be, “Where does the name ‘Frat Pack’ come from?” – so that’s where we’ll start. In the late 1940s and early ’50s, a group of entertainers came together to sing and make movies in Las Vegas. By the ’60s, they had been dubbed the “Rat Pack,” and their classic membership solidified. To most people, the group consisted of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.
Fast forward to the ’80s, though, and a new Pack formed – the “Brat Pack.” New York writer David Blum coined the term in his 1985 article “Hollywood’s Brat Pack,” and he used it to group together the bevvy of young actors making waves in the coming-of-age teen films of the period. This Pack included Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, and Judd Nelson. Other stars like Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader flirted with membership in the unofficial collective, but they’re generally not seen as core Brat Packers.
So, when a gaggle of funny fellas began to form in the Hollywood of the ’00s, USA Today saw an opportunity to invoke these beloved groups of the past by dubbing them the “Frat Pack.”
So, who were the Frat Pack?
- Ben Stiller
- Owen Wilson
- Vince Vaughn
- Jack Black
- Will Ferrell
These are the most commonly recognized members of the Frat Pack. However, Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell, and Owen’s brother Luke Wilson have also been lumped in with the group at different times.
At a certain point in the ’00s, seeing Ben Stiller movies with Owen Wilson as his partner in mirth became routine. The duo starred together in Zoolander, Starsky & Hutch, Meet the Parents, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Night at the Museum, among others. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson also teamed up for films, though, including Wedding Crashers and The Internship, while Stiller and Vaughn made Dodgeball together.
Ferrell and Vaughn had memorable supporting turns in Zoolander and Starsky & Hutch. Ferrell then made Old School with Vaughn and Luke Wilson, as well as Anchorman with Carrell and Rudd. Black spent much of the decade flitting in and out of his Frat Pack buddies’ pictures, appearing in Envy and Tropic Thunder with Stiller and shooting a hilarious cameo in Anchorman.
While a lot of laughs were had on-screen, the Frat Pack label didn’t necessarily sit too well with some members of the collective. In 2008, Stiller grumbled to Heart FM, “It’s such a weird thing that people come up with a name that doesn’t really exist. I think the whole thing about the Frat Pack group is completely fabricated, anyway. The group doesn’t exist, but it rhymes, at least there’s that, so it must be true, right?”
Rudd, on the other hand, was perfectly happy to be associated with such a talented group. In an interview with the Frat Pack Tribute, he acknowledged that there’s never been any official association, but he is friendly with most of the guys involved, and they all like and encourage each other.
He added, “I do feel like I’m involved with all of them, though, and I really like it. As far as the Frat Pack concept goes, I’m happy to be included. I think the elder statesmen in it are really talented, and I’m a fan of all of them.”
