The Breakfast Club stars Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Anthony Michael Hall united publicly for the first time since the film’s 1985 release on Saturday, taking part in a 40th anniversary conversation at the C2E2 convention in Chicago.
“I feel really very emotional and moved to have us all together,” Ringwald told the crowd, noting that while the rest of the group had previously reunited, it was the first time Estevez had joined them. “We don’t have to use the cardboard cutout anymore because he’s here. I feel really moved that we’re all together.”
Estevez joked that he had also skipped all of his real-life high school reunions, but appearing at the event “was something that finally I felt I needed to do just for myself. This one felt special, it’s here in Chicago where we made the film. It’s obviously the 40th anniversary, and it just felt like it was time. Somebody told me that Molly said, ‘Well, does Emilio just not like us?’ And that broke my heart. And I went, ‘No of course I love all of them.’ And that just made sense, so here I am.”
With writer-director John Hughes‘ son and grandchildren in the audience, the group reflected on first meeting each other — at a table read when Estevez had gotten his wisdom teeth out the day before and passed out while Hughes showed them the first cut of Sixteen Candles — and the casting, as Ringwald explained how the filmmaker originally planned to do The Breakfast Club first, but after he wrote Sixteen Candles the studio prioritized that film.
“From my understanding, John Cusack was going to play Bender and Joan Cusack was going to play Allison. I don’t know who was going to play the other parts,” Ringwald said of the original Breakfast Club roles. “And then after Sixteen Candles, [Hughes] gave me the script and originally, he had talked to me about playing Allison, but I wanted to play the other part [Claire] because I felt like that was less like me. And then we did auditions in Los Angeles for the other parts.”
The actors gushed over their experiences with Hughes throughout the conversation, with Nelson saying, “he’s the first writer who could ever write someone who was young without them being less — except less old” and Hall admitting over his 49-year acting career, “no one matches that. No one’s come close” to what it was like to work with the filmmaker.
“I always felt in a weird way that the work was half done, that at some point we would all get back together — because there were too many questions by everyone, ‘What happens on Monday?’ The film is about the fact that everyone has to make that decision for themselves [about] what happens on Monday. But I felt, personally, that it was one shoe and I needed the second shoe, and that could only come from John,” Nelson added. “So his passing was profound for me, because it’s like the work will always be in a circle leaning one direction. What we needed was the one to counterbalance it, because Hughes explained to us the differences between the young and old. So now is the time for him to show us where we meet in the end, because we’re all older now, but we’re not going to get that, which is sad. But in a way Hughes has been telling us, ‘Think for yourself.’”
While answering questions from fans, the cast also mused on if the film would be made or have as much resonance today, with Estevez pointing out, “Movies today are concept-driven, they’re not character-driven, and the beauty of John is that he focused on characters first. And when you think about trying to pitch this movie today — it’s about five kids sitting in a library all day in detention — the studio executives would march you right out the door and say where are the monsters? Where’s the car chases? Where are the big effects?”
He continued, “It’s also important to remember that we made this movie for $1 million, which at the time was still a lot of money but by Universal standards was not; it was not thought of as a big, giant tentpole film as they make today. So there was a lot of risk involved, but by today’s standards, this movie I don’t think would ever get made.”
Ringwald mused that at a time of revisiting old I.P., “I personally don’t believe in remaking that movie, because I think this movie is very much of its time. It resonates with people today but I believe in making movies that are inspired by other movies, but build on it and represent what’s going on today. You know it’s very white, this movie. You don’t see a lot of different ethnicities; we don’t talk about gender, none of that, and I feel like that really doesn’t represent our world today. So I would like to see movies that are inspired by The Breakfast Club but take it in a different direction.”
For those who couldn’t make it to Chicago for C2E2, panel recordings can be watched here.
