The Breakfast Club Turns 30: Molly Ringwald on 9 Things You Never Knew About the Film Inline
Photo: Everett Collection1/9John Hughes nearly fired Judd Nelson because of his attitude toward Molly Ringwald.
“I think [Nelson] was just really in character and his character was supposed to get at me. I kind of knew what he was doing and it didn’t really bother me, but John was very protective of me.”
Photo: Everett Collection2/9Molly Ringwald was originally cast as Allison, but convinced John Hughes she should play Claire.
“I told him I was really more interested by Cathy [the original character name of Claire] and so he said ‘I’m going to have to go to the studio and get permission.’”
Photo: Everett Collection3/9Originally, the character of Claire was named Cathy, which Molly Ringwald changed.
“I just thought that Cathy was such an ordinary name, and I felt like Claire should have had a name that was a little bit more snotty. I felt like Claire just sounded like a family name. It wasn’t really a name that was used that much in the eighties, but Cathy was a very common name.”
Photo: (from left) Everett Collection; Getty Images4/9Robin Wright may also have been considered for the role of Claire.
When Ringwald told Hughes she was more interested in the role of Claire, she had a hunch that someone else was involved. “I have a feeling that Robin Wright actually was being considered for the part of Cathy . . . I sort of got the feeling that there was someone else that they had in mind for Cathy, so he had to get the studio to agree to let me do it.”
Photo: Everett Collection5/9The “marijuana” the cast smoked in the film was actually tobacco.
Rumor had it that the cast was smoking oregano, but Ringwald remembers otherwise: “They probably said that it was oregano because, I don’t know, the legality of smoking, but I think it’s been long enough that no one’s going to come after us. I remember it being tobacco.”
Photo: (from left) Everett Collection; Getty Images6/9Before there was Judd Nelson, there was John Cusack.
“John Cusack more or less had the role when it was going to shoot locally in Chicago. When John [Hughes] wrote Sixteen Candles and the studio decided that they wanted to do that first, they put everything on hold and then everything kind of changed . . . Judd had already auditioned and the chemistry between Judd and me was really strong. I mean, John Cusack was great. He would have been great for the role but it would have been very different.”
Photo: Everett Collection7/9John Hughes wrote his screenplay in record time.
“I know he wrote Sixteen Candles for sure in two days. He wrote it over July Fourth weekend. But John wrote everything fast. It all came out in one burst of inspiration and he really hated to rewrite. In fact, his stuff got worse. The more he rewrote, the less interesting it was.”
Photo: (from left) Everett Collection; Courtesy of Universal Pictures8/9Brooke Shields was not considered to play Allison, but Joan Cusack was.
Supposedly, Shields was on the short list to play the role of Allison, but Ringwald is skeptical. “I’ve never heard [about Shields]. I don’t think that that’s true. The only other name that I had heard was when John Cusack was going to [play Bender], I think Allison was going to be played by his sister, Joan, who had a small part in Sixteen Candles as, like, the neck brace girl.”
Photo: Everett Collection9/9Molly Ringwald chose Claire’s look.
“The movie was designed by Marilyn Vance, who also did Pretty in Pink . . . [the costume] was supposed to be this knit pink sweater layered thing, and when it arrived on set, it just looked wrong. The color just wasn’t right and the whole thing didn’t feel right. So I told John [Hughes], I was like, ‘This doesn’t look like the girl that you’ve written. I don’t know what this is.’ And he was like, ‘Well, let’s go out and get her some clothes.’ . . . We went to downtown Chicago, and most of the stuff that I got was from Ralph Lauren. The leather jacket I think was from somewhere else. But the skirt and the shoes and the top [were all from Ralph Lauren]. Although we dyed the top a different color. I think it was originally white or something, but we dyed it that kind of mauvey pink. But yeah, I chose the whole thing.
