John Hughes Brat Pack Cast Reunites At C2E2 In Chicago For ‘Don’t You Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club 40th Anniversary’
There was a slight chill in the air on day two of the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (aka C2E2) at McCormick Place in the South Loop neighborhood. Most of it had to do with the slightly less-than-seasonal temperature, and also because the venue itself is located right next to a large body of water that constantly blasts apocalyptic gusts of wind at everything that comes near its shores, but what really made that deathly cold seep into the bones was the realization that writer-director John Hughes’ iconic teen comedy/drama, The Breakfast Club, turns four decades old this year.
It was a feeling that cut deep, but it did not last long when panel moderator, Josh Horowitz, introduced the stars of the movie, and they were greeted with a reception that warmed up the whole massive, mazelike facility. With John Hughes’ son and grandchildren in the audience, nobody had trouble staying awake as we spent our early Saturday morning with the brain (Anthony Michael Hall), the athlete (Emilio Estevez), the basket case (Ally Sheedy), the princess (Molly Ringwald), and the criminal (Judd Nelson).
This is the first time the entire cast has shared a stage together since the film’s release, and that’s when all eyes turned towards the one who had previously declined all request to join his former classmates for one more Saturday detention. Emilio Estevez has kept a low profile for the past two decades and has never felt the need to revisit the old days of taping a nerd’s butt cheeks together as wrestler, Andrew Clark.
“I skipped all my high school reunions,” Estevez explained during the panel (via The Popverse). “So, this was something that finally felt like I needed to do, just for myself. But this one felt special because it’s here in Chicago where we made the film, it’s the 40th anniversary, and I just love all of them so it just made sense.”
Molly Ringwald, who plays spoiled popular girl Claire Standish in the movie, chimed in with a playful jab at her costar. “I feel really very emotional, and moved to have us all together,” She confided to the crowd. “We don’t have to use the cardboard cutout anymore because he’s here. I feel really moved that we’re all together.”
“Somebody told me that Molly said, ‘Well, does Emilio just not like us?’” Esteves responded. “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.”
The gang shared stories of being cast for the film, and how it was different for each actor. Everyone’s favorite mathlete, Brian Johnson (Hall), talked about how the late/great director had him in mind before he apparently had anything else to go with that.
“John just called up and said, ‘I want you to come in.’ He didn’t have a script. He didn’t give me a script,” Hall said. Adding that Hughes was just asking him questions, such as, “What do you think about this? What do you think about that?”
“From my understanding,” followed Ringwald. “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, 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.”
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However, the most interesting story came from Estevez who had to do a script read-through with the cast the day after undergoing dental surgery and was loaded on pain meds. To the point where he couldn’t drive to the hotel where it was taking place, and producers had to send a car for him.
“I had, the night before, just had all four wisdom teeth pulled, impacted wisdom teeth,” Estevez recalled. “I was on pain pills, and my agent called and said, ‘Listen, they’re going to do the read-through, and you have to show up.’ I said, ‘Look, my face is swollen, I’m on pain pills, I’m bleeding out!’ They said, ‘No, no, no, it’s important. You have to be there!’”
“At the end of the read-through, John says, ‘Hey listen, I brought the first cut of my movie ‘Sixteen Candles,’ I want to show it to you,’” said Estevez. “And we said, ‘OK great.’ He puts the film on, we’re sitting there, I don’t think I made it through the opening credits. I passed out from the pain pills and just from the ordeal of having my teeth extracted. I woke up at the end credits, and I looked at Judd, and Judd says, ‘I think you’re getting fired,’”
“And I believed it too,” he said with complete earnesty. “I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I just failed the final test.’”
Luckily, it was not the case. The movie was shot at Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, and the filming only took fifteen days. The Breakfast Club was an immediate hit that spawned countless imitators and has since become a cherished classic among cinephiles from all walks of life. During the panel, they were asked what they think their characters are up to these days:
Judd Nelson, who plays the misunderstood, angst-ridden rebel, John Bender, gave the first answer, “I think Bender is clearly the principal of the school.”
Ally Sheedy stars in the movie as the oddball wallflower, Allison Reynolds, and her prediction seems most likely. “I think Allison would’ve ended up being a writer,” Sheedy mused. “Maybe a professor, something intellectual,”
“I think that Claire probably got married a few times,” Ringwald said to nobody’s surprise. “And maybe decided she liked women. You know, her kids are grown up, she’s like, ‘Okay I’ll try that.’ It didn’t work out so well with the guys.”
In a time when everything has to be remade, or get a decades-later sequel, the cast did not mince words when asked how they would feel about seeing The Breakfast Club getting the same “updated” treatment from a creatively bankrupt film industry:
“Movies today are concept-driven,” answered Estevez. “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?’”
“I personally don’t believe in remaking that movie,” Ringwald stated. “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.
“I always felt in a weird way that the work was half done,” said Nelson. “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 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. 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.’”
“It’s also important to remember that we made this movie for $1 million,” added Esteves, pounding down the final nail on that terrible idea. “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. You never know what a movie is going to turn out to be, but this is one of the movies that stands the test of time. It is an extraordinary thing, but it’s never by design. It’s always by accident. We were lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time to be involved in something like that.”
It was a time of celebration, and reminiscing on wonderful memories. Not just for the cast, but for the countless individuals who saw themselves in those characters at some point in their younger lives, and resonated with the hopeful (albeit unknown) destiny that awaited them in school on Monday morning. By the end, everyone in the room was wearing a smile that made them all feel younger, despite how old they still looked. Much like her character, Ally Sheedy had the least to say during the panel, but it only made her words shine brighter.
“I was really happy when we were making this movie,” she said. “We all really… I don’t know if you can tell but we all really do love each other. It was a dream, a joyful experience.
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