BREAKFAST CLUB CAST INTERVIEW
The scene: A huge conference room in one of the Universal City studio office buildings outside Los Angeles. Windows line one side, floor-to-ceiling mirrors the other, and a nearby table is stocked with ice chests of various soft drinks. It is the same room in which the studio gave the green light to "E.T.," the biggest box-office hit of all time.
In the middle of the room is a great round table with chairs all around. In the center of the table is a hole, giving it all the look of a gigantic doughnut. Suddenly, the room begins to fill with the five young stars of writer-director John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club," and an entourage of mothers, teachers, publicists and studio executives. The critically acclaimed film, which opened Friday, is a sensitive and serious look at a day in the life of five troubled teens at a suburban Chicago high school.
The five are Emilio Estevez, 22, who plays Andy Clark, the jock; Judd Nelson, 24, who plays John Bender, the rebel; Molly Ringwald, 16, who plays Claire Standish, the sophisticated budding beauty; Ally Sheedy, 22, who plays Allison Reynolds, the recluse; and Anthony Michael Hall, 16, who plays Brian Clark, the brain.
The five move en masse to one end of the round table. The entourage is all on the other end. The interviewer sets up shop between them in the hole. His position is not symbolic. A few introductions, a little small talk. It all seems like the "Donahue" show complete with studio audience. The tape recorder is switched on. Its red button flashes.

Interviewer: I would think it would be pretty tough to do a project like "The Breakfast Club" and not know each other better by the time it had finished. Sheedy: Right. Ringwald: Yeah. Interviewer: What did you guys learn about each other? (Estevez starts laughing.) Sheedy: I knew Emilio was going to start laughing like that. Estevez: You did? You knew I was going to laugh. (Sighs) Sheedy: We definitely got to know each other very well during the filming. We were sort of thrown together for such a brief time in such an intense environment, really close, and. . . . Ringwald: Well, I learned that Emilio laughed real strangely. . . . Sheedy: And all the time for no reason whatsoever. . . . Nelson: That's exact. Estevez: Well, laughing is great therapy. Michael and Judd and I would blast for no reason at all. . . . Hall: We also would laugh when Emilio couldn't burp on cue. Sheedy: That was funny. Emilio was supposed to burp in the movie, and he failed miserably about 50 times.

Interviewer: Okay, then. You get the script for this movie. What was the appeal of the characters you were to play? Estevez: Let's see. About that character, Andy Clark. Well, he was a high school wrestler. He has this really intense secret that he's holding. He's got a lot more problems than he actually lets on that he has. He's got a lot of problems, and I was going through a lot of personal stuff at the time, so it was helpful. In a way, it was therapy. It helped me to get into that area and work through it.

Interviewer: Did you find the others helping you through that? Estevez: I think so. Yeah. Everyone was real helpful, real encouraging of everyone else. It was a terrific working relationship. Super. (He turns to Nelson.) Except Judd. He was a real pain in the a - -. Sheedy: No. Estevez: That's not true. He's great. (He hugs Nelson.) I'm so glad we're lovers.

Interviewer: What about you, Molly? Is Claire like you, not like you? Ringwald: It's not like me at all, or like anything I've ever played before, and that's what initially attracted me to the character. I thought it would be a lot of fun to play somebody that I've observed for so many years and disliked in school because there's one of those Claires in every school. I thought it would be fun to try to figure out what goes on in their minds. (Nelson and Estevez start making fun of her. She turns to them.) Ringwald (continued): This is what it was like. You want to know what it was like behind the scenes in "The Breakfast Club"? This is what it was like.

Interviewer: Now, "The Breakfast Club" was shot in Chicago. Working away from Hollywood must have made this experience different for you. Ringwald: It did. It wasn't so pressured. You really got to concentrate on your work as opposed to who's watching your work.

Interviewer: You must have had to spend a lot more time with each other off the set than you would have in Hollywood. Sheedy: Yeah. We were in a town outside of Chicago so you had to drive in. Ringwald: And if you didn't have a (driver's) license it made things a little more difficult. Estevez: The only thing we had to do at the hotel was flirt with the waitresses.

Interviewer: Were they good-looking? Nelson: Poor.

Interviewer (to Sheedy and Ringwald): Did you two flirt with the waitresses? Sheedy: Nope. We were stuck. We went to see a movie, though, and got lost in a snowstorm. . . .

Interviewer: Tell me what the Breakfast Club is? Ringwald: Well, John (Hughes), at his high school, Saturday morning detention was named the Breakfast Club.

Interviewer: So it was real? Ringwald: Yeah.

Interviewer (to Nelson): Okay, so that sets up a premise. But what's the rest of it? Estevez (to Nelson): You have not said one word. Sheedy: That's unbelievable because he's got the biggest mouth I've ever heard. Ringwald (to Nelson): Go for it. Nelson: I'm not sure.

Interviewer: Look, you're not going to be graded or sent back to detention. Sheedy: It's about five kids being completely honest with each other. And there's no superficiality about them. If they don't like each other, they say it. But it's just about honesty, I think. Ringwald: Anyone care to expand on that? Nelson: I think it has a lot to do with the fact that nothing is what it seems. So the movie opens up with five what-seem-to-be stereoptypes, the operative word being "seem." And then, over the course of the movie, what they realize is that they have a lot more in common than they'd anticipated, and maybe they feel good about that, and maybe they don't feel good about that, but by the end of the day, they've gotten a lot of new information. Whether that changes them or not, I don't know. Estevez: I think there's a certain amount of growth that goes on there. Everyone grows, even if it's only this (he holds his thumb and forefinger apart) much. Everyone grows and everyone comes to terms with the problems that're inside of them.

Interviewer: And then trying to solve them with people whom they'd normally not be talking with. . . . Sheedy: Exactly.

Interviewer: How long did it take you guys to break some of that down within yourselves as you were making the movie? Sheedy: To break down the awkwardness of each other?

Interviewer: I'm sure you had certain preconceived notions about each other. Some of you knew each other. Nelson: Well, I think that nobody asks Isaac Stern if he gets along with the second violinist. They go, and listen to the symphony. If they like it, than I guess it's good. This is a strange question. It almost assumes that we don't know what we're doing and that we're not professionals.

Interviewer: I don't follow. Nelson: It doesn't take a long time to break down anything between us because we're all hired to make "The Breakfast Club." Ringwald: That's our job. Nelson: So I think we came in very openly to it. And John Hughes created more of that feeling.

Interviewer: Yes, but you come into a project as actors, and, of course, you've all walked away from it as actors. But what about new feelings, thoughts and respect for each other? Even if you'd just done the script with no voluntary revelations about yourselves, there still must have been some peeling of yourselves. Sheedy: Yes. Estevez: Yes. Absolutely.

Interviewer: Then when did you see this was occurring? Ringwald: I don't know if it ever finished. Estevez: A lot of times relationships are fabricated on film sets. You read about them in the press and you wonder if they're true or not. But I think the relationships in this picture and the relationships that everyone has had with each other have broken out of just that fabrication.

Interviewer: You hung around a lot off the set while making the film? Sheedy: Yeah, we did, because there was nowhere to go. Hall: Yeah. Literally hanging around at the hotel and stuff. Nelson: Sitting in the lobby. Listening to the planes land.

Interviewer: Have you all seen the movie? All: Yes.

Interviewer: What did you think? Sheedy: It was really shocking. Because I didn't see any of it while we were filming it, no dailies. . . . Estevez: We saw a little of it. Remember the last day of shooting? We were completely blown out. Like wow. This is special.

Interviewer: Did you have that feeling while you were making the film? Estevez: That it was special? Sure.

Interviewer: Why? Estevez: Just look at what's out there now, the kinds of films they're making--"Tough Turf," "Hot Moves." I mean J----. Hall: "Heavenly Bodies." Estevez: Mindless garbage. And the kids have been fed this garbage for so long, and they thought this kind of garbage was good for them. But this film is more like health food. Nelson: Should we blow taps for you now because you're never going to work again. Ever. Saying that. Estevez: I don't care. I don't want to work for those producers anyway. It's true. I don't want to work for those guys and make those kinds of movies. They have nothing to say. They have nothing to offer to any of us. And if any of you are ever involved with any of these kinds of movies I will personally shoot you.

Interviewer: So you get angry at the movies put out for teenagers today? Estevez: They're a lie. Sheedy: They're very exploitive. Estevez: Sex. Drugs. And rock and roll. That's all they know. It's exploitive trash.

Interviewer: Keep going. Nelson: A lot of them treat teenagers as if they're animals. Just base animals. All they want to do is have sex, get high, listen to some music, rip down the institutions, treat their parents badly.

Interviewer: Sort of like your character in "The Breakfast Club." Nelson: Sort of like the external form of my character. Sure. And I think that that's not accurate. High school is a pretty serious time. You have to figure out what you're supposedly going to do with the rest of your life, and that's a lot of pressure to put on someone 15 years old when you have no idea what it is like to be 45. How do you know what you want to do when you're 45? And most films don't cover any of those aspects of coming-of-age. Coming-of-age is not necessarily the first time you have sex. It's a shame that that's what becoming an adult has come to mean. When you have sex, then you're an adult. Well, that's not true. Sheedy: With a lot of those movies, I feel like they're very result-oriented. Everybody looks back and says okay, because somebody acts this way it means they're at this point and certain things are important to them and certain things aren't and nobody kind of goes through the process of. . . . For instance, if you look at John Bender (Nelson's character), fine, you can take him at face value from the beginning of the movie and everybody thinks we have this guy really pegged and never wonder. . . . (Estevez finally burps on cue) Sheedy (continued): That was very good. And never wonder how he got that way or what he's saying really means. It's a gradual taking apart of people, and you find out they're not really what the result on the outside has led you to believe. Hall: People talk about these teen exploitation or sexploitation films as being trash, but if you really look at them--the first film of that genre, I guess, was "Porky's," which was spurred, I guess, by "Animal House"--and the first scene in Porky's is a guy measuring his ----. In "Breakfast Club". . . . Estevez: His what, Michael? Hall: What do you want me to call it? I'll waste 30 seconds by going ummm, uh--his ---- is what it is, his ----. And "Breakfast Club" starts off with five characters who, without them saying a word, you already have an idea of where they're from, and you take an interest in them. How can you take an interest in "Porky's"? I mean right off the bat, you have to take an interest in the characters in any film. There has to be that connection between the audience and the people on the screen. If you're not interested, or you don't like them, if there's just not that connection, whether it's good or bad, people just don't care.

Interviewer: What can you do to change that? Hall: I think change only comes through an idea, which "Breakfast Club" is, which will help to change these kinds of films. Estevez: Or people like us start making movies. Sheedy: It starts out with a trend. I think it's very often sort of political or social, that something's happening and it gets reflected in movies. First it's funny and surfacy, then these characters start to be taken real, because the people who are going to movies want to identify and have something to say in their lives. Nelson: Well, the news is that the human animal tends to learn a lot of habits quickly and sets them in very deeply. We've been seeing a lot of films that are currently garbage, and they keep making them, and we keep going to see them. So they keep making them because we keep going to see them. So we keep going to see the ones that they make.

Interviewer (to Hall): You've now appeared in one film John Hughes wrote ("National Lampoon's Vacation"), this is the second film you've been in that he's directed ("Sixteen Candles" being the other), and you've since done a third ("Weird Science"). What is it about him, other than the fact that he's offering you the work, that appeals to your sensibilities? (Nelson and Estevez get on his case) Hall: I can't answer that if you guys are gassing on me. So get back to me. I can get into it and laugh, but I can't sit here and be serious.

Interviewer: What about you, Molly? You've done two movies with Hughes. Ringwald: I think the reason why I like working with John is that he really understands kids because he genuinely likes young people. He doesn't condescend to them. He treats us not like adults or kids, just as a person. He writes about kids in a really intelligent way. And he's a good person.

Interviewer (to Sheedy): You've worked with several directors. What sets Hughes apart? Sheedy: He's very vulnerable. And I think he likes to write about young people because that's a real part of him. There's something open about him. There's something childlike about him. He likes to play. He likes to laugh.

Interviewer (to Estevez): You've written a screenplay, so I would suspect that you learn from reading other screenplays. What did you get from this one? Estevez: It just took a stab at being really honest. I think there's a sense of urgency to the picture, this sense of urgency that we all need to reveal ourselves, but the time has never been right, and now the time has come. And I think this sense of urgency comes--well, I think there's a sense of urgency among young people these days. A lot of it, I think, comes from the fact that the guy we got in the White House can push the button at any time, and it's a frightening notion that everything could be gone. So, it's that need to get it out, to talk about it, to do things. You know, for young actors to work, to be very prolific now because we might turn around tomorrow and. . . .

Interviewer: Is this something you all think about a lot? Ringwald: Nuclear war?

Interviewer: Yeah. Ringwald: You can't help it. It's everywhere. In the schools. And you read about it. It's something that's constantly hanging over your head. But it doesn't have to happen. Estevez: It doesn't have to, no. But it's something that I think all of us share a mutual anxiety about. Sheedy: Wait a minute. I don't know if I agree with that, because I think what it is that's going on is that, yes, there's a threat of nuclear war, and at the same time, almost because of that, there's also an incredible movement toward life going on right now. At least I think all over the world there are people turning toward religion and art and all of these different things.

Interviewer (to Estevez): Isn't that what you meant by "urgency." Estevez: Yeah. There's an upsurge of all this. Sheedy: To combat kind of an evil force. It's like a positive. Hall: I think it's been heightened by the fact that people have become aware of the whole Ethiopian situation. When you get down to it, when you're thinking about life and death, beyond nuclear wars and beyond what man has had the power to create out of metal to kill themselves, I think people have come to an understanding that there are people who are dying for something as simple as food, something that we all exist upon.

Interviewer: A lot's been written lately about this new class of upwardly mobile 20s-to-40s called the Yuppies. When I was growing up in the '60s, it was a time of activism, a pursuit of activism rather than materialism. People were getting involved in things. Sheedy: It's happening again.

Interviewer: You really believe that? Sheedy: Absolutely. The '60s came out of a period that you could sort of compare the Yuppies to, the affluence and attitude that maybe was existing at the end of the '50s: You know, "We're the greatest, most indestructible country in the world and everybody's really prosperous." The people now aren't exactly jaded, but the past few decades have led to a different attitude and a mental awareness. Everybody's jetting around the country, and driving cars, and consuming a lot of things, and at the same time, there's a kind of wearied attitude of all that, like that it doesn't mean anything, and material things--there's so much of it that all of a sudden it ceases to have any value at all and people are turning more inside because out there it's just out of control it's so big.

Interviewer (to Ringwald): What about among your friends. You're six years younger, and are those six years a big difference? Ringwald: I think just now people my age are beginning to get interested in those types of things--politics, Ethiopia, nuclear war and the like. We're just beginning to get interested. We're just beginning to understand it.

Interviewer: Are you guys really good actors or did John Hughes just cast you really well? Nelson: I think that he cast me real well, but the four of them are very good actors. Ringwald: I think that they cast us real well and that we're all good actors, both. Estevez: Somebody once said to John Huston, "You know, 90 percent of your films have been in the casting." And Huston said, "You're wrong, son --99."

Interviewer: Can any of you imagine having switched roles? Nelson: Sure. Estevez (to Ringwald): Not now. Can you? Ringwald: I could do a real good Brian, I think.

Interviewer (to Nelson): Did you change during shooting? Nelson: Did I change? You mean as a person? Did Judd Nelson change by working on the film? Like did I get a gift in a sense by being in a close working relationship with these people? Ringwald: Yes you did. You changed a lot. Nelson: Sure. Yeah. I mean there is always so much to learn in shooting a film, or doing anything, or even being in a room, every day with the same people. Sure. (Long pause.) I mean cause we're all in the game of illusion, behavior, and we were face to face with it for weeks. Sure. I learned a lot.

Interviewer: One of the aspects left open at the end of the film is whether you five will ever talk to each other again, whether you'll see each other again, whether the experience you shared ultimately will be taken out of the room or left back in there. There are a lot of personal permutations and combinations. The characters' lives may be changed, but do those eight hours of detention make a dent that will stay indented? Estevez: Well, look where they have to go back to. They have to go back to their homes. Sheedy: I don't think they can go backwards. Estevez: No, but they have to go back to where they came from, which is a whole ton of ----. Nelson: Who knows what will happen on Sunday. I think it all depends on what happens Saturday night and Sunday that will determine what happens on Monday. Maybe when Brian Johnson leaves he has such newfound strength that he behaves with his mother in such a way that she reacts in such a way that he's feeling stronger on Monday. So he might walk down the hallway and walk right up to John Bender and say "Hi, John." And it won't matter whether John likes him or not, he's going to like John. And maybe I go back home and watch my father beat the ---- out of my mother, and it just has so much effect on me that I know I made a mistake opening up to anyone else in the world. Period. I can't open myself up with my family, my mother can't open herself up with her father, I'm cutting it all off. On Monday, I may not even see them. Literally (he runs his hand in front of his eyes) not see them. Ringwald: I think they do. But I'm an incurable optimist. I think they're all strong characters, or else they wouldn't have opened up to each other in the first place. Sheedy: I think definitely there's been a change and they'll have to keep changing. Hall: I know Brian's changed. Whatever the effect of the change will have on the other four, I know that he's changed. But it's the unanswered question of the film. But you'd love to kind of assume. . . .

Copyright 1985 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune February 17, 1985 Sunday, FINAL EDITION HEADLINE: 5 FOR 'BREAKFAST': YOUNG 'CLUB' STARS GET SERIOUS ABOUT TEENS ON SCREEN BYLINE: By Jeff Silverman. Article contributed by Elaine for PRESENTING...EMILIO!!!