Actress Molly Ringwald appeared on a new episode of Monica Lewinsky’s “Reclaiming” podcast to reflect on fame and her teen years.
The 80s star is best known for her major roles in John Hughes’s teen-oriented films, including “Sixteen Candles” (1984), “The Breakfast Club” (1985), and “Pretty in Pink” (1986). Ringwald, now 57, told Lewinsky she’s still processing what it was like to be a muse for the late director.
The actress said she had “complex” feelings regarding an anecdote Hughes made about being inspired by her headshot. The story goes that Hughes wrote the screenplay for “Sixteen Candles” after seeing Ringwald’s photo.
“He told me that story, but, you know, when you’re that age — I mean, I had nothing really to compare it to,” Ringwald told Lewinsky. “I had done more movies than John at that point, [but] I was still only 15 years old. So I didn’t have a lot of life experience.”
She added that being an inspiration for Hughes “didn’t seem that strange to me [at the time].”
“I mean, now it does,” Ringwald added.
“Like strange, still complimentary or strange weird, strange creepy?” Lewinsky asked.
“Yeah, it’s peculiar,” Ringwald replied. “It’s complimentary. It’s always felt incredibly complimentary, but yeah, looking back on it, there was something peculiar.”
“It’s complex,” she continued. “It’s definitely complex and it’s something that I turn over in my head a lot and try to figure out how that all affected me. I feel like I’m still processing all of that.”
The actress previously criticized Hughes’ films for being sexist, racist, and homophobic as part of an essay she published in 2018 during the height of the #MeToo movement.
“If attitudes toward female subjugation are systemic, and I believe that they are, it stands to reason that the art we consume and sanction plays some part in reinforcing those same attitudes,” she wrote, claiming one example was Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, sexually harassing her character, Claire, in “The Breakfast Club.”
“How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose?” she wrote. “What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road when it comes to art — change is essential, but so, too, is remembering the past, in all of its transgression and barbarism, so that we may properly gauge how far we have come, and also how far we still need to go.”
Hughes, who died in 2009, is known for writing and directing some of the most iconic films of the 80s and 90s. Besides the teen movies Ringwald became famous for, he came up with “Weird Science,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Curly Sue,” “She’s Having a Baby,” and “Uncle Buck.”
Hughes also wrote “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” “Mr. Mom,” “The Great Outdoors,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Home Alone,” and “Beethoven.”
