Moviefone Editorial

Tag: emilio-estevez

  • Matt Damon Says He’s Pushing for a ‘Rounders’ Sequel

    Matt Damon in 'Rounders'.
    Matt Damon in ‘Rounders’. Photo: Miramax Films.

    Preview:

    • Matt Damon says the ‘Rounders’ team want to make a sequel to the 1998 cult classic.
    • He mentions having discussed it recently with co-star Edward Norton.
    • Rob Lowe, meanwhile, reports there’s new smoke where a St. Elmo’s Fire sequel might be.

    Matt Damon will be back on our screens next week in ‘The Instigators’, a new Apple TV+ movie about two unlikely partners in a heist.

    But he’s also been thinking about his movie past, and which of them he might re-visit. Turns out, the 1998 cult classic poker drama ‘Rounders’ is ever on his mind. And, if he and the rest of the team behind the movie –– especially writers David Levien and Brian Koppelman –– have their way, we could actually see one.

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    What was the story of ‘Rounders’?

    Matt Damon and Edward Norton in 'Rounders'.
    (L to R) Matt Damon and Edward Norton in ‘Rounders’. Photo: Miramax Films.

    The original movie, which starred Damon, Edward Norton and John Malkovich, explores the underground world of high-stakes poker.

    It follows two friends who need to win at high-stakes poker to quickly pay off a large debt –– and for those who don’t know their poker terminology, a rounder is a person seeking high-stakes card games.

    Matt Damon on the chances of a ‘Rounders’ sequel

    Matt Damon in 'Rounders'.
    Matt Damon in ‘Rounders’. Photo: Miramax Films.

    This is what Damon told the Rich Eisen Show about his hopes for a new movie:

    “The one we’ve been talking about for years, and we’re trying to, and I just saw Edward Norton a few weeks ago, like all of us want to do it is a second ‘Rounders’ movie. So much has happened in the poker world in the last 25 years, it would be fun to catch up with those guys. They had a whole movie ready to go then, but now there’s been a whole another change in the poker world since then, so I haven’t talked to them about what it would be, but I know what they had 10 years ago was fantastic, and I’m sure they could augment and roll with the times and update it to where we are today and make something great.”

    No official word yet, of course, so don’t bet on anything happening immediately, or you hopes could fold.

    Related Article: 40 Best Underrated Movies Worth Another Watch!

    Rob Lowe on a potential ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ sequel

    Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Mare Winningham and Andrew McCarthy in 'St. Elmo's Fire'.
    (L to R) Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Mare Winningham and Andrew McCarthy in ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’. Photo: Columbia Pictures.

    While we’re all in a sequel state of mind, there is some news –– albeit very tentative at this point as he admits –– from Rob Lowe about a potential sequel to 1985’s ‘St. Elmo’s Fire‘.

    The original film, co-written and directed by Joel Schumacher, also starred Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andie MacDowell and Mare Winningham in the story of recent graduates from Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University and how they adjusted to adulthood.

    It was one of the classic “Brat Pack” films, and while there have been attempts by Sony in the past to re-visit the story on TV, interest has spiked with the release of McCarthy’s Hulu documentary ‘Brats’ about the titular pack. Sony has reportedly been more actively developing a cinematic return for the characters.

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    Here’s what Lowe told Entertainment Tonight in an interview:

    “We’ve met with the studio, and I have been talking about doing it for about four months. “But it’s very, very, very, very, very early stages. So we will see.”

    So, yes… there is development, but don’t break out the suit jackets, knit sweaters and saxophone just yet.

    Andrew McCarthy, Mare Winningham, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore and Emilio Estevez in 'St. Elmo's Fire'.
    (L to R) Andrew McCarthy, Mare Winningham, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore and Emilio Estevez in ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’. Photo: Columbia Pictures.

    List of “Brat Pack” Movies:

    Buy ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ Movie On Amazon

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  • ‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ Season 2 Exclusive Clip

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    Way back in 1992, ‘The Mighty Ducks’ chronicled the misadventures of a rag-tag group of ice hockey players banding together under the mentorship of Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez), a lawyer whose past as a star junior ice hockey player is long behind him.

    He’s none too happy, then when after a drink-driving charge, he’s drafted in to coach the struggling Mighty Ducks team as his community service. These kids aren’t the cream of the crop – and if they are, the cream has curdled.

    And yet helps them find the strength to play like a real team, and they end up facing off against players representing the squad he used to be part of, helping him battle his own ghosts.

    The original movie was popular enough to spawn a franchise, with two cinematic sequels and an animated TV show that was only loosely inspired by the movies, and instead focused on humanoid duck superheroes who play ice hockey.

    Continuing and updating the story for a modern Disney+ audience, ‘Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ brings the ‘Mighty Ducks’ concept into the present day, where the Mighty Ducks, far from being rag-tag, is now a giant sports franchise with top-tier players. But when one of their own is dropped (Brady Noon’s Evan Morrow), his mother Alex (Lauren Graham) ropes Bombay back in to help coach a new group of unlikely heroes.

    Josh Duhamel as Colin Cole in 'The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ Season 2.'
    Josh Duhamel as Colin Cole in ‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ Season 2, which premieres September 28th on Disney+.

    Estevez isn’t back for season two, which finds the new Ducks – who were triumphant in their first season, winning the name back from the soulless franchise team – hitting the road with Alex to attend an intense summer hockey institute in California run by charming yet hardcore former NHL player, Colin Cole (Josh Duhamel). It’s a place for kids to get excellent at hockey — without school to get in the way. As our Ducks try to survive in this super-competitive environment, they’re faced with the question: Can you win summer?

    In this exclusive clip from Episode 6 ‘Twigs,’ the individual competition part of the institute’s program is ending, and it’s time for the tournament period to begin. Coach Cole is looking to drum up enthusiasm as the team jerseys are handed out.

    Alex, though, is not quite as impressed by the coach’s theatrics – at least until she considers that he “stuck the landing” with his inspirational speech.

    Graham, at least, is happy with how the series, created by the original movie’s writer Steve Brill alongside Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, tackles its themes. “The show philosophically looks at some of the pressures kids have through the lens of sports, especially as young teenagers now,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “Of course everybody enjoys winning, but at what cost? And what’s more important, is it your effort, your team spirit, or the results you get? Is it how you conduct yourself and what kind of character you have? It asks those questions in just a slightly more grown up way, because the kids are a little bit older now, there’s a little more romance, there’s a little more peer pressure kind of issues, and it’s all in the spirit of being a good team player, which I think is really sweet.”

    ‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ streams new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.

    Josh Duhamel as Colin Cole in 'The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ Season 2.
    Josh Duhamel as Colin Cole in ‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ Season 2, which premieres September 28th on Disney+.
  • Alec Baldwin on Fulfilling His Dream of Working with Emilio Estevez in ‘The Public’

    Alec Baldwin on Fulfilling His Dream of Working with Emilio Estevez in ‘The Public’

    Universal

    Alec Baldwin is one of those actors so legendary and iconic, everything he does seems like an event, even if it’s a small character drama like “The Public.” Written, directed and produced by Emilio Estevez, it’s the kind of movie they don’t seem to make anymore, full of wonderful, graceful character beats and genuine surprises, telling the story of a group of homeless people who decide to “occupy” a public library. (The cast also includes Taylor Schilling, Michael K. Williams, Christian Slater and Jena Malone.) In other words, it’s worth seeking out, even if you have to look extra hard for it.

    So you can imagine how thrilled we were to chat with Baldwin, about how he became involved in the project, how he goes about choosing his roles, and whether or not he misses the allure of big budget franchise filmmaking. He was wonderful, open and honest, just like “The Public” itself.

    Moviefone: How did you initially become involved with this project?

    Alec Baldwin: I think there’s a part of me that I’ve always been keen on the idea of working with Emilio. He’s on that short list of people who are making films that are smart and have strong subject matter and so forth. A lot of the people who were there today, the cast, are people who are making a living of it, doing jobs that are entertainment and they might have a lot of smart content. But at the same time they don’t necessarily get to make a movie like this. When someone like Emilio calls you, if you feel that you can bring something to the role and you’re available, in all likelihood you go. It’s not about getting paid. It’s not about money, maybe it’s about schedule. But I’ve always been very keen on the idea of working with Emilio.

    You’ve worked with several directors who are also actors and is that appealing to you as an actor?

    I think that actors historically have made very, very good directors. Whether it’s Warren Beatty or Redford or Clint Eastwood of people like that from a previous generation. And I think that actors often make excellent directors. But it doesn’t really matter. Woody Allen as a good example because it doesn’t really matter how good a director they are with actors if the script isn’t good. Some of those people have either written or have supervised some wonderful material. With Emilio, that’s key, the writing is key. He’s such a great writer. He’s a, very good director, he’s a wonderful actor. But what he really is, is a great writer. To balance this story and make it funny when you need to be funny and they can visually arresting. He knows pop things visually. And then to balance the supporting roles, to take these roles and make them interesting enough to attract a cast like this I think is a really great ability that he has.

    Universal

    This story has a social dimension to it, in terms of its themes and subject matter. Um, is that something that you are looking for when choosing projects?

    If it works as well as this does and it involve the people like this, then yes. I mean, I have people come to me periodically to either appear in a film or TV project or to produce documentary programming where it’s very straightforward and very earnest. One of the most complicated things in this business is to deal with people who are very, very passionate about their project. And you understand that passion. You say to yourself, I know what that’s like. I know this guy sitting there saying, ‘I think we need to have a new generation of dog collars.’ And they come to you with some out of left field idea that they’re burning about. You sit there and go, “Well I don’t know how much I can really help you with your documentary about dog collars, but I support you nonetheless.”

    You’ve seen that people come to you with great ideas and completely nutty ideas and yet they are passionate about that idea. And I, I always say, “God, I hope you get to make your film. I’ll be getting made an inch. I don’t know if I can help you.” The difficult thing is what Emilio pulled off because the final straw is a producer. He’s a writer, he’s a director, he’s an actor, he’s a producer that raise the money that got this made, that made deals and enticed people to come and shoot this film and got this will be sold and is getting it distributed. That’s such a Herculean task in the modern world with so much product out there, there’s so many people competing for the public’s attention.

    And I want to do movies I think work and if, if they’re supposed to be funny, I want them to be funny and if they’re supposed to be dramatic and weird and interesting than I want that to be taken care of. And if I want to do something that’s really a social drama, I think you couldn’t possibly do it with somebody better than Emilio.

    Well I was going to ask, you know, you said that you know that entertainment is obviously very important, but how important is it to you to keep doing movies of this scale?

    Well, I think that the movies that I do now really it’s all about schedule because I have so many little children. I got remarried and my wife and I have four kids, five and under, you know. And even when I say that out loud, I gasp myself, that we have so many kids. But they are really what calls the tune. So the things I’ve done like this Delorean project I have coming out that’s going to be a Tribeca I did Ed Norton‘s movie. I worked with Edward on “Motherless Brooklyn.” He had got to adapt this book that everybody was a wild about. Whenever I get a chance to work with the best people, that’s when you get excited. You know, you’ll say, “Well, who’s in the movie?” And they’ll say, “DeNiro!” And you go, “Oh my God,” and they’re going, “No, it’s Larry DeNiro.” But when you get to work with the best people, that’s when you really, you sense you have an opportunity to, you know, you really might be onto something.

    Paramount

    Well, I’m, I’m curious to see your relationship with these kinds of franchise movies. Earlier in your career you were a Jack Ryan, which I’m assuming you thought  were going to do sort of more of those. And now you’re in “Mission: Impossible.”

    But I’m dead!

    There are reports you could come back!

    [laughs] That’s funny. Again, I’ve made movies where the budget of the film was $1 million. And then you make a movie like “Mission: Impossible,” where $1 million is the budget for Diet Coke alone. And I mean, it’s like you make movies, it’s just so insane the amount of money, but that amount of money is required because filmmaking can be as much as you plan, because things can happen that are unexpected. And that goes beyond Cruise breaking his leg in the middle of the shooting schedule. They test things and they test things and they do things in terms of its cinematic effect and not everything works. These highly complicated films like “Mission,” they just have so many people on the set and when you’re there shooting. It’s Hollywood big budget studio film making like pretty much no one’s doing anymore unless it’s these franchises that have these huge audiences in this huge reach.

    I love doing films like that. I love Chris. I love Tom. There’s no one else I’d rather shoot with regardless of the content. They’re really great people to work for. The sad thing for me is there’s people I’ve wanted to work with that I might not get to work with. There might not be enough time in my life to work with. And a lot of the people I want to work with again. I see people all the time. I was talking to Michael K. Williams here and I was saying how much I loved ”The Night Of.” And I mean, I’m the first person when I see a show like that I like, I’m like, “You call them the phone. You tell them if they’re going to do ‘Night Of’ part 2, please call me, I’ll play a cop. Man, I don’t care.” You know?

    Are there any of these characters that you would want to revisit? At one point Jack Ryan was president.

    That is highly unlikely. Everything happens for a reason. I sometimes think of my career had gone in a direction where I had this bulletproof career where you literally live in the penthouse, like Hanks and Cruise and all these people who have these golden opportunities in their careers and they make wonderful films. I often think to myself, if I had that kind of career, what would my life be like? And I did not have that kind of career. I had a window where things were pretty good. And then like everybody else, you fall from the movie tree and they make you into the apple sauce of the TV business. You know what I mean? But I wound up doing “30 Rock,” which was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. These people taught me what’s funny was. I never thought of myself as being that funny. I learned from Tina and Robert and on and on, even into my personal life and if I, if I hadn’t met my wife and had my kids, who cares how rich and famous you are if you’re miserable. And my life is exactly … I wouldn’t change a thing. I really wouldn’t change a thing because I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my life.

    “The Public” opens in theaters tomorrow!

  • Emilio Estevez Is Hollywood’s Most Profitable Star, According To New Study

    Emilio EstevezEmilio Estevez is Hollywood’s most profitable star … if you go back to 1980.

    A new study by something called PartyCasino analyzed box office numbers and declared the former Brat Packer the most profitable of any top-billed male actor who starred in at least 10 films from 1980 to 2017. Gotta be those “Mighty Ducks” dollars.

    According to the study, for every $1 spent on his films, Estevez generated $6.70 at the box office. The runners-up will also surprise you: Jean-Claude Van Damme ranked second with $4.20 for each dollar, followed by Mel Gibson ($3.50) and Tyler Perry ($3). (Perry’s latest film, “‘Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” is expected to top the box office this weekend.) “10” star Dudley Moore (who died in 2002) tied Perry with a $3 per film return.

    So who’s the least profitable? Only A-lister Brad Pitt! He supposedly returned only 10 cents for every $1 spent, followed by Johnny Depp (20 cents), Robert De Niro (24 cents), Hugh Jackman (25 cents), and Anthony Hopkins (26 cents).

    The study also crunched numbers for actresses, but as a representative told the New York Post, “women, unfortunately, are less likely to be the top-billed actor for a movie.” Still, of the women they counted, Rose Byrne — whose films include “Bridesmaids,” “X-Men: First Class,” and “Neighbors” — was the most profitable with a whopping $9.80 for every budgeted dollar.

    She was followed up by “Girls Trip” star Regina Hall ($3.50) and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer ($2.90). Get those women more jobs, stat!

    As for highest-earning genres, “mystery films” topped the list, followed by horror films and thrillers. Hard to believe, but documentaries returned almost four times more money than action films. At the bottom of the list? “Crime pictures” and musicals. (Sorry, Best Picture Winner “Chicago.”)

    [Via Variety, THR]

  • 14 Things You Never Knew About Disney’s ‘The Mighty Ducks’

    Lace up your skates and practice your triple-deke: It’s time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “The Mighty Ducks.”

    Released a quarter-century ago this week (on October 2, 1992), the Disney film about an underdog team of misfit pee-wee hockey players was no one’s idea of a hit movie. Yet the film was a solid hit that revitalized Emilio Estevez‘s career, launched the careers of several future stars (notably, Joshua Jackson), spawned a pair of sequels and an animated series, and even inspired the creation of a new pro hockey team.

    The “Mighty Ducks” trilogy may have been a staple of many childhoods, but there are still some secrets behind the hockey masks.
    1. Steve Brill wrote the screenplay on spec when he was an unemployed actor in the 1980s, he told Time in 2014. Brill was an avid ice skater who spent his days at the Culver City rink near his apartment. He was also a fan of both hockey and “The Bad News Bears,” which gave him the idea of writing a “Bears”-style sports-underdog movie with pucks instead of baseballs.

    2. For the role of coach Gordon Bombay, Brill envisioned casting his roommate, fellow unemployed actor Peter Berg — who’d ultimately stake his own place in juvenile-sports-movie history by directing the big-screen adaptation of “Friday Night Lights.”
    3. Disney bought Brill’s screenplay, in part because then-CEO Michael Eisner‘s own kids were pee-wee hockey players. Also, when he was still at Paramount, Eisner had had a hand in shepherding “Bears” to the screen.

    4. Like “Bears,” Brill’s original script was full of off-color humor and grown-up romance. Most of that wasn’t going to fly at Disney, and producer Jordan Kerner had Brill revise the screenplay to make it broader and more kid-friendly. Also, Disney wasn’t going to cast no-name Berg in the lead adult role, choosing the much better known Emilio Estevez instead.
    5. Future “Dawson’s Creek” and “The Affair” star Joshua Jackson was not the first choice to play team captain Charlie Conway. The part initially went to Jake Gyllenhaal — then a movie newbie with only the role of Billy Crystal‘s little boy in “City Slickers” under his belt — only to have Gyllenhaal’s parents nix his participation because it would have taken too much time away from school. Talking to Howard Stern in 2015, Gyllenhaal recalled them telling him, “‘You’ll hate us now, but you’ll thank us later.’ And I do.”

    6. During their auditions, many of the kid actors lied about their skating skills. Which was okay; Estevez couldn’t skate either. The whole cast had to go through several weeks of skating boot camp once they arrived on location in Minnesota.
    7. “Mighty Ducks” marked the big-screen debuts of future “Empire” co-star Jussie Smollett (Terry Hall) and Marguerite Moreau (Connie, above), future co-star of the “Wet Hot American Summer” franchise.

    8. Kerner recalled that most of the kids behaved professionally, but one boy was something of a bully, with a stage mother who overestimated her son’s talents. Finally, Kerner said, he had to fire the kid. Which is how Vincent Larusso, cast in a minor role, moved up into the key part of turncoat player Adam Banks.
    9. The character of Hans, the irascible old-timer played by Joss Ackland, was inspired by a similar man, also named Hans, who worked at the Culver City rink. Berg recalled that one day, Brill injured himself on the ice. “Brill said, ‘Hans, I think I broke my leg.’ And Hans paused and looked at him and said, ‘Well, that’s your own personal problem’ and walked away. I think that was a very formative moment for Brill when he wrote that character.”

    10. How cold was it in Minnesota? Temperatures supposedly dropped to 55 below, so cold that, when shooting the scene where Gordon kisses Charlie’s mom, Estevez and co-star Heidi Kling found themselves frozen together at the lips. Recalled Kerner, “We had to get makeup to grab warm water and put droplets on their lips so they could actually separate,”
    11. Ever notice that, among all the teams shown in the film, only the Ducks and their chief rivals, the Hawks, have both their names and their numbers on their jerseys? All the rest of the teams have just numbers.

    12. “Mighty Ducks” cost a reported $10 million to make. It returned $50.8 million at the North American box office.
    13. Between the first and second films of the trilogy, Eisner decided that a pro hockey team fit in with Disney’s growing presence in Anaheim, site of the original Disneyland and a little-used sports arena. The night before he met with the rest of the NHL owners to discuss the expansion team, Eisner decided to name the pro franchise after the movie, “and not enough people disagreed with me.”

    14. Kerner says he and Brill have discussed with Disney the possibility of making a fourth “Ducks,” if they can come up with a workable story. Of the prospect of the Ducks returning to the ice, perhaps this time as coaches themselves, Jackson said in 2014: “I feel like a fourth film should happen, and if there was space for any of the original kids that come back and have a role, I would be surprised that anybody didn’t want to do it.”

  • Emilio Estevez Has Mighty Fun Live-Tweeting an Anaheim Ducks Game

    coach bombay, emilio estevez, the mighty ducksCoach Gordon Bombay shared some inspirational platitudes once again on Monday night when actor Emilio Estevez channeled his “Mighty Ducks” character to cheer on the Anaheim Ducks during an NHL playoff game.

    Estevez, who to a generation of filmgoers is most closely associated with Coach Bombay, decided to play up his connection to the real-life Ducks (which were formed by Disney following the success of the studio’s “Mighty Ducks” franchise) and root for the team via social media, as they battled the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Finals. Estevez took to Twitter and used the hashtag #GordonBombay to signify his inspiration for jumping on the Ducks bandwagon, and quickly worked his way through a plethora of memorable quotes from the films.

    “Ducks Fly Together,” the “Quack! Quack! Quack!” chant, and invoking “the Flying V” all appeared on Estevez’s feed, as the worked up actor reacted to the twists and turns of the game. As the Ducks claimed a nail-biting overtime victory, Estevez couldn’t help but use some Disney-unfriendly language to sum up his excitement.

    Check out some of the actor’s exuberant posts below. Here’s hoping Estevez Bombay continues the live-tweeting throughout the rest of the Ducks’s playoff run. (Or maybe he can offer to teach the team the triple deke?)


    [via: Emilio Estevez, h/t People]

    Photo credit: YouTube

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  • ‘The Breakfast Club’: Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy Look Back 30 Years Later (EXCLUSIVE)

    Last week the Internet had a collective heart attack as it became apparent that the anniversary of the day that “The Breakfast Club” is supposed to take place happened 31 years earlier. Of course, “The Breakfast Club” is a movie and not a historical document (one that came out 30 years ago), but that doesn’t matter. Because talking about John Hughes‘s immortal classic is fun and people will do it at every conceivable juncture.

    “The Breakfast Club,” of course, starred Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy, as a group of disparate teens united for a Saturday’s worth of detention (Paul Gleason very memorably essayed the role of the meddling principal — “I make over $30,000 a year!”). Recently, to celebrate the movie’s anniversary and commemorate the newly released (and truly incredible deluxe edition Blu-ray package), the film held a pair of screenings in Austin, Texas, as part of the South by Southwest Film Festival. At one screening, in the morning, they handed out pastries — hey, it is the Breakfast Club after all!

    That’s where we were given the unique opportunity to sit down with Sheedy and Ringwald, actresses who gained immediate superstardom for the movie (with the press naming them as two members of the Hughes-cultivated Brat Pack) and are still talking about it today. While this kind of retrospective discussion can drive some actors up the wall, they were both gracious and lovely. We talked about whether or not they immediately recognized that the film would be a classic, why John Hughes didn’t have any gay or ethnic characters in the script, and whether or not the movie would (and should) ever be remade.

    Put on the Simple Minds theme song (really loud) and take a walk down memory lane, won’t you?

    Moviefone: When you first read the script did you have any idea it would be a classic?

    Ally Sheedy: I loved doing the movie and I felt like it was a special experience and I thought it would probably turn out really well but I had no idea it would be this.

    Molly Ringwald: I knew that it was special and like nothing else I had ever read before or since and I knew I wanted to be involved immediately. I loved it. It was my favorite script that I had read of John Hughes’s. But how could you possibly know that we’d still be talking about it thirty years later?

    Is that the thing that most people still come up to you to talk about?

    Ringwald: For me, it’s one of the three movies I’ve done for John and it happens to be my favorite of the three. But there are other people who love “Sixteen Candles” or some people think I was great in “St. Elmo’s Fire…”

    Sheedy: And you were!

    What about you, Ally?

    Sheedy: Well, I live in New York, so people talk to me about “Breakfast Club,” “High Art,” and because I work with these high school kids, I hear about this crazy character I play on “Psych” a lot.

    I can’t believe kids are watching “Psych.”

    Sheedy: I don’t know what to say! But they go nuts!

    The new Blu-ray has this trivia track that runs along the bottom of the screen. One of the more interesting bits was that you guys shot in sequence. Is that true?

    Ringwald: Yeah, pretty much.

    How did that affect your performances?

    Ringwald: I think it helped a lot, definitely. Because by the time we got to that group therapy moment we already knew each other really well. We were actors and it’s possible to shoot out of sequence and still do it. But I think it really helped.

    And you were taking classes while this was going on?

    Ringwald: I was, because I was so young. So Anthony Michael Hall and I were 15 and 16 and Ally and Emilio and Judd were in their 20s.

    Were you taking classes in the same high school where you were shooting?

    Ringwald: Yeah, pretty much.

    Sheedy: It was actually tutoring. That’s what they had to do. There was an hourly thing with the union. So they would shoot and then have to leave the set and go do work.

    So you weren’t showing up to Home Ec down the hall?

    Ringwald: No no no. I had a studio teacher who was with me on most of those movies, who I loved dearly. She was great. She was Jodie Foster’s teacher and then she was mine and then she was Winona’s.

    Sheedy: Fair enough.

    Ringwald: But she was great. She really made the experience as great as possible because it was hard to actually have to leave the set. “Sixteen Candles” was shot during the summer, so I got to be on set all the time, but it was hard to have to leave because it seemed like there was a party going on without me. It was very frustrating.

    Do you think this movie would be made today?

    Ringwald: No, I don’t.

    Nobody would let it be rated R.

    Ringwald: Probably not. There would have to be a vampire in there, at some point.

    Sheedy: There would have to be a sex scene.

    Ringwald: Yeah, there would have to be a sex scene in it.

    Sheedy: Somebody would have to get undressed. And there would have to be some kind of special effects. I think it might be meaner if they made it today.

    Would you change anything about it?

    Ringwald: Obviously, if they ever made a “Breakfast Club”-like movie, I don’t think they should ever remake “The Breakfast Club,” but if they did something inspired by, I think it would be interesting to have something with more racial diversity.

    One of the kids probably should have been gay.

    Ringwald: Oh, definitely. John didn’t have the vocabulary for that. I’m convinced that in “Pretty in Pink” Ducky is gay, because that character was based on my best friend Matt who is gay, who was not out at that time but we had a very similar relationship. But that just wasn’t in his vocabulary. Also, John became very conservative later in life. Did you know that? It was very strange.

    Sheedy: Yeah.

    Did you guys keep in touch with Hughes?

    Ringwald: Um… No. Not really. We came back into contact and I had always hoped that we would work together again in some way, but we weren’t close.

    Sheedy: I got to hang out with him a little bit because I did this movie “Only the Lonely.”

    Ringwald: Oh, with John Candy?

    Sheedy: Right. And he was a producer on that one.

    He was living in New York at some point, right?

    Sheedy: He may have been but he was only in Chicago at that point, so I got to go to Chicago to do it and spend a whole bunch of time with him.

    Ringwald: I think once his family moved to LA and then hated it and moved back to Chicago, he never left Chicago again.

    Do you keep in touch with your costars?

    Ringwald: We see each other, usually at some event or a tribute or something. Or out of the blue.

    I know that some of you dated and were very good friends. Do those emotions ever come back?

    Ringwald: It was a long time ago. Life soldiers on.

    Sheedy: Yeah!

    Ringwald: I’ve been with somebody for 14 years and have 3 kids so I think I’m pretty well ensconced.

    How does it feel to come back and introduce the movie to a whole new generation? Do you feel like the ambassadors of planet “Breakfast Club”?

    Sheedy: It’s fun. You feel good about the movie and the experience, so it’s nice.

    Ringwald: Yeah, I think the movie has become so beloved and it’s been discovered by so many generations without our help. It’s incredible. Everybody in my daughter’s school has seen it and they’re 11. So I feel really proud to be a part of the movie.

    Sheedy: This is a very cool thing, that South by Southwest did this big screening, that they’re re-releasing this DVD and putting it back into movie theaters. It’s pretty joyous.

    If you didn’t know that it was immortal when you read it, looking back on it, what do you think makes it such a timeless classic?

    Ringwald: You can take that one.

    Sheedy: I think it takes a group of five teenagers and very realistically puts their lives on the screen. They’re basically normal; anybody could relate to them, there’s nothing huge going on. But it’s that their experience at that time matters enough and is interesting enough to make a movie about without embellishing. And I think for a young person, seeing that, it’s like, Oh, that’s me up there and somebody cares about my story.

    Ringwald: And also, the issues that we’re dealing with haven’t really changed. I just noticed from watching my kids grow up, that political atmosphere of cliques at school, the bullying, the feeling that you don’t belong that everyone feels no matter who they are, those themes really still resonate today and probably always will.
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  • ‘The Breakfast Club’ Cast: Where Are They Now?

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    Why do we still care about “The Breakfast Club“?

    Thirty years after its release (on February 15, 1985), it remains the definitive movie about the American high school experience. In his tale of five diverse kids bonding during a Saturday in detention, writer/director John Hughes captured some eternal elements of being a teenager — the awkwardness, the alienation, the casual cruelty, the social hierarchies, the longing for connection, and most of all, the penchant for self-dramatization.

    Of course, none of this would have worked without the sensitive performances of the five stars, the nucleus of what the adult press quickly and derisively dubbed “The Brat Pack.” One of its members, Molly Ringwald, has a new movie hitting theaters – “Jem and the Holograms.” In honor of its release, here is what we would learn if we got “The Breakfast Club” cast together for a high school reunion.
    The Breakfast Club Where Are They Now