Molly Ringwald Articles/Interviews
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Los Angeles Times
Good Golly, Which Molly? - THE TEEN DREAM GRADUATES TO AN ADULT ROLE AND DOESN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT BOX OFFICE
By DANIEL CERONE, TIMES STAFF WRITER
August 19, 1990
For the person who sits on the recording end of a reporter's microphone, interviews are a risky proposition. Molly Ringwald, one of six stars in HBO's "Women & Men: Stories of Seduction," premiering Sunday at 9 p.m., knows that. She's seen more angles in the last eight years than a high-rise architect does over a lifetime.
Everyone has an angle on Ringwald.
When she broke into film at 14 in Paul Mazursky's adult fable, "Tempest," New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael hailed her as "fresh and believable." In 1986, on the heels of John Hughes' wildly successful Molly trilogy-"Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty in Pink"--Ringwald, at 18, was coronated prom queen of the movies, with fanfare from her so-called "Ringlets," on the cover of Time.
But last month, following a forgettable string of films, Premiere magazine pegged Ringwald, at the sage old age of 22, "a case study in career decline." "It's really funny, but just about every journalist that I've met feels that they have to burn you in some way," Ringwald said calmly. "That they're not doing their job unless they get a reaction, unless they get a response."
On a record-heat day in Los Angeles, Ringwald was in her publicist's office, sitting politely in front of a fourth-floor window with her legs crossed and hands folded on her lap. The sun shone through Venetian blinds over her shoulder and dappled her in diffused light, setting fire to her short-cropped red hair.
"I've never read anything about me that I thought was accurate," she said with a helpless shrug. "Each story about me is completely different, like they're all interviewing a different person. And none of them are really about me."
Ringwald is sending out a somewhat personalized message with "Women & Men." The trilogy, based on short stories by Mary McCarthy, Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway, examines the intricacies of male-female relationships found in literature. It's also an example of the thoughtful, adult work that Ringwald-a devout reader of classic literature-wants to be associated with.
In her segment, "Dust Before Fireworks," Ringwald co-stars as Kit, a temperamental woman in the 1930s hopelessly enamored with Peter Weller, a passive-aggressive playboy or, as Parker wrote, "a very good-looking young man indeed, shaped to be annoyed" with a voice Ras intimate as the rustle of sheets."
"I was not assaulted by, not accosted by, but firmly invited to meet with Molly for a story that we thought she was too young for," veteran producer David Brown said. "She strode in looking for all the world like she just came from an Ivy League college and said, 'I want to play this role. I've studied the work of Dorothy Parker, and this role speaks to me.'
"I said, 'How can you possibly think of yourself as a sophisticate of that period when that woman is clearly a somewhat older woman?' She said, 'Mr. Brown, you possibly don't realize that a younger woman in the thrall of such a man is an even more powerful situation.' She added, 'I speak from experience."' Brown said he did something unprecedented in his producing experience. With grave apprehensions, he cast Ringwald at the risk of losing the director he wanted, Ken Russell of "Women in Love."
"It's almost unheard of to cast a part and leave the director without any options," Brown said. "But he met Molly and pronounced her brilliant. And Ken is not known to be a yes-man."
Ringwald said the HBO project is a welcome relief because she won't be judged by box-office standards for a change. "I think it can mean something," she said hopefully. "Betsy's Wedding," Ringwald's last theatrical film for Alan Alda, did mild business.
But the actress displayed no outward concern over her recent absence in the box office. She laughed easily and often, and shrugged off her critics when the topic arose. "I did this huge press junket for 'Betsy's Wedding,"' she said, "and people kept wanting to tell me or ask me or insist that I've regretted choices that I've made. That's absurd.
"I can't sit here and say, 'You know, I really regret that.' Because then it just sort of invalidates your experience."
Ringwald's experience is a cool, deep well that she dips into often as needed. Her father, Bob Ringwald, who was blinded as a boy, led the Great Pacific Jazz Band. By the age of 4, Molly was on stage swinging and singing jazz and blues for her father. She even cut an album, "Molly Sings," in 1974.
The young actress first appeared on TV in 1977 on ABC's "New Mickey Mouse Club." She made her stage debut the next year in the West Coast production of "Annie." And in 1979 she was in NBC's "Facts of Life" for one season.
"Seeing those is a little bit like watching home movies," she chuckled. "You know, you watch home movies and think, 'Oh my God, I was so ugly' or 'Look at me hamming it up."'
Whether Ringwald can make the transition into an actress for young adults to admire and emulate, the way she was for fashion-minded flocks of teen-age girls, is still to be seen. In the meantime, reporters will have their way with Ringwald, and she will dutifully answer their questions and hope they get it right.
"I've been portrayed as everything from very wholesome, to the girl-next-door, to cold and reserved, to wonderfully intelligent, to melancholy and depressed, to borderline suicidal."She laughed. "I know the press has to have their angle. So I just sort of let them have it."
Los Angeles Times
Good Golly, Which Molly? - The Teen Dream Graduates to an Adult Role and Doesn't Have to Worry About Box Office
By DANIEL CERONE
August 19, 1990
For the person who sits on the recording end of a reporter's microphone, interviews are a risky proposition. Molly Ringwald, one of six stars in HBO's "Women & Men: Stories of Seduction," premiering Sunday at 9 p.m., knows that. She's seen more angles in the last eight years than a high-rise architect does over a lifetime.
Everyone has an angle on Ringwald.
When she broke into film at 14 in Paul Mazursky's adult fable, "Tempest," New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael hailed her as "fresh and believable."
In 1986, on the heels of John Hughes' wildly successful Ringwald trilogy--"Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty in Pink"--Ringwald, at 18, was crowned prom queen of the movies, with fanfare from her so-called "Ringlets," on the cover of Time.
But last month, following a forgettable string of films, Premiere magazine pegged Ringwald, at the sage old age of 22, "a case study in career decline." "It's really funny, but just about every journalist that I've met feels that they have to burn you in some way," Ringwald said calmly. "That they're not doing their job unless they get a reaction, unless they get a response."
On a record-heat day in Los Angeles, Ringwald was in her publicist's office, sitting politely in front of a fourth-floor window with her legs crossed and hands folded on her lap. The sun shone through Venetian blinds over her shoulder and dappled her in diffused light, setting fire to her short-cropped red hair.
"I've never read anything about me that I thought was accurate," she said with a helpless shrug. "Each story about me is completely different, like they're all interviewing a different person. And none of them are really about me. "
Ringwald is sending out a somewhat personalized message with "Women & Men." The trilogy, based on short stories by Mary McCarthy, Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway, examines the intricacies of male-female relationships found in literature. It's also an example of the thoughtful, adult work that Ringwald--a devout reader of classic literature--wants to be associated with.
(Elizabeth McGovern and Beau Bridges co-star in McCarthy's "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt," while Melanie Griffith and James Woods team up in Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants.")
In her segment, "Dust Before Fireworks," Ringwald co-stars as Kit, a temperamental woman in the 1930s hopelessly enamored with Peter Weller, a passive-aggressive playboy or, as Parker wrote, "a very good-looking young man indeed, shaped to be annoyed" with a voice "as intimate as the rustle of sheets."
"I was not assaulted by, not accosted by, but firmly invited to meet with Molly for a story that we thought she was too young for," veteran producer David Brown said. "She strode in looking for all the world like she just came from an Ivy League college and said, 'I want to play this role. I've studied the work of Dorothy Parker, and this role speaks to me.'
"I said, 'How can you possibly think of yourself as a sophisticate of that period when that woman is clearly a somewhat older woman?' She said, 'Mr. Brown, you possibly don't realize that a younger woman in the thrall of such a man is an even more powerful situation.' She added, 'I speak from experience.' "
Brown said he did something unprecedented in his producing experience. With grave apprehensions, he cast Ringwald at the risk of losing the director he wanted, Ken Russell of "Women in Love."
"It's almost unheard of to cast a part and leave the director without any options," Brown said. "But he met Molly and pronounced her brilliant. And Ken is not known to be a yes-man."
Ringwald said the HBO project is a welcome relief because she won't be judged by box-office standards for a change. "I think it can mean something," she said hopefully. "Betsy's Wedding," Ringwald's last theatrical film for Alan Alda, did mild business.
But the actress displayed no outward concern over her recent slump at the box office. She laughed easily and often, and shrugged off her critics when the topic arose. "I did this huge press junket for 'Betsy's Wedding,' " she said, "and people kept wanting to tell me or ask me or insist that I've regretted choices that I've made. That's absurd.
"I can't sit here and say, 'You know, I really regret that.' Because then it just sort of invalidates your experience."
And whether Ringwald can make the transition into an actress for young adults to admire and emulate, the way she was for fashion-minded flocks of teen-age girls, is still to be seen. In the meantime, reporters will have their way with Ringwald, and she will dutifully answer their questions and hope they get it right.
"I've been portrayed as everything from very wholesome, to the girl-next-door, to cold and reserved, to wonderfully intelligent, to melancholy and depressed, to borderline suicidal." She laughed. "I know the press has to have an angle. So I just sort of let them have it."
Los Angeles Times
Joining the Ranks - How Molly Ringwald's Role as an AIDS Patient Gave Her a Chance to Help Fight the Disease
By JERRY BUCK, ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 29, 1992
Although it was "nerve-wracking," Molly Ringwald says her portrayal of real-life AIDS patient Alison Gertz in ABC's "Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story" (Sunday at 9 p.m.) fulfilled a personal need to combat the deadly disease.
"I'd been wanting to do something to help in the fight against AIDS, but I didn't know what to do," she said. "I didn't think I would be very good at raising funds, since Madonna and Elizabeth Taylor are doing a terrific job. I wanted to do something to increase public awareness."
The movie tells the story of a young artist who contracted AIDS as a teen-ager in her first sexual encounter with a boyfriend.
"When this script came along I knew this was it. It shows that AIDS is not just a gay problem and is spreading rapidly among heterosexuals," Ringwald said. "Young people are very vulnerable because they're experimenting sexually, yet often feel it can't affect them."
The actress sought to learn all she could about Gertz during a brief meeting with her before filming began.
"I pretty much wanted to get a fix on what this girl was all about," Ringwald said. "I wanted to see how she talked, how she dressed, what her apartment was like. I'd never played a real person before.
"Then when I started to play her I let it all go. I'm not an impersonator. No matter how good an actress I am I couldn't be her completely. Ali understood and supported that. The way I looked at it she could be any girl. She could be me. ...
"But I did feel a special responsibility. It was nerve-wracking."
"Something To Live For" also stars Lee Grant and Martin Landau as the parents, Perry King as the boyfriend and Roxana Zal as a friend. Tom McLoughlin directed from a screenplay by Deborah Joy Le Vine.
Gertz was infected at the age of 16, but did not become aware of the illness until she was 22.
Now 26 and living in New York City, Gertz was the subject of a film distributed by the World Health Organization and has established a foundation called Love Heals. When she is feeling well enough, she lectures at high schools and colleges.
Ringwald became interested in the story when Gertz's diaries were submitted to a production company the actress had at Columbia Pictures. She didn't
pursue it at the time, but when a script for the current movie was sent to her, she accepted.
Ringwald wanted the movie to show all of Gertz's moods and colors, from depressed and angry to very positive.
"We did one scene where we tried to emphasize safe sex yet be romantic," she said. "We used two condoms. I think it's important to show condoms in a
romantic scene."
Ringwald has worked primarily in feature films such as "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink," "Fresh Horses" and "Betsy's Wedding."
She has appeared in the television movies, "Packin' It In" and "Surviving" and in a segment of HBO's "Women and Men."
She began her performing career at age 9 with a role as an orphan child in the Los Angeles stage production of "Annie."
"I was singled out to audition for the role of the featured orphan," she said. "I was embarrassed at being singled out and said I didn't know how to tap dance."
After leaving "Annie" at the age of 12, she was in the original cast of TV's "Facts of Life," but the producers dropped her after about nine episodes.
"That was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me, although I didn't think so at the time," she said. "I don't want to commit that much time to one project. But I've always said I won't turn down anything out of hand that's really good."
Perhaps inspired by the fact that her boyfriend is novelist and screenwriter Mark Lindquist, Ringwald has taken up writing. They wrote a screenplay together and she has written a number of short stories.
"My short stories are for me," she said. "They're too personal for me to think about publishing now. Besides, I think it's weird when celebrities publish a
book. People read your book for all the wrong reasons."
The screenplay they wrote is a romantic comedy with a part in it for her.
"I absolutely wrote a part for me," she said. "I think of myself in all the roles. Every time I read a script the characters are so boring. I wanted to write a
screenplay where I liked all the roles."
"Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story" airs Sunday at 9 on ABC.
Los Angeles Times
Molly's Travels - ACTRESS WHO LIVES IN PARIS STARS IN U.S. MINISERIES AS A NEW WORLD SURVIVOR
By SUSAN KING, TIMES STAFF WRITER
May 08, 1994
Molly Ringwald is alive and well and living in Paris.
A decade ago she was everyone's favorite all-American teen-ager, thanks to her winning performances in John Hughes' popular comedies: "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty in Pink." But two years ago the actress packed her bags and left Los Angeles for the City of Light.
"I went to Paris a couple of years ago to work," Ringwald explains. "I was just so happy there. It was during the summer and the sun goes down at 10 at
night. The whole city just seemed alive. I wanted to see what it felt like living outside of America and get a different perspective."
Ringwald acknowledges it's been a bit tough playing the expatriate role, mainly because of the language barrier. But she's currently going to French class
four hours a day. "I am getting to be fairly bilingual. Living in Paris has its own set of problems I have to deal with, but those problems, compared with
living in L.A., to me are much better. Living as a celebrity or a famous person in L.A. can really get you down after a while."
And she desperately craved a a normal life. "The films that I did were released in France, but they didn't have the impact, obviously, they had here because all of the John Hughes films were so American. So I can walk around and just be normal. I can breathe ."
Ringwald's in Los Angeles to visit her family and promote her latest project, "The Stand." ABC's ambitious eight-hour miniseries of the Stephen King novel chronicles a future world where a deadly flu has wiped out most of the population. The survivors are divided into two camps: those who seek a new beginning on Earth and those who are loyal to a satanic demon in blue jeans named Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan). Ringwald, Gary Sinise, Ray Walston, Rob Lowe, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee are among the benevolent survivors.
This late afternoon, Ringwald is nursing a cup of coffee at the Bistro Gardens in Studio City. She's definitely grown up. In fact, at age 26, there's an air of
European sophistication about the actress these days. Her hair, which she dyed red in the '80s, is back to its natural dark brown. Her trendy, often outrageous, clothes have given way to a tailored, stylish look.
Lighting up a cigarette, she acknowledges she "kind of just turned off" inside during her heyday. "Life was happening around me. I can't really say how
much I felt, because I couldn't. It was overwhelming. I was just caught in a tornado that was going very fast and uncontrollably. It was nothing I planned. I
am glad (the movies) did well."
But at the same time, she says, their success "kind of stunted me. Everything came to a screeching halt when it was time to grow up. That's hard. It's
hard enough to grow up, anyway. The normal thing is to work your way, to train, to prepare yourself for what you want to do. You are not supposed to
accomplish it at that age. I had to deal with growing out of those movies and growing up. It was tough. If I hadn't moved to France, I would have gone
somewhere."
Her post-Hughes films, including "Betsy's Wedding," "The Pick-Up Artist" and "King Lear" have not performed well at the box office. But Ringwald doesn't regret making any of those films.
"I have a million different people telling me what I should do," Ringwald says matter-of-factly. " I think I need to do what I feel like I should. Those films (I
did) were interesting to me. Some of them didn't turn out the way I wanted them to turn out. I don't so much regret the choices that I made. There was a
reason for it. Maybe now, maybe knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have made the same choices. But I think everything is a learning experience."
Ringwald laughs. "Let's face it, actors are severely overpaid anyway. It's not like I need to make a film and have it make a ton of money. That's not what I need to survive. I think what I need to survive is to do things I feel good about, that are interesting to me, and I feel like I am challenging myself, like I am working myself."
And she doesn't necessarily mean just acting. "If I can sit down and write and express myself in any way artistically, I feel like it is worthwhile," Ringwald
says. "I've always been writing since I was young. My mother told me there were three things I excelled at when I was young and that was singing, writing and acting. It just happens that one of them took off and I became known as that. But writing is something that interests me a lot."
Ringwald has continued acting since moving to Paris, but in very non-commercial projects, including a French-English production called "Seven Sundays," which, she says, will be released here later this year.
Ringwald took the decidedly high-profile "The Stand," she says, because she needed to balance the non-commercial "with things people see. People get
very testy with me sometimes when they see me on the street. They say, 'Why haven't I seen you in something?' They are mad because I was such a
staple in people's minds. I thought this would be a chance to do something people would be able to see, and then I can still do all the other stuff."
"Stephen King's The Stand" airs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC.
Los Angeles Times
Ringwald, `Charity' get off on the wrong foot
By F. Kathleen Foley, Special to The Times
October 13, 2006
When it comes time to close the time capsule on the 1960s, it's highly doubtful that "Sweet Charity" will make the cut. Based on the 1957 Fellini film
"Nights of Cabiria," the 1966 Broadway musical featured beloved Broadway stalwart Gwen Verdon and a much-lauded staging by Bob Fosse. By the
time the charmless 1969 film starring Shirley MacLaine came around, the musical was showing signs of spoilage.
"Charity" has inexplicably been revived since then, most recently in the 2005 production starring Christina Applegate, who broke her foot in out-of-town
previews but rallied in time for a Broadway run. One wouldn't wish such a fate on Molly Ringwald, the star of the current national tour, which just touched
down at the Pantages for a limited run. However, a mildly twisted ankle might have left Ringwald in better stead than this unfortunate enterprise.
The '80s teen star plays dance hall hostess Charity Hope Valentine, a gullible floozy with a heart of gold who leaves no cliche unturned in her desperate
search for love. Despite Neil Simon's noticeably creaky book, Cy Coleman's durable music and Dorothy Fields' lyrics still have the power to charm, if
only intermittently. But, in order to outstrip its own limitations, the show requires a powerhouse performer in the title role.
Sadly, Ringwald is not that person. Intent upon getting a star name on the marquee, the producers have done Ringwald -- and her audience -- a grave
disservice. Charity is a dancer's role that would tax the most lissome performer. Ringwald executes her modest dance moves with such plodding
conscientiousness, she seems to be following an Arthur Murray dance-by-numbers floor chart. Add to that Ringwald's aggressively modest voice and
her unvarying, glazed-eyed perkiness, and you've got problems, Houston.
Perhaps sensing a disaster in the making, director Scott Faris desperately overcompensates at every juncture, making the musical's already
stereotypical characters almost surreally broad. He punches up every laugh line with such forcefulness, the result seems insultingly idiot-proofed.
The same applies for Wayne Cilento, who reprises his Tony-nominated choreography from the 2005 revival. Like Faris, Cilento has a tendency to punch
up the proceedings -- quite literally. A particular case in point is the "Rich Man's Frug," in which the dancers -- high-tone New Yorkers at a trendy '60s
nightclub -- throw punches at one another like manic boxers in the final round. On the surface, the sequence is a technical knockout, spectacularly
executed by this worthy ensemble. Scratch that surface, though, and the overly showy number seems bizarrely misplaced.
More successfully showy is Scott Pask's Tony-nominated scenic design -- colorful period sets that draw applause in and of themselves. Although they
often overplay, the mostly seasoned performers do their best under trying circumstances.
Most notable among the cast is Guy Adkins as Oscar, the mild-mannered accountant who falls for Charity. Trapped on an elevator with Charity, the
claustrophobic Oscar climbs the walls, contorting himself into positions that would sprain a yoga master. Don Knotts in a centrifuge, his powerhouse
performance is a welcome distraction in a largely thankless evening.
Los Angeles Times
`Sweet' antidote to `Sixteen'
By Greg Braxton, Times Staff Writer
October 08, 2006
San Diego — DRESSED in a dark pantsuit and striking several poses, Molly Ringwald is doing her "Pretty in Black" thing as a photographer snaps away.
The bee-stung lips and freckles are less prominent than they were 20 years ago when she starred in "Pretty in Pink," and her waifish figure is curvier. But the signature red hair still makes her stand out in a crowd. She looks confident as she dutifully smiles, a mature version of the awkward high schooler she played in "The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles" and other seminal coming-of-age films that put her on top of the pop culture ladder and on the cover of Time magazine.
Ask Ringwald about her life now and she is quick to produce a camera with a picture of her 3-year-old daughter. Ask about the past -- "Pretty in Pink" and how she pined after Andrew McCarthy's character at the prom -- and the smile fades. "I think I was blessed to be given the opportunity to be in those movies. I think they're great movies, and I'm proud of my work in them," she says quietly. "But on the other hand, to talk about something I did so long ago when I have continued to work and do other things is a little tiring. I just get bored. I keep going back to those movies when I don't have anything new to say about them."
What she does have something to talk about is the New Adventures of Old Molly. Her latest project hits the Pantages Theatre this week, complete with a large troupe of dancers, no shortage of bump 'n' grind and several show-stopping production numbers.
The show is more commonly known as "Sweet Charity."
She follows in the Fosse-trained dance steps of Gwen Verdon and Shirley MacLaine, who shined on stage and screen, respectively, in their portrayals of
the unlucky but relentlessly hopeful dance hall girl Charity Hope Valentine. Last year's Broadway revival starred Christina Applegate, who received a Tony nomination.
For Ringwald, 38, the tour gives her a chance to return to the Los Angeles area, where she'll make her first stage appearance since 1999, when she starred in Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "How I Learned to Drive" at the Mark Taper Forum. That play focused on the troubling ongoing relationship between a young girl (Ringwald) and her pedophile uncle (Brian Kerwin).
Though she may seem at first like an unlikely song-and-dance marquee star, the actress points out that much of her post-Brat Pack career has centered on the stage. She made her Broadway debut in 2001 as Sally Bowles in the replacement cast of "Cabaret" and appeared in "Enchanted April" in 2003.
She's also starred in "When Harry Met Sally" in London, and off-Broadway in "tick, tick
Now she's the star attraction, strutting onstage with a top hat and cane. If ever a Charity seemed tailor-made for the jubilant number "If My Friends Could See Me Now," Ringwald would seem to fit the bill. And she welcomes the opportunity to show her stuff.
"Anyone who comes to see this because they're a fan of mine wouldn't expect the girl from those movies to be doing what I'm doing," she says, "and I
wouldn't do it unless I could. I like to think I exceed expectations. I consider myself fairly courageous. People will be surprised -- they certainly were when
I did 'Cabaret.' "
Still, audiences familiar with the show should not expect a Verdon or MacLaine clone. Ringwald admits that dancing is not her strong suit. During one of
the musical's most well-known numbers, "I'm a Brass Band," where Charity celebrates the new love of her life, Ringwald remains mostly offstage while
the show's dancers go through tightly choreographed moves.
"Dancing is definitely No. 3 on the list of things I consider myself to do well," she says. "When the producers asked me to do this, it was pretty clear I was
not a dancer in the vein of Gwen or Shirley. I consider myself more of an actor-singer. It isn't important that Charity is this fantastic dancer. She is such a
great character, it's more important that she be played by someone who can bring something special to it. I focus on that, and let the incredible dancing
be picked up by everyone else."
Scott Faris, who is directing the touring company production, says the role's dance requirements are overrated. "The difference between Molly and the
other well-known Charitys makes her stand out," he says. "She has a quality that wins the audience over. You know you're looking at a human being and
not a machine. The audience really has to care about her, and the fact that the audience relates to her as a struggling human being is great."
Ringwald has earned mixed notices on the road. "OK, Molly: Dancing isn't your forte, but -- as you so convincingly sing in 'I'm a Brass Band' -- somebody does love you," wrote Michael L. Greenwald of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Others were less generous. Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle praised Ringwald's comic timing, but added that Ringwald "lacks charisma"
and that her dancing "ranges from mediocre to embarrassing."
The timing of Ringwald's "Sweet Charity" stint is a bit bittersweet. The tour arrives during a mini-revival of Molly mania, sparked by the release of new
editions of her most well-known films. The new DVD version of "Pretty in Pink" even has a featurette, "All About Molly." In every interview, "The Breakfast Club" and her other films come up.
Though her movies may still be big, Ringwald's place in the glaring spotlight has gotten smaller.
The whirlwind of the Brat Pack era was followed by more grown-up roles in less successful films, such as "Betsy's Wedding," "The Pick-up Artist" and "Fresh Horses." In 1992, she decided to leave Hollywood behind and move to Paris. While there, she made several films, including "Seven Sundays" and
"Enfants de Salaud," which she performed entirely in French.
"I needed to get away," she says. "Once I was there, I was so happy and inspired by everything. Not having a fan base there was very refreshing. But I
kept working, so I was always coming back to America to work."
She was married briefly while living in Paris, but moved back to New York after her divorce. Today she resides there with her boyfriend and their daughter. And visitors expecting to watch "Pretty in Pink" at her place will have to bring their own copy -- and something to watch it on.
"I don't have any of that stuff, any of my press. I don't have any of my films. We don't even have a TV -- our apartment is too small for that," she says.
"As far as the films, I've seen them; I don't need to have them. I want to keep my environment as normal as possible. And my mom's a master archivist.
She has everything, so I don't have to."
But unlike former cast mates such as Emilio Estevez, who she says refuses to mention or even acknowledge the Brat Pack days, Ringwald has learned
to grudgingly embrace the movies.
"I have to accept the fact that these films have had a fantastic effect on people, and to deny that doesn't make any sense until I do something that has the
same cultural and social impact of those movies," she says. "That's just the way it is."
After the "Sweet Charity" tour ends next summer, Ringwald has no immediate plans to perform. She would like to devote more time to writing -- in recent
years she's penned some celebrity profiles and articles on artists she admires. "I also would really like to have another child," she says.
And down the line, there could be an autobiography that could serve as her final word on "those movies."
"Maybe I'll do it one day," she says. "But I want to get a little more distance first."
Metro.co.uk
Molly Ringwald
By BEN SLOAN - Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Despite a 20-year acting career in film, theatre and musicals, Molly Ringwald will forever be remembered for a trio of films she made in the 1980s with
writer/director John Hughes - Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink. Back then she even made the cover of Time and is now starring in When Harry Met Sally at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
METRO CAFÉ EXTRA: The album you recorded with your dad's jazz band aged six. Are you thinking about re-releasing it?
I'm thinking of re-releasing it as a children's book, like an introduction to jazz, and about my childhood and growing up with a father who played music and
how I was introduced to that music. It is a strange thing that I did, going around singing traditional jazz when I was five or six years old. Not that many other kids did it, and certainly not many other kids have recordings doing it. Every time a kid listens to the music with this little tiny voice singing, they're just enthralled because you never hear anything like that. So that's how I got the idea to re-release it.
METRO CAFÉ EXTRA: With your dad being blind, was it ever odd that he's never seen the work for which you're internationally well-known?
I've always read scripts out loud to him. He's not what you think of when you think of a disabled person. He's independent and aware and together. His
blindness made him different for sure, but it was never an issue. If a film comes out and he goes to see it, he still says: 'I saw your movie.' In effect, it's like he did see it, and nobody says: 'I heard your movie the other day.' It still feels like he has seen the movies. There are certain movies that he likes much better than other ones because they're very verbal. The Breakfast Club is one of them. I think The Breakfast Club is essentially like a stage play - there's so much dialogue. It'd be great on stage, and I'm surprised no one's tried to do that.
Were you a fan of the film When Harry Met Sally?
Oh, yeah. I saw the film when it came out, but not since, deliberately, because I didn't want to get Meg Ryan's performance any more indelibly imprinted in my mind than it already was. I think I'm going to go back and watch it when I'm done.
Is your show different from that of the previous cast [Luke Perry and Alyson Hannigan]?
Our rhythm is much faster. I think the show is 15 minutes shorter, because we talk so much faster. Luke isn't from New York. He's essentially a cowboy who just wants to hang out on the ranch and that's how he delivers his lines, and Alyson Hannigan followed suit. Ours is more manic. It's a very different show.
Is the fake orgasm scene daunting to do on stage?
Maybe the first time, but it's so over the top in a way that it's completely theatrical. I don't feel like anybody's getting a look into my personal life. I look at it like a song.
A song?
In a way, because it has all these different parts to it, like learning a piece of music.
Choruses, middle eights and a crescendo?
Yeah, exactly.
You write for a newspaper in Connecticut. Has being on the other side given you a different view of the interview process?
I think so. Because it's not how I make my living, I can take more time with it, and I only interview people in whom I'm interested. So it's really more of an
opportunity to meet people I really like and get to know more about their work.
Of the people you've met, who was the best interviewee?
I had a really good interview with Stephin Merritt, the singer and songwriter of The Magnetic Fields. I really like his three-album set 69 Love Songs, so I came up with 69 questions to ask him. He was very enthusiastic and answered them all, but unfortunately the Q&A was more interesting than the article I was able to write, because they're a little bit conservative at the paper. My opening paragraph was cut, so I was a bit upset about that. It mentioned the current presidential administration.
What happened?
An old boyfriend told me I was difficult to surprise, so I wrote that it's difficult to astonish me in a good way, but plenty of things astonish me in a bad way,
like the presidential administration. But they cut the reference to the president. Just saying the administration is astonishing - I think that's valid. I said if
they were going to change it, they should have wrote that plenty of things astonish me, like censorship.
Does it annoy you that people still talk about the brat-pack films 20 years on?
I try not to let it annoy me, because those films have reached an iconic status. I understand that people like them and I'm proud of that, but they don't have anything to do with my life anymore. It's a bit like somebody talking about my baby pictures.
When you were on the cover of Time magazine, did you feel like you'd arrived?
At the time, it was a much bigger deal to other people than it was to me. I was also on the cover of Seventeen, which to me, as a teenage girl, was huge. I was extremely proud and excited about that.
I interviewed [fellow Breakfast Clubber] Anthony Michael Hall last year, and he said that if John Hughes approached him, he'd consider the oft-talked-about Breakfast Club sequel. It's now my aim to get you all to say yes.
I'd be a bit nervous about it. The film stands on its own, and it really is a classic. Of all those movies, it's the one I would consider the most seminal. With the exception of maybe The Godfather II, sequels are unnecessary and detract from the original. I'd have to be talked into it.
But you're open to the offer?
You can keep working on that one.
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times, The Neverland Club
By MOLLY RINGWALD
August 11, 2009
IN life, there is always that special person who shapes who you are, who helps to determine the person you become. Very often it’s a teacher, a mentor of some kind. For me, that person was John Hughes. Along with the rest of the world, I was stunned when I learned that he had died of a heart attack last week at 59.
Not long after hearing the horrible news, I found myself talking on the phone to Anthony Michael Hall, my friend and co-star in several of the movies John
directed. His experiences mirror mine to a large extent. Both of us were catapulted from obscurity and planted in the American consciousness through
the films that we did with John. Michael, as he prefers to be called, will be forever associated with “geekdom” just as I will always be the girl whose 16th birthday is forgotten. But for both of us, what really matters is less the mark that these films left on the world than the experience of making them with John, the mark it made on us.
We stayed on the phone for a while reminiscing about our old friend and mentor. Since the days of John’s death, we have both been inundated with missives from friends and acquaintances, sending us their condolences the way you would for a close family member. Yet the strange thing is, neither of us had talked to John in more than 20 years.
Most everyone knows that John retreated from Hollywood and became a sort of J.D. Salinger for Generation X. But really, sometime before then, he had
retreated from us and from the kinds of movies that he had made with us. I still believe that the Hughes films of which both Michael and I were a part
(specifically “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club”) were the most deeply personal expressions of John’s. In retrospect, I feel that we were sort of
avatars for him, acting out the different parts of his life — improving upon it, perhaps. In those movies, he always got the last word. He always got the girl.
None of the films that he made subsequently had the same kind of personal feeling to me. They were funny, yes, wildly successful, to be sure, but I
recognized very little of the John I knew in them, of his youthful, urgent, unmistakable vulnerability. It was like his heart had closed, or at least was no
longer open for public view. A darker spin can be gleaned from the words John put into the mouth of Allison in “The Breakfast Club”: “When you grow up ... your heart dies.”
I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. Though it does seem sadly poignant that physically, at least, John’s heart really did die. It also seems undeniably
meaningful: His was a heavy heart, deeply sensitive, prone to injury — easily broken.
Most people who knew John knew that he was able to hold a grudge longer than anyone — his grudges were almost supernatural things, enduring for years, even decades. Michael suspects that he was never forgiven for turning down parts in “Pretty in Pink” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” I turned down later films as well. Not because I didn’t want to work with John anymore — I loved working with him, more than anyone before or since.
John saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. He had complete confidence in me as an actor, which was an extraordinary and heady sensation for anyone, let alone a 16-year-old girl. I did some of my best work with him. How could I not? He continually told me that I was the best, and because of my undying respect for him and his judgment, how could I have not believed him?
Eventually, though, I felt that I needed to work with other people as well. I wanted to grow up, something I felt (rightly or wrongly) I couldn’t do while working with John. Sometimes I wonder if that was what he found so unforgivable. We were like the Darling children when they made the decision to leave Neverland. And John was Peter Pan, warning us that if we left we could never come back. And, true to his word, not only were we unable to return, but he went one step further. He did away with Neverland itself.
“I just remember how fun it all was,” Michael said on the phone.
It was: the concerts he took us to (the blues great Junior Wells at Kingston Mines in Chicago), the endless mixed tapes he made for us and, most of all,
the work itself. It doesn’t even seem like you should be able to call it “work” because we enjoyed it so much.
There’s a scene in “Sixteen Candles” where my character, Samantha, and Michael’s character, “the geek,” have a heart-to-heart talk. The scene lasts all
of six minutes, but it took us days to film because we were all laughing too hard. John, too. He sat under the camera — his permanent place before directors retreated to the video monitor — while the assistant directors stood around rolling their eyes waiting for him to stop laughing and reprimand “the kids.” But how could he? He was one of us.
About 15 years ago, I wrote John from Paris, where I was living, to tell him how important he was to me. I had been on a François Truffaut kick and had just watched the series of “Antoine Doinel” films that he had made with the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. There was something in the connection of actor and
director that I recognized in us, particularly in the first film of the series, “400 Blows.”
After Truffaut died, I heard that Jean-Pierre Léaud had suffered a kind of breakdown, going so far as to drop flower pots on people from high-storied
buildings. This is most likely a rumor, French film lore, but I think I now understand how painful it is to lose someone like that. John was my Truffaut. A
week after I sent my letter, I received a bouquet of flowers as big as my apartment from John, thanking me for writing. I was so relieved to know that I
had gotten through to him, and I feel grateful now for that sense of closure.
Toward the end of my phone call with Michael, we spent a little time catching up on mutual friends and family. I told him that my 5-year-old daughter, Mathilda, had just secured the part that she wanted in her theater camp — Tiger Lily, the Indian princess in “Peter Pan.” Michael made me promise to invite him to Mathilda’s debut as a fellow thespian. So in a few weeks we’ll drive to the theater and spend a couple of hours with Tiger Lily, Peter, Wendy and the Lost Boys.
Turns out, you can return to Neverland. At least for a little while.
Shooting Stars Mag
June 22, 2009
The Secret Life Interview w/ Molly Ringwald
The Secret Life of the American Teenager's new season premieres tonight, June 22nd on ABC Family at 8/7c.
Moderator
Our first question comes from Kenn Gold from Media Boulevard. Go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
K. Gold
Thank you. Thanks a lot, Molly. I really appreciate your time today.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
K. Gold
What do you think it is about the show that makes it so popular, and did that popularity surprise you at all?
M. Ringwald
Well, it’s always surprising when something turns out to be such a big hit like this. I mean you do all these projects and you hope for the best. You really
never know what’s going to strike a chord. I just think that people just really like the characters. I think that they relate to the characters and I think that it’s
really well cast. I think we have a lot of great actors in the show and a lot of good charisma and I think Brenda Hampton is really good at writing for these
characters. So, I mean I guess that’s really, in my mind, what’s made it take off.
K. Gold
Okay, and as a follow-up, can you tell us where are you in the filming schedule? How far along is the season, and are you going to have to take some time off for maternity leave or is that going to be filmed?
M. Ringwald
Yes, I’m actually already on maternity leave. I shot about 12 episodes and then one day, I shot three episodes in one day, just my part. Then when I
come back from maternity leave, then I’m shooting three episodes back; so, just sort of do the catch up. So, everybody else is still filming and I think that
they are off in August, but I’ve been off since the end of May.
K. Gold
All right. Thank you.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Jamie Steinberg from Starry Constellation. Go ahead. Your line is open.
J. Steinberg
Hello. It’s just a pleasure to speak with you.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
J. Steinberg
I was wondering; what about your role continues to challenge you?
M. Ringwald
Well, it’s constantly interesting for me to play the mother of teenagers just because I’m not really there in my own life. I have a five-year-old and I’m
pregnant with twins right now. So, it’s always interesting to me to kind of-- It’s like sort of jumping ahead in my life and sort of living what I’m going to be
living probably like 10 to 15 years from now. So, that’s always interesting. I feel almost like I’m so known for being a teenager and then all of a sudden, I’m
the mother of a teenager. That’s always sort of a real head trip for me.
I think it’s always challenging for me to do a show like this, that I’m used to doing movies and theater and I’ve never really done sort of an episodic show
that moves at the fast pace that it goes. So, that’s always really challenging for me.
J. Steinberg
How does the cast continue to maintain such great chemistry between each other?
M.Ringwald
Well, I think there’s a lot of just very charismatic actors on the show. I think all of the kids in the show are just really charming and smart and they all get
along. I think that they just work really well together. I think the show is really well cast.
J. Steinberg
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Troy Rogers from deadbolt.com. Go ahead. Your line is open, please.
T. Rogers
Hello, Molly. How are you?
M. Ringwald
I’m good.
T. Rogers
Excellent. I wanted to know how does being a mother in real life help you to get into the character of “Anne”?
M. Ringwald
Well, I think that once you’re a mother, you understand; not to say that people who aren’t mothers can’t play mothers. I think I played mothers before I
was actually a mother in my real life, but I think once you experience that, there are just certain things that you just know. There are certain things that
you feel comfortable with, a way of touching your child’s head or a way of like wiping dirt off their face. There’s just a way that you have, I think, that you
don’t quite-- It’s not in your bones, I think, until you actually are a mother.
It’s obviously a little bit different for me because I’m playing the mother of a teenager and in real life, I’m the mother of a five-year-old. So, it’s a little bit
different. It’s kind of like looking into a crystal ball into the future. But, I think once you’re a mother, you kind of always see your kids as a baby anyway no
matter how old they get.
T. Rogers
Exactly. I also remember watching you in teen films like Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club. How do you think teens are different today as opposed to
back in the 1980s?
M. Ringwald
I don’t really think that they are very different. I mean certain things have changed. Certainly the Internet has changed things a lot and texting and cell
phones and all of that, but I think the basic personality and everything that teenagers want and everything that teenagers fear is all the same. It’s just the
technology has changed.
T. Rogers
Yes, that makes sense. Thanks; continued success with the show.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Ms. Sarah Fulghum from totallyher.com.
S. Fulghum
Hello, Molly. It’s great to speak with you.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
S. Fulghum
You started out young as an actor. What is the best advice you’ve given your young costars?
M. Ringwald
Well, all of my costars on the show really are smart and they really have their head on their shoulders. I try not to give advice. I don’t want to be like that
person … giving advice. I think that they’re all doing a great job and they’re all really down to earth and are really nice people. So, I don’t really feel like I
need to give them advice.
S. Fulghum
Have you done anything to help them along the way?
M. Ringwald
I try to be there for them as a fellow actor. I don’t really consider myself a mentor per se unless somebody comes up to me and asks me something specific, but I think that they all really know what they want to do and are doing it. They’re great.
S. Fulghum
Well, I’m sure they appreciate that. Thanks for answering the questions.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
The next question comes from Emma Loggins from fanbolt.com. Go ahead. Your line is open.
E. Loggins
Hello, Molly. It’s a pleasure to speak with you. I wanted to ask you how you felt that movies and TV programming in general has evolved for the teenage
audience since you played a teenager.
M. Ringwald
Well, I think it’s gone through different phases. I think The Secret Life of the American Teenager is a little bit more similar to the kinds of movies that I was
doing back in the day. In the meantime, there were all kinds of different sort of teen trends. For a while, it was like the teen horror film seemed to be like
what it was about. I remember in the 1990s, it was like you couldn’t see a teen movie without it being a horror movie and now it seems to have gotten more back to character-driven pieces. So, I think that’s sort of where we’re at right now.
E. Loggins
Okay, and do you have a favorite episode or a favorite storyline from the series?
M. Ringwald
No, I kind of like all of them.
E. Loggins
All right. Well, thank you.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
The next question comes from Traci Grant from starcoop.com. Go ahead. Your line is open.
T. Grant
Hello, Molly. It’s great to speak with you.
M. Ringwald
Hello.
T. Grant
My question is you have a really great chemistry both with Mark Derwin who plays “George” and with the girls who play your daughters. Was that
something that happened sort of right when you guys met, or did you guys really have to work at it to make it authentic?
M. Ringwald
I think we liked each other from the get-go, but I think as time goes on, obviously you get to know the person more and you get more comfortable with
them. I think our relationship has definitely grown and as the characters have grown, we’ve gotten to know each other better and it just really helps to get
it even more sort of realistic. You develop little quirks together and impressions and it just makes it more realistic.
T. Grant
Definitely, and as a follow-up, as a family person yourself, as a mother, do you feel like this show is doing a good job of portraying an accurate family, the
way that it would be in real life?
M. Ringwald
I think so. I mean I think that every family is different. I don’t think that there’s any definitive way to portray a family. I think that this is the way that this
family functions, but I think obviously it’s different in other families. But, I think that Brenda does a pretty good job of sort of doing that family dynamic - the
sort of sibling rivalries, the little arguments. Yes, I think it’s pretty realistic.
T. Grant
Great. Thank you so much.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Chelsea Wiley from http://www.sugarslam.com/. Go ahead. Your line is open, ma’am.
C. Wiley
Hello, Molly.
M. Ringwald
Hello.
C. Wiley
You’re nominated for a Teen Choice Award this year and I wondered what it is about your character, “Anne” that makes teens wish that she was their mom.
M. Ringwald
I don’t know. I have no idea. I just found out about the Teen Choice Awards; very flattering and nice. I mean I hope that my daughter feels that way when she’s a teenager.
C. Wiley
Also, the readers on our site are mainly young girls. If you could give them any advice just about coming of age, what would it be?
M. Ringwald
Well, as a rule, I try not to give advice because I just feel like everybody needs to sort of find their own way. I think if I was to give advice, I would just say try to do the best that you can in school and that you need to look at that as your freedom because I think too often, people are in school, kids are in school and they just think it’s boring and they don’t like it or whatever and they don’t realize that that’s sort of like their future. It’s really hard just to realize that it’s really important. So, I guess that would be my best advice.
C. Wiley
Okay. Thank you so much.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Lauren Becker from Shooting Stars. Go ahead. Your line is open.
L. Becker
Hello. My first question was I was wondering why you think now was a good time to have a show on TV that dealt with teenage pregnancy. Did you think it was in the media a lot so they wanted to portray it realistically, or what are your thoughts?
M. Ringwald
I don’t know. I mean I didn’t write the show. I think the show was actually like even a couple of years before it was actually set up. So, I guess it was just
the right time. There seems to be like a right time for everything and this show happened to premiere like right around the time that Juno that was out and
even, of course, with the Palin pregnancy. It just seemed like it was just kind of like the right time. I mean I wouldn’t say that teen pregnancy has not
existed before this show. I mean I did a movie about teen pregnancy when I was a teenager. But, I guess it just sort of feels like the right time.
But, the show is not really only about teenage pregnancy. I think that that was an element in the first season, but I think the show is about more than that.
L. Becker
Definitely. As a mom, when your kids get older, would you want them to go into the acting business, or would you be supportive about that, or would you be a little wary of it at first?
M. Ringwald
I think I would be supportive as long as she went into it when she’s older. I mean I don’t want my child to be a child actor. I want her to stay in school and
sort of learn as much as she possibly can and then if she decides at that point that she wants to go into acting with her eyes open after knowing everything, then of course I would support her. But, I would prefer it if she would get a great education first and I think anyway, that would only make her a
better actor.
L. Becker
Great. Thank you very much.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Tiffany D’Emidio from Eclipse Magazine. Go ahead. Your line is open.
T. D’Emidio
Hello, Molly. Thanks for taking my question. With teen pregnancy being such a hot button issue and to have a family show that kind of takes it head-on,
have there been any fallouts? Have you or any of your costars received any negative feedback, or have you received any positive feedback from teens
experiencing the same situation?
M. Ringwald
I’ve only heard positive stuff. I mean the show has an enormous following. So, I mean I’ve only heard positive stuff. I’m sure that there are people that
don’t like the show or feel like it’s too graphic or whatever. I’m sure that that exists too. It’s not possible to have something that everybody likes, but as
long as it opens a conversation and a dialogue, I think that the show is doing what it’s supposed to.
T. D’Emidio
What can we expect this season from your character, from “Amy,” their relationship and really, I guess, the overall family dynamic?
M. Ringwald
Well, my family goes through-- At the end of the last season, obviously I was leaving my husband and then at the beginning of this season, I find out that
I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant in real life as well. So, that’s sort of what my character’s dealing with this season is pregnancy and sort of going through the
same thing that I just went through with my daughter in the season prior.
T. D’Emidio
Great. Well, thank you very much.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
Moderator
Our next question is from Mr. Shaun Daily from TV Talk Las Vegas. Go ahead. Your line is open, sir.
S. Daily
Hello, Molly. How are you?
M. Ringwald
Hello; I’m good.
S. Daily
First of all, congratulations on the pregnancy. Do you have names picked out yet?
M. Ringwald
Not yet. We’re keeping a list.
S. Daily
That would be good. I could recommend “Shaun” if you want. Your character, I mean “Anne’s” been through a lot this first season - the divorce and then
also going back into the workforce, working at the hot dog stand. I mean were you surprised at what they gave you to do in this first season of the show?
M. Ringwald
I wasn’t really surprised because Brenda Hampton was very open to my input and sort of along the way, she would ask me how I felt about certain things, what kind of career I was interested in. I mean she’s really great at writing for her actors and getting to know them and figuring out what they do best. And so, along the way, I was kind of let in on where my character was going and was really a nice way to work. She’s really good at sort of figuring out what people are good at and capitalizing on that.
S. Daily
Very good and also, how do you feel about the show writing in your pregnancy? I mean they could really have used standing in front of potted plants or off at “Mimzy’s” with their Alzheimer’s. I mean how do you feel about the show working with you and writing in the pregnancy?
M. Ringwald
I actually preferred that. It was a question as to whether or not they would write it in and I preferred it. I did not want to go through a whole season of walking around with towels in front of me. So, that was something that was discussed and they just decided to go with it. I also just thought that it was interesting considering the fact that my daughter was pregnant in the previous season, having her go through the whole thing again and having my grandchild be older than my new child is kind of funny too. It’s sort of like different.
S. Daily
Well, we look forward to the second season. Congratulations.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
Moderator
Our next question is from Emily Dodi from abcfamily.com. Go ahead, ma’am; your line is open.
E. Dodi
Hello. Thank you, Molly, for taking my call.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
E. Dodi
My question is if you could play any other Secret Life role, what would it be?
M. Ringwald
Let me see. God, I never even thought about that - maybe “Ricky”. He gets to be so bad, but he’s so charming. Yes, I think “Ricky” would be a fun character to play.
E. Dodi
Oh, great, and then a follow-up; do you think you’re a lot like “Anne” in your life? Do you bring a lot of your own self to the role?
M. Ringwald
I think I bring a certain amount of myself to the role, but I think she’s a lot calmer than I am actually. I think she puts up with a lot, but I don’t know that I
would-- I think my fuse might be a little shorter than “Anne’s”.
E. Dodi
Okay. Great. Thank you.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Mr. Kenn Gold from Media Boulevard. Go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
K. Gold
Thanks, again. Molly, one of the things that kind of surprised to see this, but a few weeks ago in Entertainment Weekly¸ they had an article about - I think
it was called “From Backpack to Jazz Pack.” It talks about your musical background, how you’re getting back into acting. Can you talk a little bit about
that?
M. Ringwald
Well, it’s something that I’ve done for a long time. I grew up in sort of a jazz background. My father’s a jazz musician and grew up living in New York and
something that I really wanted to do was … to like a jazz trio or quartet together. And so, I did that actually with a friend of mine, a very talented pianist
named Peter Smith. He just released an album that I sing on called Here it Comes. You can get it on iTunes. We perform around town. I mean we’re not
performing right now because I’m sort of taking time off as I wait for my babies to come, but it’s something that I’m definitely going to do more of after they’re here.
K. Gold
Just as an artist, which do you find more fulfilling - the music or the acting, or are they just very different for you?
M. Ringwald
I think that they’re just very different. I mean there’s a lot of stuff that I do. I mean I would consider sort of the acting a little bit more like my day job. It’s
something that I’ve done for a long time and the music is a little bit more thrilling just because I haven’t done as much of it recently and also because it’s
not my profession, I think that there’s a certain amount of freedom there that I enjoy. And then, I’m also a writer. I’m writing a book that’s going to be
released by HarperCollins in 2010. So, I like to put on a lot of different hats.
K. Gold
That’s great. Thank you very much.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
Our next question comes from Mr. Shaun Daily from TV Talk Las Vegas. Go ahead. Your line is open.
S. Daily
I was wondering; the adults on the show, I mean they are as multidimensional as the kids. How do you feel being with the adult characters on this show?
I mean I think it’s great. How do you feel?
M. Ringwald
How do I feel being an adult?
S. Daily
Well, I mean that the adult characters on this show are as interesting and multidimensional as the kids are because some shows they play the adults as
kind of dumb, cardboard-like characters, but all of you on the show are as interesting as the kids are.
M. Ringwald
Right. Well, I don’t think that I would have done it if I didn’t feel that she was going to write interesting storylines for my character. I mean it was one of the
prerequisites of me signing on and Brenda Hampton assured me that my character was not going to be wallpaper. I just said there’s no point in doing it if
that’s all you want me to do because I won’t be happy and I won’t do a very good job. I need to have interesting things to do and she assured me and promised me and she really made good on her promise. I think there have been a lot of interesting….Like you said, they all are multidimensional and I’m glad. I think that that makes the show a lot more interesting and also opens it up to a bigger audience as well. We have a huge teen following, but we also have an adult following as well.
S. Daily
Very good. I’m 40-years-old and I just love the show. The show gives you an even mix between the adults and the kids, which is nice. But also, I mean ABC Family is really behind the show. I mean 23 episodes is unheard of on cable. How do you feel about the backing of the network?
M. Ringwald
I think it’s great. It’s always really nice to have the network backing the show because it’s sort of a losing battle if they don’t. I’ve been on shows before
where for one reason or another, the network wasn’t behind the show or there was a regime change at the top and it’s miserable because you always
feel like no matter what you’re doing, you’re not getting the support that you need. We really need the support of the network and they’ve been really
great. They love the show and it enables us to do our best work.
S. Daily
Very good. Well, you’re terrific on the show. I’d say give you a raise if I was in charge.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
S. Daily
Thanks.
Moderator
Our next question is from Lauren Becker from Shooting Stars. Go ahead. Your line is open.
L. Becker
Hello, again. My site is full of readers and I was wondering if there was anything you could tell us about your book coming out next year.
M. Ringwald
Well, it’s called, Getting the Pretty Back and it’s part memoir and part sort of style guide. It’s very funny. The idea came about when I turned 40-years-old
and I thought I really wanted to write sort of like a fun book for my fans who have kind of grown up with me, who are kind of going through the same things I’m going through. So, it’s kind of a book about being my age in this sort of news-driven culture. It’s going to be illustrated and I think it’s going to be like a fun sexy little book.
L. Becker
Sounds great. Thank you.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
We have a question from Emily Dodi from abcfamily.com. Go ahead. Your line is open.
E. Dodi
Hello. Thanks for taking another question. We are looking forward to your book, being a mom and a woman over 40 too. So, my question is sort of following that up. Who is your favorite style icon if you could point to somebody?
M. Ringwald
I have so many. I mean there’s sort of like the obvious - Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly. But then, I really like Jane Birkin. I think Jane Birkin, Catherine
Deneuve. I really like a lot of French women from the 1960s. It’s kind of like the look that I’m really in to right now. I don’t think I have any one particular one that I really want to look like. It’s just sort of I get inspired by little bits of a lot of different women, I think. I’ll see a movie and I’ll think-- Like I just watched Two for the Road yesterday with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney and that was done like the late-1960s. It’s just like … all about kind of Audrey Hepburn in her late career, but the next week it could be Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour.
E. Dodi
Right. If I might, you lived in France for a while. Did that influence your style at all?
M. Ringwald
Yes, I think so. I did live there for quite some time and I think that the French women have a certain ease in the way that they dress that is very admirable. I really like everything from sort of like the French new wave movies - the movies with…. I think the women always look great in those. So, I think that those probably influence me the most.
E. Dodi
Great. Thank you.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
Moderator
Our next question is from Mr. Shaun Daily from TV Talk Las Vegas. Go ahead. Your line is open.
S. Daily
Hello, again, Molly. You’re making my whole show this afternoon; so, thank you very much.
M. Ringwald
Sure.
S. Daily
When “Anne” finally stood up to “Ashley,” I mean a lot of fans were cheering you on. You set her straight, told her off. I mean how important is it for your
character to be assertive and not simply kind of bowled over by the daughters on this show?
M. Ringwald
It’s funny that you mention that. That was actually a scene that I kind of lobbied for with Brenda. I said it has to happen. I mean we’re going to lose respect
for “Anne” if that doesn’t happen. Also, I felt like it was important for “Ashley’s” character as well in terms of people sympathizing with her. I mean she’s so great. She has such a great dry sense of humor, but at a certain point you need to see her as a real person and vulnerable. I thought that that was a really important dynamic that they have. So, I kind of fought for that and Brenda was great. She wrote it in. I thought that it was a really good scene.
I mean Brenda was a little concerned because she felt like one of the things she liked about “Anne” is that she takes the high road. She doesn’t sort of play into it all the time. But I said just realistically, as a mom, at a certain point you kind of have to draw the line and say, “Enough.” I felt like the viewers were going to be ready for that.
S. Daily
Well, “Ashley” did seem to soften up through the rest of the season after that scene. So, it’s interesting how it seemed to have affected the character.
Also, I mean we saw “Anne” with some romantic relationships off and on throughout the first season. Is this going to continue in the second season
regardless of the pregnancy?
M. Ringwald
Well, she does have a boyfriend. Did she meet him at the end of the last season--
S. Daily
The architect?
M. Ringwald
The architect, yes.
S. Daily
Yes, we met him.
M. Ringwald
You met him at the hot dog stand, right. Yes, I continue to see him - actor played by Ben Weber - and sort of continue to sort things out with my husband.
So, that’s a storyline that’s kind of unraveling as we go along.
S. Daily
Does that play into who is the father of “Anne’s” baby?
M. Ringwald
Yes, it’s all part of it. I can’t give anything away, but yes.
S. Daily
Very good. Thank you very much, Molly. You’re terrific.
M. Ringwald
Thank you.
FitPregnancy Magazine
Molly Ringwald interview about her pregnancy with twins
Expectant mom Molly Ringwald strikes a pose for the cover of the June issue of Fit Pregnancy. Molly and her husband Panio Gianopoulos are set to make the leap from one child to three as they are expecting twins - a boy and a girl - in August. The 41-year-old star of The Secret Life of the American Teenager talks to the magazine about motherhood, her daughter Mathilda, 5 1/2, and why she hopes to deliver the twins naturally.
On her pregnancy: "It’s not exactly the way we planned it, but various circumstances kept us from having a baby sooner. I actually think it’s a good thing considering we’re having twins, as it would be so much harder with a toddler than with an almost 6-year-old."
On what she'll do differently this time around: "I think I will try to slow down and appreciate the moments more. Everyone says it goes by so fast, but when you are in middle of it, it doesn’t seem like it’s going so quickly. All of sudden, your baby is a toddler, then a little girl and all grown up. It does go by in a heartbeat. This is going to be our last time around, so I’m going to appreciate the moments and try not to be too overwhelmed."
On her parenting style: "I think that I am loving, compassionate and interested. I am a little bit more of a disciplinarian than my husband. There’s always one in a family. I think I am fairly liberal in that I don’t try to force things, ideas or religion on Mathilda, but I want to make sure that she has manners, a code of ethics and cares about others."
On getting ready to welcome twins: "It’s exciting, especially since it’s a boy and girl. It’s the best of both worlds. Also, since there is such a big age
difference with my daughter, it will be nice that they will have each other. I won’t have to scramble for playdates; I am really bad about that. I guess I am a
naturally shy person and slow to make friends. I always feel a little deficient in the playdate department. [She laughs.] But I am worried about lack of sleep. I will be working and I’m taking just eight weeks off to give birth and take care of them, and then I go back to work in September. I have never done that before."
On motherhood: "I am really excited to have a bigger family. I can’t wait to meet and see them. It’s so hard to imagine your children before they are actually here. I say to my husband all the time, 'Can you imagine life without Mathilda?' She is such a huge part of us now, it’s impossible to think of life without her. Our daughter is so different from us; she has elements of me and of my husband, but such her own personality, sense of humor, and individual ideas. It’s so interesting to see how they grow and develop. It will be the same way with the twins. Because it hasn’t happened yet, it’s so exciting to think about who these little people will be."
On breastfeeding: "Yes, I am going to [breastfeed the twins], but I don’t know what that’s going to be like with the two. I did breastfeed Mathilda."
On soon-to-be big sister Mathilda: "She’s excited, but there’s a certain amount of trepidation since she’s been an only child for 5 1/2 years. She doesn’t exactly know what it’s going to be like. Everywhere we go people tell her she’s going to be a big sister. She’s been a baby for so long, so it’s a lot for her to take in. She did tell us that when the babies are born that we should find a stepdaddy for them."
On her pregnancy advice: "Every woman is different and has her own experience, but it’s important to eat right and take care of yourself. You don’t need to run a marathon but don’t stop working out if it feels good. You have to listen to your own body. And trust that you can give birth."
On her birth plan: "I am going to try to do it naturally, but it’s not easy to find an OB who won’t immediately schedule a C-section when you have twins. It feels like our country has gone a little crazy on that front. I really do feel that giving birth the natural way is important. Of course, if they tell me I have to have C-section because it’s dangerous for the babies not to, I won’t say no. But I don’t want to discount it as a possibility."
TotallyHer.com
Molly Ringwald Interview: The Secret Life of the American Teenager
Molly Ringwald plays the role of “Anne Juergens” on ABC Family’s hit series, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which premiered an all new season Monday, June 22nd at 8/7 central. I had the honor to participate in a conference call Q&A session along with many other writers. Between the group of us, we had a fantastic conversation and learned a lot about Molly Ringwald and her character on the show.
What do you think it is about the show that makes it so popular, and did that popularity surprise you at all?
Molly Ringwald: Well, it’s always surprising when something turns out to be such a big hit like this. I mean you do all these projects and you hope for the
best. You really never know what’s going to strike a chord. I just think that people just really like the characters. I think that they relate to the characters
and I think that it’s really well cast. I think we have a lot of great actors in the show and a lot of good charisma and I think Brenda Hampton is really good
at writing for these characters. So, I mean I guess that’s really, in my mind, what’s made it take off.
Can you tell us where are you in the filming schedule? How far along is the season, and are you going to have to take some time off for maternity leave or is that going to be filmed?
Molly Ringwald: Yes, I’m actually already on maternity leave. I shot about 12 episodes and then one day, I shot three episodes in one day, just my part.
Then when I come back from maternity leave, then I’m shooting three episodes back; so, just sort of do the catch up. So, everybody else is still filming and I think that they are off in August, but I’ve been off since the end of May.
How do you feel about the show working with you and writing in your real life pregnancy?
Molly Ringwald: I actually preferred that. It was a question as to whether or not they would write it in and I preferred it. I did not want to go through a whole
season of walking around with towels in front of me. So, that was something that was discussed and they just decided to go with it. I also just thought that it was interesting considering the fact that my daughter was pregnant in the previous season, having her go through the whole thing again and having my grandchild be older than my new child is kind of funny too. It’s sort of like different.
What about your role continues to challenge you?
Molly Ringwald: Well, it’s constantly interesting for me to play the mother of teenagers just because I’m not really there in my own life. I have a five-year-
old and I’m pregnant with twins right now. So, it’s always interesting to me to kind of — it’s like sort of jumping ahead in my life and sort of living what I’m
going to be living probably like 10 to 15 years from now. So, that’s always interesting. I feel almost like I’m so known for being a teenager and then all of a
sudden, I’m the mother of a teenager. That’s always sort of a real head trip for me. I think it’s always challenging for me to do a show like this, that I’m used to doing movies and theater and I’ve never really done sort of an episodic show
that moves at the fast pace that it goes. So, that’s always really challenging for me.
How does being a mother in real life help you to get into the character of “Anne”?
Molly Ringwald: Well, I think that once you’re a mother, you understand; not to say that people who aren’t mothers can’t play mothers. I think I played mothers before I was actually a mother in my real life, but I think once you experience that, there are just certain things that you just know. There are certain things that you feel comfortable with, a way of touching your child’s head or a way of like wiping dirt off their face. There’s just a way that you have, I think, that you don’t quite — it’s not in your bones, I think, until you actually are a mother. It’s obviously a little bit different for me because I’m playing the mother of a teenager and in real life, I’m the mother of a five-year-old. So, it’s a little bit different. It’s kind of like looking into a crystal ball into the future. But, I think once you’re a mother, you kind of always see your kids as a baby anyway no matter how old they get.
I remember watching you in teen films like Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club. How do you think teens are different today as opposed to back in the 1980s?
Molly Ringwald: I don’t really think that they are very different. I mean certain things have changed. Certainly the Internet has changed things a lot and
texting and cell phones and all of that, but I think the basic personality and everything that teenagers want and everything that teenagers fear is all the
same. It’s just the technology has changed.
Do you think that movies and TV programming in general has evolved for the teenage audience since you played a teenager?
Molly Ringwald: Well, I think it’s gone through different phases. I think The Secret Life of the American Teenager is a little bit more similar to the kinds of
movies that I was doing back in the day. In the meantime, there were all kinds of different sort of teen trends. For a while, it was like the teen horror film
seemed to be like what it was about. I remember in the 1990s, it was like you couldn’t see a teen movie without it being a horror movie and now it seems
to have gotten more back to character-driven pieces. So, I think that’s sort of where we’re at right now.
You started out young as an actor. What is the best advice you’ve given your young costars?
Molly Ringwald: Well, all of my costars on the show really are smart and they really have their head on their shoulders. I try not to give advice. I don’t want to be like that person… giving advice. I think that they’re all doing a great job and they’re all really down to earth and are really nice people. So, I don’t really feel like I need to give them advice.
Have you done anything to help your costars on the set?
Molly Ringwald: I try to be there for them as a fellow actor. I don’t really consider myself a mentor per say unless somebody comes up to me and asks me something specific, but I think that they all really know what they want to do and are doing it. They’re great.
As a family person yourself, as a mother, do you feel like this show is doing a good job of portraying an accurate family, the way that it would be in real
life?
Molly Ringwald: I think so. I mean I think that every family is different. I don’t think that there’s any definitive way to portray a family. I think that this is the
way that this family functions, but I think obviously it’s different in other families. But, I think that Brenda does a pretty good job of sort of doing that family
dynamic — the sort of sibling rivalries, the little arguments. Yes, I think it’s pretty realistic.
Why do you think now was a good time to have a show on TV that dealt with teenage pregnancy?
Molly Ringwald: I don’t know. I mean I didn’t write the show. I think the show was actually like even a couple of years before it was actually set up. So, I
guess it was just the right time. There seems to be like a right time for everything and this show happened to premiere like right around the time that Juno that was out and even, of course, with the Palin pregnancy. It just seemed like it was just kind of like the right time. I mean I wouldn’t say that teen pregnancy has not existed before this show. I mean I did a movie about teen pregnancy when I was a teenager. But, I guess it just sort of feels like the right time.
But, the show is not really only about teenage pregnancy. I think that that was an element in the first season, but I think the show is about more than that.
Have you or any of your costars received any negative feedback, or have you received any positive feedback from teens experiencing the same situation?
Molly Ringwald: I’ve only heard positive stuff. I mean the show has an enormous following. So, I mean I’ve only heard positive stuff. I’m sure that there
are people that don’t like the show or feel like it’s too graphic or whatever. I’m sure that that exists too. It’s not possible to have something that everybody
likes, but as long as it opens a conversation and a dialogue, I think that the show is doing what it’s supposed to.
“Anne” went through a lot in the first season — the divorce and then also going back into the workforce, etc. Were you surprised at what they gave you to do in this first season of the show?
Molly Ringwald: I wasn’t really surprised because Brenda Hampton was very open to my input and sort of along the way, she would ask me how I felt
about certain things, what kind of career I was interested in. I mean she’s really great at writing for her actors and getting to know them and figuring out what they do best. And so, along the way, I was kind of let in on where my character was going and was really a nice way to work. She’s really good at sort of figuring out what people are good at and capitalizing on that.
What can we expect this season from your character?
Molly Ringwald: Well, my family goes through — at the end of the last season, obviously I was leaving my husband and then at the beginning of this season, I find out that I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant in real life as well. So, that’s sort of what my character’s dealing with this season is pregnancy and sort of going through the same thing that I just went through with my daughter in the season prior.
Tune in to see Molly Ringwald on The Secret Life of the American Teenager Monday nights on ABC Family or on ABCFamily.com.
The Deadbolt Interview
After growing up in such hugely popular and success films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink, Molly Ringwald went on to carve out her own unique career in Hollywood as she stepped into adulthood. In fact, since the 1980s, Molly Ringwald has never stopped working, with roles in Betsy's Wedding and Stephen King's The Stand in the '90s. But it wasn't until Ringwald took on the lead role in the emotionally gripping Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story, about AIDS activist Alison Gertz, that Molly began to gain recognition as a more mature actress beyond her "Brat Pack" image. Although Molly made a huge splash on the silver screen in the '80s, her first role was that of the feisty redhead schoolgirl, Molly, on The Facts of Life. Almost 30 years later Ringwald returned to TV to take on the role of Anne Juergens, mother of the pregnant Amy Jeurgens (Shailene Woodley) in the hit ABC Family Series, The Secret Life of An American Teenager, which makes its third season premiere on June 22 at 8pm. Leading up to the season three debut of The Secret Life of An American Teenager, we hopped on the phone for a quick conference call chat with Molly Ringwald to learn more about the secret life of motherhood and how teens are different from her Pretty in Pink days of the '80s.
THE DEADBOLT: How does being a mother in real life help you to get into the character of Anne?
MOLLY RINGWALD: Well, I think that once you're a mother, you understand; not to say that people who aren't mothers can't play mothers. I think I played mothers before. I was actually a mother in my real life, but I think once you experience that, there are just certain things that you just know. There are certain things that you feel comfortable with, a way of touching your child's head or a way of like wiping dirt off their face. There's just a way that you have, I think, that you don't quite - It's not in your bones, I think, until you actually are a mother. It's obviously a little bit different for me because I'm playing the mother of a teenager and in real life. I'm the mother of a five-year-old, so it's a little bit different. It's kind of like looking into a crystal ball into the future. But I think once you're a mother, you kind of always see your kids as a baby anyway no matter how old they get.
THE DEADBOLT: I also remember watching you in teen films like Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club. How do you think teens are different today as
compared to back in the 1980s?
RINGWALD: I don't really think that they are very different. I mean, certain things have changed. Certainly the Internet has changed things a lot and texting and cell phones and all of that, but I think the basic personality and everything that teenagers want and everything that teenagers fear is all the same. It's just the technology has changed.
Other Conference Call Highlights: Molly Ringwald on whether the popularity of The Secret Life of an American Teenager surprised her:
"Well, it's always surprising when something turns out to be such a big hit like this. I mean, you do all these projects and you hope for the best. You really
never know what's going to strike a chord. I just think that people just really like the characters. I think that they relate to the characters and I think that it's
really well cast. I think we have a lot of great actors in the show and a lot of good charisma and I think Brenda Hampton is really good at writing for these
characters. So, I mean I guess that's really, in my mind, what's made it take off."
Ringwald on what challenges her with the role of Anne Juergens:
"Well, it's constantly interesting for me to play the mother of teenagers just because I'm not really there in my own life. I have a five-year-old and I'm
pregnant with twins right now. So, it's always interesting to me to kind of-- It's like sort of jumping ahead in my life and sort of living what I'm going to be
living probably like 10 to 15 years from now. So, that's always interesting. I feel almost like I'm so known for being a teenager and then all of a sudden, I'm
the mother of a teenager. That's always sort of a real head trip for me. "I think it's always challenging for me to do a show like this, that I'm used to doing
movies and theater and I've never really done sort of an episodic show that moves at the fast pace that it goes. So, that's always really challenging for me."
On the type of advice she gives her young co-stars:
"Well, all of my co-stars on the show really are smart and they really have their head on their shoulders. I try not to give advice. I don't want to be like that
person... giving advice. I think that they're all doing a great job and they're all really down to earth and are really nice people. So, I don't really feel like I
need to give them advice."
Molly Ringwald on whether the show accurately portrays family life:
"I think so. I mean I think that every family is different. I don't think that there's any definitive way to portray a family. I think that this is the way that this
family functions, but I think obviously it's different in other families. But, I think that Brenda does a pretty good job of sort of doing that family dynamic - the
sort of sibling rivalries, the little arguments. Yes, I think it's pretty realistic."
Molly Ringwald on any negative feedback regarding the teen pregnancy elements of the show:
"I've only heard positive stuff. I mean the show has an enormous following. So, I mean, I've only heard positive stuff. I'm sure that there are people that don't like the show or feel like it's too graphic or whatever. I'm sure that that exists too. It's not possible to have something that everybody likes, but as long as it opens a conversation and a dialogue, I think that the show is doing what it's supposed to."
The Daily Beast Interview
Why did you decide to join a teen show?
I don’t think of it as a teen show. I was disappointed that they decided to call it Secret Life of the American Teenager, because I consider it more of a
crossover show, like Gilmore Girls. It has a huge teen following, obviously, but a lot of women who are older watch it as well.
Why do you think that is?
I think I have a lot to do with it, actually! When I took the show on, there were six episodes written. All the subsequent episodes were tailored to me and my strengths. My character is very liberal, one of the more liberal on the show. She’s pro-choice and anti-organized religion, which I like because the show has a whole Christian storyline.
What do you think of the Christian elements of Secret Life?
I don’t consider it a Christian show. I would think it would be racy for Christians but I’m not terribly up on what Christians enjoy.
Do you think the '80s Brat Pack era was less conservative than some of the pop culture aimed at teens is now?
I don’t think so. The stuff that’s been approached on the show has pushed the envelope: They talk about blow jobs!
What is it like transitioning to the mom role after being an ingénue for so long? When I was first offered it, I had some reservations, I never played the hot
aunt or a mom of a toddler. I went from playing the teen to mom of a teen. Ultimately I decided it didn’t matter. I’m old enough to be a mom of a teenager.
What would you do if your own 15-year-old were pregnant?
I think I’m a lot more pro-choice. My character says she’s pro-choice, but she can’t advise her daughter to have an abortion. It’s a personal thing, an
emotional thing. In my situation, it wouldn’t be all that different—I would make my daughter make the choice. I don’t see myself being in that situation, but I
guess no one does. I’m a big believer in preventative medicine and communication. I’m actually pregnant now, and I showed my [5-year-old] daughter a birthing video the other day. I was watching the Ricki Lake documentary The Business of Being Born and there’s a beautiful home birth in it. [My daughter] was so horrified. She announced that she’s decided she’s never going to give birth. She said, “I’m going to marry a woman and she’s going to
birth a baby.” I thought that was incredible problem solving! But I’m having twins, so no home birth for me.
How realistic is Secret Life?
Well, the kids aren’t texting as much on that show as in real life. Gossip Girl can have that. We’re beating Gossip Girl consistently in the ratings. That show has this aura of being a big success, but we’re slaughtering them. Gossip Girl has great clothes but it’s a certain milieu not a lot of people live. Our show is more relatable and what makes shows like this work is that people live vicariously through the characters. Even the Christians.
What are the child stars you work with like?
Most of them are in their early twenties, but Shailene Woodley, who plays Amy, is a teenager. She is such a humanitarian. On her birthday she wanted to
have a party where everyone worked at a homeless shelter. I was like, “We went out for sushi on my birthdays.”
Do you miss being a teenager?
I can’t say that I miss the '80s at all. I’m all about the here and now and the future. I have a book coming out next spring called Getting the Pretty Back. It’s
about turning 40 and that phase where you’ve had kids or decided not to, for me it’s a real turning point. It’s kind of I Feel Bad About My Neck pimped out
with illustrations. But I do miss hanging out with my friends, drinking coffee, and not having responsibility. But you had a ton of responsibility! You had a
full-time job. I didn’t consider it a career and I hadn’t decided it if I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. It’s funny, people know me from Pretty in Pink or
Sixteen Candles and now I have a whole new following. They discover me on the show and then they realizing I’m that girl and they’re doubly excited.
Those films are evergreen. Seeing them is a rite of passage. You can’t go through your teen years and not have someone turn you onto those movies.
It’s the way I was about Catcher in the Rye. I thought it was written for me, never mind I’m not a boy, didn’t go to prep school. It spoke to me.
I love the Breakfast Club poster—those boots you wore!
I wish I had those boots. I don’t own anything from The Breakfast Club. We had to wear the same thing every day and no one wanted them when we were done. I do own the clothes from Pretty in Pink, but I don’t have the prom dress. I never wanted to look at that dress again.
Was there really a Sixteen Candles sequel in the works?
I was excited to do it but I didn’t want to do it without John Hughes. I was interested in examining her. It’s such a Cinderella story and she gets Prince
Charming at the end.
But do you keep Prince Charming? Is that the most important thing?
A friend of mine has a theory that movie’s Prince Charming, Jake Ryan, ruined all the girls in my generation. None of us want to settle. We’re all waiting for him. That is exactly why that one film would be great for a sequel! It gave the wrong idea to a lot of people. I haven’t given up hope the movie might one day be.
LiveJournal
Molly Ringwald interview about her pregnancy and "Secret Life of the American Teenager"
Every once in a while I get an interview opportunity that comes across my desk that just makes me laugh or smile or get all giggly inside. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy most of the interviews I do but this one just made me smile a big smile of nostalgia. I’m a kid of the 80’s and what did every kid in the 80’s do…watch John Hughes movies or a movie with at least one member of the “Brat Pack” in it. Of course I watched them all…”The Breakfast Club”, “Pretty in Pink”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “Sixteen Candles”…the list goes on and on.
So when I got the request for an interview with none other than 80’s teen queen Molly Ringwald, I had to jump at the chance. She’s no longer the teen full of angst trying to find herself while surviving high school. These days she plays Anne Juergens, mother of a pregnant teen trying to make her way through high school while raising a baby of her own. The show is ABC Family’s hit series “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” (Monday’s at 8/7c)
EclipseMagazine: Can you tell us where you are in the filming schedule? How far along is the season, and are you going to have to take some time off for maternity leave or is that going to be filmed?
Molly Ringwald: Yes, I’m actually already on maternity leave. I shot about 12 episodes and then one day, I shot three episodes in one day, just my part.
Then when I come back from maternity leave, then I’m shooting three episodes back; so, just sort of do the catch up. So, everybody else is still filming and I think that they are off in August, but I’ve been off since the end of May.
EM: What do you think it is about the show that makes it so popular, and did that popularity surprise you at all?
MR: Well, it’s always surprising when something turns out to be such a big hit like this. I mean you do all these projects and you hope for the best. You
really never know what’s going to strike a chord. I just think that people just really like the characters. I think that they relate to the characters and I think
that it’s really well cast. I think we have a lot of great actors in the show and a lot of good charisma and I think Brenda Hampton is really good at writing for these characters. So, I mean I guess that’s really, in my mind, what’s made it take off.
EM: What about your role continues to challenge you?
MR: Well, it’s constantly interesting for me to play the mother of teenagers just because I’m not really there in my own life. I have a five-year-old and I’m
pregnant with twins right now. So, it’s always interesting to me to kind of– It’s like sort of jumping ahead in my life and sort of living what I’m going to be
living probably like 10 to 15 years from now. So, that’s always interesting. I feel almost like I’m so known for being a teenager and then all of a sudden, I’m
the mother of a teenager. That’s always sort of a real head trip for me.
I think it’s always challenging for me to do a show like this, that I’m used to doing movies and theater and I’ve never really done sort of an episodic show
that moves at the fast pace that it goes. So, that’s always really challenging for me.
EM: How does being a mother in real life help you to get into the character of “Anne”?
MR: Well, I think that once you’re a mother, you understand; not to say that people who aren’t mothers can’t play mothers. I think I played mothers before
I was actually a mother in my real life, but I think once you experience that, there are just certain things that you just know. There are certain things that you feel comfortable with, a way of touching your child’s head or a way of like wiping dirt off their face. There’s just a way that you have, I think, that you don’t quite– It’s not in your bones, I think, until you actually are a mother.
It’s obviously a little bit different for me because I’m playing the mother of a teenager and in real life, I’m the mother of a five-year-old. So, it’s a little bit
different. It’s kind of like looking into a crystal ball into the future. But, I think once you’re a mother, you kind of always see your kids as a baby anyway no
matter how old they get.
EM: You started out young as an actor. What is the best advice you’ve given your young costars?
MR: Well, all of my costars on the show really are smart and they really have their head on their shoulders. I try not to give advice. I don’t want to be like
that person … giving advice. I think that they’re all doing a great job and they’re all really down to earth and are really nice people. So, I don’t really feel like
I need to give them advice.
EM: Have you done anything to help them along the way?
MR: I try to be there for them as a fellow actor. I don’t really consider myself a mentor per se unless somebody comes up to me and asks me something
specific, but I think that they all really know what they want to do and are doing it. They’re great.
EM: How do you fell that movies and TV programming in general have evolved for the teenage audience since you played a teenager?
MR: Well, I think it’s gone through different phases. I think The Secret Life of the American Teenager is a little bit more similar to the kinds of movies that I was doing back in the day. In the meantime, there were all kinds of different sort of teen trends. For a while, it was like the teen horror film seemed to be like what it was about. I remember in the 1990s, it was like you couldn’t see a teen movie without it being a horror movie and now it seems to have gotten more back to character-driven pieces. So, I think that’s sort of where we’re at right now.
EM: Okay, and do you have a favorite episode or a favorite storyline from the series?
MR: No, I kind of like all of them.
EM: You have a really great chemistry both with Mark Derwin who plays “George” and with the girls who play your daughters. Was that something that
happened sort of right when you guys met, or did you guys really have to work at it to make it authentic?
MR: I think we liked each other from the get-go, but I think as time goes on, obviously you get to know the person more and you get more comfortable
with them. I think our relationship has definitely grown and as the characters have grown, we’ve gotten to know each other better and it just really helps to
get it even more sort of realistic. You develop little quirks together and impressions and it just makes it more realistic.
EM: As a mother, do you feel like this show is doing a good job of portraying an accurate family, the way that it would be in real life?
MR: I think so. I mean I think that every family is different. I don’t think that there’s any definitive way to portray a family. I think that this is the way that this
family functions, but I think obviously it’s different in other families. But, I think that Brenda does a pretty good job of sort of doing that family dynamic – the sort of sibling rivalries, the little arguments. Yes, I think it’s pretty realistic.
EM: You’re nominated for a Teen Choice Award this year and I wondered what it is about your character, “Anne” that makes teens wish that she was their mom.
MR: I don’t know. I have no idea. I just found out about the Teen Choice Awards; very flattering and nice. I mean I hope that my daughter feels that way when she’s a teenager.
EM: I was wondering why you think now was a good time to have a show on TV that dealt with teenage pregnancy. Did you think it was in the media a lot so they wanted to portray it realistically, or what are your thoughts?
MR: I don’t know. I mean I didn’t write the show. I think the show was actually like even a couple of years before it was actually set up. So, I guess it was
just the right time. There seems to be like a right time for everything and this show happened to premiere like right around the time that Juno that was out
and even, of course, with the Palin pregnancy. It just seemed like it was just kind of like the right time. I mean I wouldn’t say that teen pregnancy has not
existed before this show. I mean I did a movie about teen pregnancy when I was a teenager. But, I guess it just sort of feels like the right time. But, the show is not really only about teenage pregnancy. I think that that was an element in the first season, but I think the show is about more than that.
EM: With teen pregnancy being such a hot button issue and to have a family show that kind of takes it head-on, has there been any fall-out? Have you or
any of your costars received any negative feedback, or have you received any positive feedback from teens experiencing the same situation?
MR: I’ve only heard positive stuff. I mean the show has an enormous following. So, I mean I’ve only heard positive stuff. I’m sure that there are people that don’t like the show or feel like it’s too graphic or whatever. I’m sure that that exists too. It’s not possible to have something that everybody likes, but as long as it opens a conversation and a dialogue, I think that the show is doing what it’s supposed to.
EM: What can we expect this season from your character, from “Amy,” their relationship and really, I guess, the overall family dynamic?
MR: Well, my family goes through– At the end of the last season, obviously I was leaving my husband and then at the beginning of this season, I find out
that I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant in real life as well. So, that’s sort of what my character’s dealing with this season is pregnancy and sort of going through
the same thing that I just went through with my daughter in the season prior.
EM: Your character “Anne’s” has been through a lot this first season – the divorce and then also going back into the workforce, working at the hot dog
stand. Were you surprised at what they gave you to do in this first season of the show?
MR: I wasn’t really surprised because Brenda Hampton was very open to my input and sort of along the way, she would ask me how I felt about certain
things, what kind of career I was interested in. I mean she’s really great at writing for her actors and getting to know them and figuring out what they do best. And so, along the way, I was kind of let in on where my character was going and was really a nice way to work. She’s really good at sort of figuring out what people are good at and capitalizing on that.
EM: How do you feel about the show writing in your pregnancy?
MR: I actually preferred that. It was a question as to whether or not they would write it in and I preferred it. I did not want to go through a whole season of
walking around with towels in front of me. So, that was something that was discussed and they just decided to go with it. I also just thought that it was
interesting considering the fact that my daughter was pregnant in the previous season, having her go through the whole thing again and having my grandchild be older than my new child is kind of funny too. It’s sort of like different.
EM: One of the things that kind of surprised me to find out about you was a few weeks ago in Entertainment Weekly¸ they had an article about – I think it was called “From Backpack to Jazz Pack.” It talks about your musical background, how you’re getting back into acting. Can you talk a little bit about that?
MR: Well, it’s something that I’ve done for a long time. I grew up in sort of a jazz background. My father’s a jazz musician and grew up living in New York and something that I really wanted to do was … to like a jazz trio or quartet together. And so, I did that actually with a friend of mine, a very talented pianist named Peter Smith. He just released an album that I sing on called Here it Comes. You can get it on iTunes. We perform around town. I mean we’re not performing right now because I’m sort of taking time off as I wait for my babies to come, but it’s something that I’m definitely going to do more of after they’re here.
EM: Just as an artist, which do you find more fulfilling – the music or the acting, or are they just very different for you?
MR: I think that they’re just very different. I mean there’s a lot of stuff that I do. I mean I would consider sort of the acting a little bit more like my day job. It’s something that I’ve done for a long time and the music is a little bit more thrilling just because I haven’t done as much of it recently and also because it’s not my profession, I think that there’s a certain amount of freedom there that I enjoy. And then, I’m also a writer. I’m writing a book that’s going to be released by Harper Collins in 2010. So, I like to put on a lot of different hats.
EM: The adult characters on this show are as interesting and multidimensional as the kids are because some shows they play the adults as kind of dumb, cardboard-like characters, but all of you on the show are as interesting as the kids are.
MR: Right. Well, I don’t think that I would have done it if I didn’t feel that she was going to write interesting storylines for my character. I mean it was one of the prerequisites of me signing on and Brenda Hampton assured me that my character was not going to be wallpaper. I just said there’s no point in doing
it if that’s all you want me to do because I won’t be happy and I won’t do a very good job. I need to have interesting things to do and she assured me and
promised me and she really made good on her promise. I think there have been a lot of interesting….Like you said, they all are multidimensional and I’m glad. I think that that makes the show a lot more interesting and also opens it up to a bigger audience as well. We have a huge teen following, but we also have an adult following as well.
EM: Could you tell us about your book coming out next year?
MR: Well, it’s called, “Getting the Pretty Back” and it’s part memoir and part sort of style guide. It’s very funny. The idea came about when I turned 40-years-old and I thought I really wanted to write sort of like a fun book for my fans who have kind of grown up with me, who are kind of going through the same things I’m going through. So, it’s kind of a book about being my age in this sort of news-driven culture. It’s going to be illustrated and I think it’s going to be like a fun sexy little book.
EM: Who is your favorite style icon if you could point to somebody?
MR: I have so many. I mean there’s sort of like the obvious – Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly. But then, I really like Jane Birkin. I think Jane Birkin, Catherine Deneuve. I really like a lot of French women from the 1960s. It’s kind of like the look that I’m really in to right now. I don’t think I have any one particular one that I really want to look like. It’s just sort of I get inspired by little bits of a lot of different women, I think. I’ll see a movie and I’ll think– Like I just watched Two for the Road yesterday with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney and that was done like the late-1960s. It’s just like … all about kind of Audrey Hepburn in her late career, but the next week it could be Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour.
EM: I know you lived in France for a while. Did that influence your style at all?
MR: Yes, I think so. I did live there for quite some time and I think that the French women have a certain ease in the way that they dress that is very
admirable. I really like everything from sort of like the French new wave movies – the movies with…. I think the women always look great in those. So, I think that those probably influence me the most.
EM: When “Anne” finally stood up to “Ashley,” I mean a lot of fans were cheering you on. You set her straight, told her off. I mean how important is it for your character to be assertive and not simply kind of bowled over by the daughters on this show?
MR: It’s funny that you mention that. That was actually a scene that I kind of lobbied for with Brenda. I said it has to happen. I mean we’re going to lose
respect for “Anne” if that doesn’t happen. Also, I felt like it was important for “Ashley’s” character as well in terms of people sympathizing with her. I mean
she’s so great. She has such a great dry sense of humor, but at a certain point you need to see her as a real person and vulnerable. I thought that that was a really important dynamic that they have. So, I kind of fought for that and Brenda was great. She wrote it in. I thought that it was a really good scene. I mean Brenda was a little concerned because she felt like one of the things she liked about “Anne” is that she takes the high road. She doesn’t sort of play into it all the time. But I said just realistically, as a mom, at a certain point you kind of have to draw the line and say, “Enough.” I felt like the viewers were going to be ready for that.
EM: Well, “Ashley” did seem to soften up through the rest of the season after that scene. So, it’s interesting how it seemed to have affected the character. Also, I mean we saw “Anne” with some romantic relationships off and on throughout the first season. Is this going to continue in the second season regardless of the pregnancy?
MR: Well, she does have a boyfriend. Did she meet him at the end of the last season–
EM: The architect?
MR: The architect, yes.
EM: Yes, we met him.
MR: You met him at the hot dog stand, right. Yes, I continue to see him – actor played by Ben Weber – and sort of continue to sort things out with my husband. So, that’s a storyline that’s kind of unraveling as we go along.
EM: Does that play into who is the father of “Anne’s” baby?
MR: Yes, it’s all part of it. I can’t give anything away, but yes.
Entertaining U Newspaper
how sweet it is
Molly Ringwald in Sweet Charity
1/18/07
Molly Ringwald, the 80’s teen queen best known for films like Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club, is all grown up and is back in the spotlight, this time in the Broadway musical Sweet Charity. The Tony-winning production will make a stop in the River City next week. I got a chance to speak with Ms. Ringwald about the show, living out of a suitcase and her plans for the future:
You’ve been on tour for four months now. How have you adjusted to life on the road?
It’s challenging. It’s adventurous. There’s a lot of packing and unpacking. I think I’ve gotten much better at it. When I first started out what I thought was
essential turns out that it’s not really essential. I’m down to one suitcase now as opposed to three. [Laughs]
You’re traveling with your three-year-old daughter. How is she handling life on tour?
She’s great. She loves it. For her it’s just hotels and airplanes and she loves both. She doesn’t, of course, have to do any of the packing or unpacking
[laughs] so she’s having a great time.
For those who may not already know, what is Sweet Charity about?
Sweet Charity is about a woman that I play named Charity Hope Valentine. She’s a dancehall hostess, which means that she dances with men for money in a dancehall called the Fan-Dango Ballroom in New York City… She really doesn’t like her life as a dancehall hostess, she really wants to do something better, so she kind of goes out, leaves the dancehall and tries to find something better. And it’s kind of like her adventures in the city. She meets this movie star and spends the night with him and finds somebody else and falls in love. It’s about her life, everything from her point of view.
The musical has been around in one form or another for about 40 years. Has this latest revival been updated at all?
Well, it still takes place in the 60’s. I think it has a little bit more of a modern sensibility about it. It really does seem modern to me, it doesn’t really seem
that dated, you know? It’s just really charming and the music is just so great.
Are you anything like Charity Hope Valentine?
No, not really. She’s very wide-eyed and a little bit naïve… I guess she has her own sort of street smarts but she gets knocked around a lot and she just
remains incredibly upbeat and optimistic about it all. I think I’m a little bit more lucid. I’m certainly more educated than she is. [Laughs] But yeah, she’s very different. She’s a lot of fun to play, but she’s very different than me.
You played Sally Bowles in Cabaret before coming onto Sweet Charity. How do the two roles compare?
Well, their both these incredibly iconic characters, but they’re actually polar opposites. Where Charity is really naïve and kind of guileless, I think Sally is
very cunning, and where Charity ends up a survivor, Sally kind of self destructs at the end. So, they’re really completely two opposite ends of the spectrum. But they’re both very charismatic. I think that’s the similarity because all of this stuff happens around them and they kind of create havoc wherever they go.
For you, what’s the most difficult part of doing a musical?
I think probably for me it’s just the stamina. It takes a lot of energy both physical and mental energy, and so by the end of the week, we have eight performances a week, I think by the end of the week it’s pretty hard to find that energy reserve to keep going.
Do you think you’ll encourage your daughter to follow in your footsteps?
No, I really want her to do what she wants to do. I don’t think I want her to act as a child, but if she wants to take it up when she’s older then that’s totally up to her and I’ll support her in whatever she wants to do. But, I want her to get a good education, go to college and hopefully, if she wants to do it, she’ll take it up later
Has she seen any of your movies yet?
She’s seen me on television and she’s seen me on stage but she doesn’t really put it together yet because she’s just three-years-old. She turns around all the time and sees the poster for Sweet Charity and we’ll turn on the television and there I’ll be, so for her she just thinks it’s normal. She doesn’t think it’s anything extraordinary. It’s normal for her.
There was some talk of a sequel to Sixteen Candles back in 2005. Is it still something you’re considering?
It’s something that I’m thinking about and I’m interested in and I think it would be great, but there’s no definite plans right now.
I also read a while back that you had a novel in the works. What’s the status of that?
That’s kind of on hold right now because I can’t really do anything while I’m doing this.
Once the Sweet Charity tour is over, what are your plans?
Vacation. I’m going to take a long vacation and then look at what I want to do after that.
New York Magazine, Theater
May, 2005
Don’t You Forget About Me
The 18-year-old Molly Ringwald lives in a generation’s high-school memories. The 36-year-old Molly drags her stroller up five flights of stairs.
We’re just at that moment in previews where everything is going great, but we’re fine-tuning and bringing in new lines and, you know, all that stuff.” Molly
Ringwald is talking about her new play, Modern Orthodox, an Off Broadway comedy about a secular Jewish couple who take in an Orthodox diamond
merchant. It’s filled with lines (“There is no word for thin in Yiddish!”) that bring down the house, if the house is filled with the Upper West Side. Her voice is a bit raspy; she’s recovering from laryngitis, which she caught from her OB/GYN. “I love my character,” she continues, “she’s smart, sassy, funny . . . and vulnerable.” The pause is telling—vulnerability was always her trademark.
The last time many of us saw Ringwald was 1986. She was standing next to Duckie (Jon Cryer) at the prom, casting a longing, hurtful glance at Blane
(Andrew McCarthy) across the room. It was the final scene of Pretty in Pink, and OMD’s “If You Leave” was playing in the background. At 18, Ringwald was at the peak of her fame, and, in a way, at the end of it. She turned down a role in a subsequent John Hughes movie, Some Kind of Wonderful, and, after a series of unsuccessful projects, decamped to Paris. In her new city, she went native, becoming fluent in French and marrying the novelist Valery Lameignere. But the expatriate dream ended in 2002, with Ringwald filing for divorce, and now she’s back in New York. A vintage celebrity hidden among us.
When asked why she didn’t resettle in Los Angeles, she shoots back, “Have you ever been to L.A.?” and then adds, about this city, “I did my first movie here when I was 13, and I just loved it, and I felt immediately at home.” She owns a fifth-floor walk-up in the East Village. She likes the neighborhood, but when asked to name her favorite spots, she lets out a sarcastic laugh: “So I can be stalked wherever I go?”
It’s difficult to explain, to those who weren’t teenagers in the eighties, just how large Molly Ringwald once loomed in our lives, and why, even now, she must be coy about where she picks up her coffee. For many of us, she was the first real teen we watched at the movies. Graced with what Pauline Kael described as a “charismatic normality,” Ringwald appeared in three films with the writer-director Hughes—Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink—that were period-correct fusions of high-school fashion, music, and slang. If you were white and suburban and insecure, you came to the theater and saw yourself.
Now, almost two decades after her initial fame, Ringwald has become the girl in everyone’s yearbook, the actress we think about when we think about our youth. Which, for her, must be some sort of nightmare. As it turns out, there’s someone near at hand who shares her experience: Jason Biggs, her co-star in Modern Orthodox, is the Molly Ringwald (or perhaps John Cusack) of his generation, having anchored the three American Pie movies. “I tease him mercilessly about everything, American Pie included,” Ringwald says. “But, you know, the funny thing about him is that once you do movies like that, you’re pretty much impossible to embarrass—he’s embarrassed himself before anyone else can, which makes him impervious to all teasing.”
Ringwald could also be talking about herself—this is an actress, after all, whose character was famously felt up by her grandmother—and she recognizes another connection. “It’s a little bit the same thing with him as with me. He started out doing theater and became famous doing film, and when he comes back, everyone’s like, Oooh, a film actor doing stage.”
The stage was Ringwald’s first home, and her childhood sounds like something from the vaudeville era. Born in Sacramento, California, she was the youngest daughter of Bob Ringwald, a blind jazz pianist. Ringwald would belt out classic torch songs, accompanied by her father, and, at age 6, she even released an album called I Wanna Be Loved by You, Molly Sings. Her spin in the Broadway revival of Cabaret was the fulfillment of a long-nurtured ambition, and she hopes to work with Stephen Sondheim someday. And, like many American celebrities, she was on the boards in London recently, playing the part of Sally in a West End production of When Harry Met Sally. Overseas, her career was not up for inspection, but Stateside, some aspects of her Dweezil Zappa–dating days are returning. “Jason and I would go around the corner and get a sandwich,” she says, “and there would be, like, the paparazzi. That rarely happens to me because I’m rarely with anyone who is famous. My partner is not famous, and most of the people we know are not famous.” Ringwald lives with her boyfriend of three years, Panio Gianopoulos, a book editor and a writer. Younger than Ringwald, he published an elegiac essay about dating older women called “Confessions of a Boy Toy” in a recent anthology.
Gianopoulos and Ringwald had a daughter last year, whom they named Mathilda Ereni. At 36, Ringwald is very happy about having become a mother (27 hours of labor), but the five flights with the Maclaren stroller are starting to become a hassle. “I’m thinking about doing Brooklyn,” she says. When the baby was born, the office became the nursery, and the television was jettisoned, for issues of aesthetics and fears of autism. “My best friend growing up was always really defensive about not having a set,” she says, “because everyone was like, Whoa, you don’t have a TV—what’s wrong with you? Every single one of the kids in her family is, like, a doctor or a lawyer.” For those rainy evenings, there are Netflix DVDs, played on her computer: “Panio updates the queue much more often, and then I’ll come in and all of a sudden push the girl movies to the top.”
Despite the instant recognition her red hair provides, Ringwald is beginning to blend in, as she cultivates that version of the bohemian New York life that
revolves around your apartment, your iPod, your family and friends, and not too much else. “I am sort of comfortable with the amount of fame that I have right now,” she says. “It’s like it’s just enough, you know, and I like that.” In her free moments, she tries to write. Ringwald has plans for a novel, but “it’s not really far enough along yet to, like, even talk about really,” and she resisted the pressure of getting an advance from a publisher. In the meantime, she’s found work as a book reviewer for the Hartford Courant, and she writes entertainment profiles for the Westchester Journal News. Yes, she does. It’s an odd note to her career, a bit like Michael Jordan playing golf. Stephin Merritt, the singer-songwriter of Magnetic Fields, for one, was a bit thrown by sitting across from Ringwald as she set up her tape recorder and notebook. “Excuse me for saying,” he told her, “that I’m surprised you’re doing this at all.”
Inside TV Blog June 30, 2008
Molly Ringwald Interview for 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager'
10 Questions with Molly Ringwald
June 30 -- To Gen Xers, she'll forever be an iconic '80s teen, but -- surprise! -- 'Breakfast Club' star Molly Ringwald is 40 years old now. So, in ABC Family's new drama 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager' (premiering July 1, 8 PM ET) she's the mom to a 15-year-old band geek who ends up pregnant after a one-night stand. Ringwald talked to AOL TV about her series' controversial storyline, and which of her beloved movies might be headed for a sequel. -- By Kimberly Potts
1. What made you decide to do a TV show?
I was thinking about moving to Los Angeles for personal reasons -- my husband's going to be attending a Stanford MBA program in the fall. So this series sort of came up, and I really liked Brenda [Hampton], the creator. She really wanted to have me in the show, and she was persuasive and I liked the subject matter, and it just kind of seemed like a cool thing to do.
2. Were you a fan of Hampton's '7th Heaven'?
A bit. Most of the time when '7th Heaven' was on I was living out of the country, and I didn't have TV for a while. So I only caught an episode here or there. But I knew [Brenda's] work, and her as a person, and I just really felt I was going to enjoy working with her.
3. Given the teen pregnancy pact scandal and the success of 'Juno,' your series is timely. Will the pregnancy plotline continue for the whole season?
It definitely starts out as the event that kicks off the show, but the show is about more than that. It has to be about more than that, because that story line is going to resolve itself. It really is sort of a sociological study of these teenagers and their families.
4. What other kinds of things happen to your character, Anne?
My character doesn't find out [about her daughter's pregnancy] until episode 6, and the audience pretty much knows from the beginning, so there's that
suspense about when the family is going to find out. My character's not clued in to what's right in front of her. That has to do with her own life, and the decline of her marriage, and the fact that she's really not happy with where she's at in life.
5. Have you had input into your character?
Definitely. When the pilot was written, Brenda didn't know that I was going to play Anne. Getting to know me and my strengths as an actor made the
character evolve a certain way. I mean, she's still different from me. But there are elements of me in Anne, and I definitely made her more liberal, because it's really important to me that both sides are represented. Brenda's totally supportive of that.
6. So will Amy explore all of her pregnancy options, no matter how controversial they may be?
Yes. I will say that Amy makes her own choice in terms of what she wants to do about her pregnancy. And it was very, very important to me that that was clear. Though I won't tell you what [Amy's] choice is right now ...
7. In the '80s, you were the go-to teen actress. Is it weird to be playing the mom of a teenager now?
It is weird, but it's kind of good, too. I'm an actor and I've done a lot of different stuff, but because those movies were so successful, it's kind of stuck in
people's heads that I'm that figure. It's good for me to be seen in a different light. I'm in a project with teenagers and I'm not the teenager, so I've come full circle in a way.
8. A couple of years ago there were rumors of a 'Sixteen Candles' sequel. Where does that stand now?
It was in the works. It was something that I definitely wanted to do, but [writer-director] John Hughes wasn't interested, and I didn't feel comfortable doing it without his involvement. If we can get John to agree, I think it would be great. I think there are definitely a lot of people who would love to see it, and I would love to do it.
9. Is 'Sixteen Candles' the only one of your teen movies you'd like to revisit?
I think so. I would ordinarily not want to do something like that, but I think that 'Sixteen Candles' lends itself to [a sequel]. I mean, 'Breakfast Club,' is just so perfect as is. I guess 'Pretty in Pink' is possible, but 'Sixteen Candles' is really the one ... it was such a Cinderella story. And I was interested to see what happened to this girl.
10. Do you ever watch any of those movies when you come across them on TV?
I don't really sit down and watch them. I mean, I've seen them so many times, you know? I think when my daughter's old enough, I'll probably watch them with her.
Arts Publications
Sept, 1999 by Katie Holmes
People still thrill to the name Molly Ringwald. Whereas most teen superstars lose it when the fame thing's over, she found, a life - a real life - and timed
herself until the moment was right for the next big chapter in her career. That moment is now. We didn't have to coax Katie Holmes - who is to the '90s what Molly was to the '80s - to ask the questions
In Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986), three films from the John Hughes stable, Molly Ringwald gave effortlessly appealing performances that raised her to the status of bona fide teen icon. The potency and popularity of her image endures, for Ringwald - cool, smart, paprika-haired - was both an original and authentically postadolescent. Every "as if" and "yeah, right"-deadpanning screen teen of the '90s owes a huge debt to her.
Ringwald duly segued into the adult world of James Toback's The Pick-up Artist (1987) and the rarefied one of Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear (1987). based mostly in France, she has since worked consistently in films and television without calling attention to herself. But she was a hit In the L.A. production of How I Learned to Drive, had some funny moments in the recent Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and - with four films in the can (Kimberly, Hearts and Bones, The Giving Tree, Cut) - the thirty-one-year-old, newly married actress seems set to charm us again. We invited Katie Holmes to talk to her Tingle colleague about her life and times.
KATIE HOLMES: OK, Molly, are you ready to start?
MOLLY RINGWALD: I'm all ready. [laughs]
KH: [laughs] I'm so nervous.
MR: I interviewed John Hughes like this once and I remember I was nervous about that. Just go for it.
KH: All right. What for you were some of the positive and negative sides of being a star at the age of sixteen?
MR: They're probably the same things you're going through yourself. I guess the hardest aspect was that it became difficult to relate to people my own age. Because I was playing a typical teenager, I should have been completely in tune with typical teenage experiences, but in fact, mine were completely different. So that was awkward, but the whole thing was also incredible, too. I wouldn't have given it up because I learned a lot and had a really good time.
KH: When you were on the cover of Time magazine, did you think that kind of fame would be hard to live up to?
MR: This will sound like I was naive, but I didn't realize how important it was. I was still reading Seventeen and when they put me on the cover I thought that was the best.
KH: When everything comes at you at once, it can be really overwhelming.
MR: Yeah, it was a bit of a whirlwind. You must feel that sometimes, don't you?
KH: It's surreal. You kind of sit back and go, "Uh, OK." It actually seems like everyone around you is more involved in it than you are yourself.
MR: Absolutely. And you have to know when to tell them to calm down. It also takes a little while to figure out who you can listen to and who you can't. I'm lucky that I have really great parents, and I understand you do, too. It gives you a real backbone to have them there because you know you're going to get the truth from them and that they don't have ulterior motives. But of course, you still end up making mistakes by thinking somebody's really great when they're not.
KH: I would imagine you probably had an easier time in the maturing process of weeding people out because of your experiences as a teenager.
MR: I mean, it took me a while, but I tried not to get cynical because I realized that wasn't going to make me happy. I always tried to be as open to as many people as I could be, and if they proved me wrong, then free. That's being innocent until proven guilty. [laughs]
KH: How do you feel now about being an icon of the '80s?
MR: For a few years I hated it because it made me feel old before my time, but now I'm flattered. I'm really proud of the films I made when I was a teenager.
KH: As you should be.
MR: Thank you. And I think that they are going to go in and out of fashion. Right now, they happen to be in fashion, but maybe in a few years they won't be.
KH: In which of your early films do you think you gave your best performances?
MR: I would say the John Hughes films. Even though they were different, they were made so much in the same style that they blended into one for me.
Breakfast Club is probably my favorite because it's sort of perfect. [laughs] No, it's not perfect, but it was beautifully made and all the actors worked well
together. Then I am really proud of my performance in a television movie called Surviving [1985].
KH: Was moving to France a deliberate decision you made to get away from Hollywood?
MR: No, it was haphazard. I went there to work and fell in love with Paris. Living in L.A. you start to think that nothing else exists outside this microcosm you're in. At least that's how I felt, and when I went to Paris I felt I could breathe for the first time in a long time. It was like I'd been underwater and finally I'd surfaced. I thought, If I feel this good I have to experience it for a while. But it wasn't something I decided beforehand.
KH: It was such a courageous move.
MR: It was definitely the first adult decision I made and it was also the smartest, because when you're in this business you really need to have something else going on - whether it's a side career, a hobby you love, or a place - and for me France is my safe haven. I always know it's gonna be there and I think it balances me out in a good way and helps my work, too.
KH: Well, it gives you a better perspective on life. Can you describe how your attitude toward acting has evolved?
MR: When I was younger it was much more instinctive. Very often kids or young teenagers can be good actors because they're like feeling machines, but later on you start to think, Oh, this is odd. Why am I doing this and what does it mean? As you get older it becomes as much an intellectual as an instinctive process. I think I've just figured out how to do a combination of the two so that I use the intellectual process to my advantage but also allow myself to feel and to let go. I wouldn't say it comes as naturally as it does when you're younger. Acting's a hard thing to talk about because it's still mysterious to me.
KH: How important was it for you to appear on-stage in How I Learned To Drive?
MR: It was important to me to do something difficult because I'm never happy doing things where I don't feel I'm pushing myself in some way. Do you want to act on stage?
KH: I'd love to do a play or musical sometime.
MR: Do you sing?
KH: Not as well as you.
MR: [laughs] How do you know how well I sing?
KH: Because I know you sang professionally when you were little.
MR: Well, maybe you sang when you were little, too. Did you?
KH: In the shower. Is there any role you've always wanted to play?
MR: Well, I've always wanted to play a jazz singer and that hasn't happened yet.
KH: I think you should definitely get the boa out and get on top of a piano.
MR: If I were going to do a biopic, there are a few white jazz singers to choose from - Libby Holman would be a great one. What about you?
KH: I'm nervous about exploring Shakespeare but I would love to do that sometime.
MR: I've done two modern Shakespeare adaptations - Paul Mazursky's The Tempest [1982] and Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear - but I've never actually done Shakespeare straight. It's also something that terrifies me, too, so maybe we should do one together - pick the scariest Shakespeare play and just put it on somewhere and ban the critics. [laughs]
KH: Yeah, put it on in some small theater in, like, Iowa. Where would you like to see yourself in five years time?
MR: Hopefully I will have started a family. I also want to direct something and continue on the same road that I've been going - doing things that scare me.
KH: Do you have any desire to write?
MR: I write a lot. And probably when I direct, it will be something that I wrote, but I don't want to do it until I'm absolutely certain what it is I want to say and know for a fact that I'm the only pennon who can say it. I did everything so early as an actor I want to make sure that I take my time with everything else.
KH: In the meantime, start reading some Shakespeare, and I will, too! [both laugh]
Jonathan Larson: By Molly Ringwald - The Hartford Courant , 2001
Jonathan Larson: In His Own Words And The Words Of Those Who Loved Him By Molly Ringwald
Christmas 1996: Just as I moved from Paris into my new apartment in New York, I received a handmade card of a snowman. Inside the card underneath a holiday greeting was scribbled "I look forward to having a new friend in the city ..." The card was made and sent by Jonathan Larson, and fast new friends we became. I had known him peripherally for a few years through my best friend Victoria Leacock, but now as New York became my permanent home I was grateful to have people there who were willing to help me through the exciting and terrifying process of adjusting to a new life.
Unfortunately, my new friendship was cut short, as was Jonathan's (now mythic) life two months later.
It's five years since, and I still find myself missing him, feeling that there were conversations never finished. More than once I have felt cheated out of being able to give him a call to meet at that cute French cafe for a good-natured debate on the state of musical theater. I usually took on the role of devil's advocate, mostly just for the pleasure of listening to him getting worked up about it.
"Tick Tick ... Boom!" is a musical that Jonathan wrote and performed himself before the enormous success of "Rent," in fact, before "Rent" was written at all. It was a heartfelt musical cry of protest and frustration of trying to do the impossible - invigorate the American musical - and it's heart-wrenching for anyone watching now, when everyone but him knows that he succeeded.
In a spectacular case of life imitating art imitating life (or something like that) I sat down to continue the conversation with Raul Esparza, who portrays Jonathan in the first proper staging of the musical.
From the moment I nervously began to watch the first preview, my fears were allayed as Raul took command of the stage. He "got" Jonathan. I'm not sure how he did. No one (including Jonathan's own parents) is. It's all the more extraordinary considering that he never even met him. But as an actor myself, I know that sometimes this can help. It doesn't hurt that he has a kick-ass singing voice.
To further tangle the web of reality and art, I will be assuming the role of Jonathan's girlfriend in the play (likely in mid-September), a fact unknown to both of us when we sat down for this conversation.
MR: So what was it like playing somebody who is a real person? I know you played Che Guevara in "Evita," but that was different.
RE: That was the only time I played anybody who was even remotely real, and Che is based on some fantasy version. What I wanted to have down were some of [Jonathan's] gestures. I wanted to suggest him, but kind of like how you suggest with a sketch. I watched two versions of "Tick Tick ... Boom!," which were interesting because the first one is all filled with light and happiness and hope. The second version I saw was really bitter, and he seemed very angry about something. Maybe the fact that things weren't getting off the ground as much as he wanted.
MR: And which Jonathan did you choose to incorporate?
RE: The first one. The lighter one. I think our script has a lot more joy in it than what he was playing later in the existence of the show. The bitterness is palpable. It's almost hard to watch. That didn't seem right for us.
MR: I think that was a good choice. I don't think he ever lost his joy, and he certainly never lost his enthusiasm. I played Alison Gertz [in "Something To Live For: The Alison Gertz Story," about one of the first young, straight women to die of AIDS]. I met her - she hadn't passed away yet - at a different point in her life. It was the same thing you describe watching the two different tapes. I met her after another debilitating illness and her attitude had changed completely, as it would if you had gone through this horrible, painful illness. She was very cynical and very judgmental, almost as if she was testing me. I had to put that away so I could properly play her.
RE: I wonder all the time if Jonathan would be happy with what I've done.
MR: Oh, I think he'd be thrilled. You get him. You get the spirit of him, and you're great looking. (laughs) He'd be happy about that! And if Jonathan could have hit one of those notes! Did you know a lot about Jonathan before?
RE: I knew that he died before the show opened. I knew about "Rent" because I was really interested in it. The first time I saw it, I cried like a moron. I get all weepy. ... It's something that's happened to me in "Tick Tick ... Boom!" You can feel the audience responding. Their empathy for Jonathan feels very moving to me.
MR: What did they say last night when we saw Edward Albee's "The Play About the Baby": The reason we cry at performances is because we're facing the abyss.
RE: I wondered if I believed that, that we are our wounds. There's a lot of stuff I've been through in the last few years that I would give anything not to have gone through. Does that make me a better actor? Does it make me more grown-up?
MR: I think it does. I think I do believe it.
RE: You have to go through that pain, otherwise you're not alive?
MR: Yeah. Like why should people take away their wrinkles or scars? They're proof you've been through something.
RE: Scars can make you beautiful. I think about that. It's hard balancing a life as an actor, because I want to perform. I want to tell stories that move me or that I think will move an audience. And then you have to balance the reality of `How do I have a life?' `How do I maintain my relationships?'
MR: Let me ask you this: Do you think it's possible to be an artist, and be in love and sustain it?
RE: Yes, but I think that it has to be connected to what you do. I think the impulse to create is the same impulse as sex, in a weird way. I've always felt like they come from the same place. Whatever I do on stage comes from the same place as sex.
MR: I think they're very, very connected.
RE: There has to be some sort of passion there, not being afraid of really being alive, really being present in a relationship. That to me feels like the same energy....Working on stage requires so much concentration and energy, and it should be exhausting afterwards. I've actually upset some people who love me very much by saying, `Well, it's better than sex to be on stage.'
MR: Really! See, then it goes back to what I was saying: Can you be an artist and be in love? Do you have to sacrifice one to have one really great?
RE: I don't believe that. I had a marriage I was very proud of for a number of years. Because she helped me feel grounded, I could soar. It was a balance that was really ideal.
MR: Do you feel like your art had anything to do with its demise?
RE: Yes. But not for artistic reasons. I guess more buying my own stupid publicity. We always grew together. And it's hard when you're apart. I was away on tour for a year. We were in our 20s; there's still a lot of growing up to do. The more you learn about yourself, I think you have to learn it together in a relationship.
MR: But you also have to know who you are separately, which is a hard thing. How are you with talking to the audience? "Tick Tick ... Boom!" was originally a monologue Jonathan did about his life, and now it's a three-character play.
RE: Whenever I'm in the scenes with [Amy Spanger and Jerry Dixon] I feel more keyed in. The hardest part of the show for me is when I have to start off in the dark with a spotlight in my face talking to an audience I can't see. But there are moments in this play that are about the audience, not about Jon - particularly at the end - [when] they're doing the show for me. They are expressing something or making connections that I didn't have to make, and that's great. They have a lot more information about Jonathan than I do on stage. They know that he died. They know he writes "Rent." We let the audience fill in the blanks....They have that tagline about the show - before he wrote "Rent," he had to pay it. The show is a lot about that, about his fears, about how do I write and still live the life I want. They're suburban dreams that he has, and I know them because I've lived them. I'm an upper middle-class Cuban-American boy from a Cuban family living in Miami, in the suburbs, with the pool, two or three cars, a family to dote on me. They had a house and a lawn and cats and dogs and wonderful food, and so success starts to become a measure of `Can I have those things, too?' Don't I want my mom's Lexus?
MR: And do you?
RE: Cars aren't so important anymore. But yeah, when I hit my 10-year high school reunion, I went back and saw all these guys who were working at jobs they hated. They weren't working anywhere near as hard as I was. And they were paying mortgages and had the houses and the kids, and I thought `God, I've worked so hard and I don't have anything to show for it.' And Jonathan thinks that often. He gets tempted to go to work at the market-research job because his friend has got a new apartment and nice clothes. I think Jonathan wants all those things because he came from a place where he was loved and taken care of, and so you define success, for a while, by whether or not you can have those things.
MR: It's true. There's a poem by Marge Piercy called "For the Young Who Want To," all about being a writer or an artist, and what you are until you get that recognition, until you're published. She writes how they ask you when you're going to have a baby, get married, get serious. Then no one questions what you are at all when you get the recognition.
RE: Then you're the overnight sensation who's been working for 12 years. One of the things that is sad about "Tick Tick ... Boom!" is that I think Jonathan comes to the conclusion that growing up means you have to let go of things. He decides he's going to keep writing, even though it means he's not going to have his girlfriend. He's not going to have the house, the money or the kids. It's a lonely choice and he makes it anyway, yet his friends are still there and there's so much love.
MR: He makes that choice we were talking about. If you have to be an artist ...
RE: It's a lonely choice to let these people go. We obviously know he's making the right choice. He doesn't know. It required an incredible amount of belief in himself to do that. That's why I think so many people are responding to this play. We all go through the place where we say `What kind of life do I want to live?' This doesn't even feel like a musical to me. It feels like the smartest play you've ever seen - with great songs.
MR: I want to talk about you. Where did you come from? Where have you been all our lives?
RE: Watching Molly Ringwald movies.
MR: No! Where were you!
RE: Didn't I give you some sense last night of why your films were so significant to me? They made me a braver high school kid.
MR: You made me blush! Now you're blushing.
RE: Yeah. I grew up in Miami - Cuban parents, and what being first-generation Cuban-American means is you get to live in exile, surrounded by storytelling, wishing you were back on the island - even though I've never been there.
MR: When did you decide to become an actor?
RE: I started acting in third grade. Although my aunt says I used to hide behind the curtain and bow whenever people walked into the living room - which seems like some kind of disorder!
MR: When did you first start singing in plays?
RE: I did "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" in fifth grade. I played Schroeder.
MR: Is that the one you identify with most? We were talking the other night about how everybody is one character in "Breakfast Club" and one character out of Charlie Brown.
RE: Snoopy's the one I identify with his perverse sense of humor, his total drollness, his almost cynical attitude, and his total unrepressed joy. I would love to live my life like that. Right now really beautiful things are happening, and I can easily cloud them over because I'm worrying about the bills. You have to appreciate what's around you. I think that Jon tries to say, `It's OK - it hurts, but we're going to do it anyway. And we're going to make a lot of noise, too.' I love that challenge.
The Hartford Courant August 26, 2001
Molly Ringwald A Cut Above
By Chris Parry
If ever there was a life that encapsulated pop culture, Molly Ringwald's is it. At the age of three she sang with her father's jazz band. At six she released an album. Then came television with the Mickey Mouse Club and The Facts Of Life, soon followed by a burst of box office gold with Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink, not to mention her appearance on the cover of Time Magazine. "I was even in a raisin commercial," says the actress who achieved more success before she could legally drink than most will achieve in a lifetime. On the eve of the release of her latest film, the Australian-made Cut, FILMINK's Chris Parry talked to the woman who made teen-angst the boom industry of the 80's.
The year was 1984. Teen film had hit the low levels of Joysticks, Private Resort, My Tutor, Hot Dog: The Movie and the Lemon Popsicle series. Amidst this mess, a young writer dragged himself out of the rut of the National Lampoon movies and spent a weekend writing a script he would later direct called Sixteen Candles. Seeking inspiration, he rifled through a stack of headshots and pulled out Molly Ringwald's. History was about to be made.
"The teen genre film was completely forgotten when we went into Sixteen Candles. Nobody really expected a lot. Until then the only teen movies were like Porky's and Meatballs and kids were played by adults and there was sexploitation, so John Hughes came along and tapped into something," says Ringwald. It was obviously something huge, as the films that hit home so strongly fifteen years ago are bringing her new fans even today. "It's really nice. It's a little strange too, but I think it's better that way than the other way. People have so much affection and nostalgia for those movies, it's amazing."
During casting for The Breakfast Club , every teen in town wanted in. John Cusack was furious when he lost the role of John Bender to Judd Nelson. The studio wasn't impressed either, and when the first cut of the film was delivered, the suits were furious. Fearing a monumental flop, they dumped the film to screens in the dead month of February.
But despite minimal publicity, the kids went nuts and soon Hughes was cranking out the hits - Pretty In Pink, Weird Science, Some Kind Of Wonderful, Ferris Bueller's Day Off - and the age of the Brat Pack was born.
But those days wouldn't last forever. The weight of expectation bears down heavily on a young celebrity trying to grow up on screen. Andrew McCarthy went one teen role too far and found himself unemployed. Mare Winningham likewise. Jennifer Grey got a nose-job that left her unrecognisable. Anthony Michael Hall said no to Ferris Bueller for fear of being typecast. Even Hughes himself eventually ran off to make children's films. And then there were the Corey's.
"I wasn't a teenager, I wasn't interested in those roles anymore." Seeing the writing on the wall, Ringwald gravitated to different roles, and though the performances were strong, the films were considered by many to be failures. "I think for one reason or another the films just didn't do as good business. There's always a slew of reasons why something might fail, what's opening against it or how much money went into the marketing. Fresh Horses was a really good script, but it wasn't as good a movie as it could have been. The Pick-Up Artist came out the same weekend as Fatal Attraction. That was number one, we were number two. It wasn't a huge failure. It just didn't reach the scale of The Breakfast Club, but they're pretty rare."
The Brat Pack self-destructed around her, but remarkably Ringwald stayed out of trouble. While Downey Jr and Ally Sheedy were hitting the coke, Rob Lowe was shooting dodgy home videos and Charlie Sheen was doing business with Heidi Fleiss, Ringwald was keeping to herself. "I just did it back ass-ward. I just did in my early twenties what most did when they were teenagers, being free and exploring and making mistakes, but I did it in France. I did it privately. I've never been into the party thing. I've never been that attracted to going out and being a power-couple. People in this business seem to like that, but it's always been more interesting to me to be friends with people because they're good friends."
But try as you might, you can't hide a pop culture icon from the glare of the tabloid press. "Early in my career I was asked to do an interview with Lillian Gish and I was really excited. But then everything got screwed up, I smashed my finger in a door, the taxi took me to the wrong end of town, it was the middle of winter, I couldn't get another taxi, and I was heart-broken because they said she didn't want to do it anymore. So I got flowers and wrote her a note and said how sorry I was, and they just wrote this sort of... like... horrible piece on how I stood up this sweet old woman who had a plate of cookies waiting for me. I mean they couldn't have written it to be worse. They got a much better article out of me that way than if I'd showed up, and it started this feeling that I was a bratty actress who didn't care and left people waiting. I've never been the kind of person who would do that."
It must be said that Ringwald seems completely content with the choices she's made. When asked about rumours that she turned down the lead roles in Ghost and Pretty Woman , she makes no apologies. "I never like to talk about movies that I may or may not have been offered, because I think that once an actress does a movie it's hers, and I think it's in bad taste to say 'well, they really wanted me.' I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me. I mean, I think they're both fine films. I've made what people would consider mistakes, but I totally know why I made those choices. You never know when you read a script how it's going to turn out because so much depends on the collaboration between people. If I'd been in some of the movies I turned down, maybe they wouldn't have been a success."
The question had to be asked. France? Why the hell France? "I think I've always been a bit of a Francophile. My mother was always into French cooking, I went to a French school, I was a fan of French film, jazz. I was working there, it was summer, I fell in love with Paris, I fell in love with my husband, it wasn't an escape, it was just the right time in my life to go." After appearing in a series of smaller films, TV movies and arthouse flicks (including one where she acted entirely in French), an offer came along totally out of left field - the Australian slasher film, Cut.
"It was really appealing for me because I'd never worked here and I love to travel, and I'd done a play called How I Learned To Drive for nine months that was very emotionally demanding, so when the offer came in to do something very different I was like 'Yes!'"
Ringwald's performance is as endearing as it is surprising. Her character is a total parody of the popular media assumption that she's a Hollywood brat, and she takes particular relish in parodying this misconception. "I like the character. I thought it was particularly funny. A lot of that was down to the director, Kimble Rendall, who is really eccentric and has a really dry sense of humour. It was just the idea of doing something and going wild and having fun and running around with a knife. I don't think that every movie should be The Piano. There's a place for movies where you just go and have fun and eat popcorn and get a little scared."
As someone who has been through the highs and lows of a cinema career, Ringwald has only one major beef with Hollywood. "The over-excess of musical scores. The kind of score that goes from beginning to end and telegraphs what you're supposed to feel. I've had many a monologue ruined because you take it to the edge of sentimentality and the music just ruins it. That drives me crazy. I would also say let's have more films that don't require a happy ending."
Hopefully The Molly Ringwald Story will have just that. ---Chris Parry
"Cut" Chat City Interview Transcript
2000
CC1-- OK, they're on the way, they are probably a bit nervous about meeting me!
CC1-- hi Molly! yay!
Molly_Ringwald-- Hi.
CC1-- are u ready for some questions?
Molly_Ringwald-- Sure! But I am doing my own typing, so excuse me if it's a little slow!
CC1-- Question from fabel : Molly, what has been your favourite movie to act in so far?
Molly_Ringwald-- I think probably Breakfast Club.
CC1-- why is that?
Molly_Ringwald-- I just think that it is a really well constructed movie, with good characters, and good actors. It was also a lot of fun to make.
CC1-- We've just had Townies in Aust, What was that like to work on ?
Molly_Ringwald-- I liked Townies. It was the first time I had done a sit-com in awhile, but I liked all of the actors.
CC1-- The star of Darma & Gregg, Jenna Elfman is popular here, was she good to work with?
Molly_Ringwald-- Jenna is a very talented comedienne. It was clear that she would do very well.
CC1-- Question from Angelic_Girl : how did u all get started in the big movies my friends with an agency called Joan Gibson heard of it?
Molly_Ringwald-- No, I haven't heard of that agency. I got started in theatre, basically from a big audition
Molly_Ringwald-- Then one thing led to another...
CC1-- Question from fabel : Stephen, have you ever been to Bonnie Doon?
Stephen_Curry-- Hi.
Stephen_Curry-- Yes I have and it was beautiful because the water levels were down.
Molly_Ringwald-- Hi Stephen! I loved you in The Castle...
Stephen_Curry-- Aren't you that girl from townies?
Molly_Ringwald-- Touche...
Kimble_Rendall-- g'day
Molly_Ringwald-- Hi Kimble.
Kimble_Rendall-- hi Molly
CC1-- Question from -curare- : Molly: Have you been to Australia before now? What do you think of it?
Molly_Ringwald-- I was in Australia when Sixteen Candles was released, and then again for Breakfast Club. I loved it.
Molly_Ringwald-- It was fun to come back and do a film here.
CC1-- Question from bug : Kimble - You must enjoy working with Kylie Minogue, it`s been two projects now?
Kimble_Rendall-- Yes it's been great working with Kylie. When we finished Hayride to Hell I asked her if she would be interested in Cut
Kimble_Rendall-- ...how could she refuse?
Molly_Ringwald-- How could anyone refuse you Kimble...
CC1-- Question from fabel : Molly: What`s your favourite colour? Pink?
Molly_Ringwald-- No..tomato red actually.
CC1-- Question from mesalovesacheesy : dont you think the serial killer sort of horror movie has been worn out way too much?
Molly_Ringwald-- It's the first Australian one!
Stephen_Curry-- I'll always love cereal
Kimble_Rendall-- There can never be enough serial killers in horror movies
CC1-- Question from GOREboy : What was it like working with Kevin Williamson (Teaching Mrs. Tingle) ?
Stephen_Curry-- I hear it was great!
Molly_Ringwald-- I liked working with Kevin. He was very supportive of me, and I was happy to do a cameo in T.M.T. Also, I love Helen Mirren.
CC1-- Question from schlocky : Is the movie a comedy?
Kimble_Rendall-- Stephen Curry's in it so it had to be funny..
Kimble_Rendall-- but it's also really REALLY scary
Kimble_Rendall-- go see it!
CC1-- Question from kkkrusty : Will you guys be at the premiere tomorrow eve?
Kimble_Rendall-- Yep
Molly_Ringwald-- We all willl be at the premiere I think.
Stephen_Curry-- Of course we will! Come and see us make complete fools out of ourselves...
Molly_Ringwald-- Speak for yourself Stephan
Molly_Ringwald-- oops. Stephen.
Stephen_Curry-- Thank you Molly..
CC1-- Question from GOREboy : Kimble have you seen my unofficial site??
Kimble_Rendall-- YES GOREboy. You are our hero! It's fantastic
CC1-- Question from ValvE_A : what were the other actors in "cut" like to work with?
Stephen_Curry-- They were all great! So much so, that Sarah Kants and I managed to break a King size bed!
CC1-- Question from -e- : Molly, I saw you at Tropfest, what was your favourite tropfest film?
Molly_Ringwald-- My fave was The Island I think. I also like Old Man, and Noise.
CC1-- Question from Jabbo : Hello Molly, I`m a jazz trumpeter and have played Jubilee twice - and played with Bob a couple of times at Santa Rosa. How are you enjoying your trip here?
Molly_Ringwald-- I am loving it. I am hoping to hear some good jazz here.
CC1-- Question from FilminkReader : Hey Molly, what was with that Tropfest guy calling you "Mozza" in front of 65,000 people? Did you give him what for afterwards?
Molly_Ringwald-- No. I think it is a term of endearment.
CC1-- Question from --Far-- : For Stephen: How many movie roles has he had now?
Stephen_Curry-- Three- The Castle, Cut and The Wogboy. Although I am hoping to get the role of "Man on beach eating
Stephen_Curry-- Ice-cream" in the upcoming "Where are my pants?"
CC1-- Question from GOREboy : Kimble: Will your next film be a sequel to CUT or something else??
Kimble_Rendall-- A company called Trimark in the U.S. are going to release CUT and they want us to make a sequel...
Kimble_Rendall-- We have started work on it
CC1-- Question from Mr_style : who are you favourite bands
Molly_Ringwald-- I love jazz, but the soundtrack to "Cut" is really great. Lots of great Aussie bands that are not really known yet in the U.S.
Stephen_Curry-- You am I, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits and of course- 'The Tin Lids'
Molly_Ringwald-- Groove Terminator...Something for Kate...
Molly_Ringwald-- Split Enz
Kimble_Rendall-- Apollo 440 and The Feelers
Molly_Ringwald-- I love Beck and Macy Gray...
Kimble_Rendall-- and Moby
CC1-- Question from FilminkReader : Kimble, why`d you leave the Hoodoo Gurus?
Kimble_Rendall-- When we were driving the Tarago van to Melbourne, James Baker was driving...
Kimble_Rendall-- I asked James whether he could see the flock of sheep crossing the road, he said...
Kimble_Rendall-- "what sheep?"
Kimble_Rendall-- plus the night we are ended up in bed together snoring like the three stooges
CC1-- Question from ValvE_A : what kind of obstacles did you encounter during the filming of the movie?
Stephen_Curry-- When Kimble started yakking about the time the 'Hoodoo Guru's were driving the Tarago to Melbourne...
Molly_Ringwald-- Ha Ha
Stephen_Curry-- Thank-you. Is anyone here from Adelaide tonight?
CC1-- Question from flameprincess : molly, how did you like working with Kylie Minogue?
Molly_Ringwald-- Kylie was great. Very professional, but she made me feel like the jolly green giant...
Molly_Ringwald-- OK, all you austalians didn't get that reference, I'm sure
Molly_Ringwald-- It was a comercial in the U.S for canned peas that features a big green giant.
CC1-- huh?
Molly_Ringwald-- Ok...I was just referring to how petite she is. Get it...
Stephen_Curry-- Oh! I get it now...
Molly_Ringwald-- Whew..thanks Stphen.
CC1-- Question from tennis_4eva : for all the famous people do u get sick of peole asking if u enjoyed acting in a particular movie or with a particular actor etc?
Molly_Ringwald-- I just get a little bored with myself. I start spacing out, thinking of something else.
Stephen_Curry-- If one more person Asks me what it was like to work with Molly...
CC1-- Question from kkkrusty : Which babe was the best kisser in movies?
Stephen_Curry-- Kimble Rendall
Stephen_Curry-- Apart from when he touched me up
Molly_Ringwald-- Easy guys...
Stephen_Curry-- He sure is
Molly_Ringwald-- ha ha ha
CC1-- these guys are a bit tired, now - last questions!
Molly_Ringwald-- I hope you all are amused out there. We sure are..
CC1-- Question from noodlesn1 : stephen what is your over all best movie that you love to watch
Stephen_Curry-- It would have to be 'Spinal Tap' by Rob Reiner. That or "Houseboat Horror" by "Pricebuster" Ollie Martin
CC1-- Question from Rewop_7 : Molly and Stephen...when did you get to see the finished product.... and what was your first impression of it?
Molly_Ringwald-- I saw Cut at a screening in NY, with a bunch of my friends. I love it. It is a lot of fun.
Stephen_Curry-- About a week ago. I was pleasantly surprised by its' wit and pace
Molly_Ringwald-- Except for Stephen Curry
Molly_Ringwald-- But, you know, everything can't be perfect...
Stephen_Curry-- I also love 'Hale and Pace'
CC1-- Question from -e- : Who do you think will win the Oscars?
Molly_Ringwald-- Well, is Cut in competition this year?
Kimble_Rendall-- Cut
Stephen_Curry-- I'm putting my money on Dorothy the Dinosaur from "The Wiggles"
Molly_Ringwald-- Best Aussie slasher...
CC1-- well, I guess it'a time to go...
CC1-- thanks so much for joining us today, guys, it was fun!
Molly_Ringwald-- Thanks. It's been fun. Go see Cut everyone! march 2nd in Australia. September 2000 in the U.S.
Stephen_Curry-- See you later Cyber-folk. And remember: If the world were an orange, it would be far too small
Kimble_Rendall-- goodbye and see you all at the premiere!
Molly_Ringwald-- Cut!
French Connection (Molly's Wedding) - In Style May 2000
By Samantha Dunn
Molly Ringwald and Valery Lameignere said Oui, Oui in the Bordeaux countryside
In the weeks before a wedding, when most brides are frantically calling their co-ordinators, Molly Ringwald, 32, relaxed in the seaside Bordeaux village of Arcachon, gardening and hanging paper lanterns around the cabin her fiance's grandfather built long ago. For his part, the groom, writer Valery Lameignere, 34, erected a gate and made repairs to ready the site for the upcoming wedding reception, "We wanted to get married in a place where we both felt really comfortable, " explains Ringwald, who has spent the past eight years living in both America and France. "It was an opportunity for family and friends to meet."
The transportation: On July 28, during Ringwald's 20-minute cruise across the bay from her hotel, boaters waved at the passing bride and cried, "Vive la mariee! " Thirty close friends and family and, of course, her groom, welcomed Ringwald at the dock and walked her to the chapel where she and Lameignere would complete the nuptials-having already been married, per French law, by the mayor in a civil ceremony the day before. After the service the group boated to the lovingly prepared cabin to celebrate.
They wore: Lameignere sported a linen suit by Savile Row tailor Henry Poole & Co., and Ringwald wore a dress inspired by her dream gown, worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1957 movie Funny Face. Featuring a silk satin bodice beaded with Austrian crystals and a flowing silk tulle skirt, it was created by New York designer Todd Thomas. He embroidered "And they lived happily ever after" in blue on the inside of the bodice.
The rings: They exchanged simple bands, gold for him and platinum for her (to go with her engagement ring, a diamond eternity band that belonged to his grandmother).
Magic moments: During the ceremony, guests read from E.E. Cummings, the letters of Van Gogh, and The Little Prince; Molly's father, Bob, a jazz pianist, played "Bethena," a Scott Joplin rag that was a childhood favorite of Molly's.
The cake: Molly's mother, Adele, struggling against the summer heat, baked and decorated a wedding cake of tiered chocolate-fudge and vanilla cupcakes. " All the buttercream flowers kept melting before she could get them into the refrigerator!" said Molly. "But they tasted really good."
The dance: The couple didn't have a first dance, because they were needed as interpreters for the French and American guests. "It was very funny," Ringwald says, "but it was a little bit exhausting since there was a lot of translating going on." Molly's father, at least, found his own lingua franca playing jazz with the local bass player and drummer hired for the occasion.
The best wedding gift: Nothing compared with the generosity of local villagers, who, while they could see Ringwald was stunning in white, didn't know she had also been Pretty in Pink. "People didn't know me and didn't know I was an actress; we kept the whole thing pretty secret," she says. "What was so amazing to me was how generous everyone was. My husband wanted to rent a boat, and someone we didn't even know just gave us one for the day. The tailor put everything else aside to make last-minute alterations to my dress; when I went to pay she said, 'No, it's a gift.' And another woman made my slip out of her own cloth and also said it was a gift."
How Could We Forget? The Hartford Courant 1999
With ‘Don't You Forget About Me’ as its theme song, ‘The Breakfast Club’ forever changed the way youth culture was depicted on the big screen
By David Daley
Their theme song was Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me," but the students in "The Breakfast Club" made such a lasting impression on pop culture that forgetting them has proved impossible.
It was 15 years ago when they served Saturday detention, sacrificing their weekend stuck in the Shermer High library, slowly opening up to each other and realizing that despite different interests and abilities, they shared the same pressures.
They had parents who demanded too much, or parents who didn't expect anything. All five - played by Emiho Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy - struggled with awkwardness, alienation and angst. And in treating their teen trauma with tenderness, wit and great in-sight, writer/director John Hughes didn't just make them stars, he inspired the leading lights of the current teen TV/film craze.
Courtney Love, talking to Spin magazine, once described "The Breakfast Club" as "the defining moment of the 'alternative' generation."
And now; as the '80s teens who saw their high school angst reflected in Hughes' films start making movies of their own, his influence is unmistakable.
"You can see it in all the moments when they start to reveal their angst and the facades break down, and they start to blame their parents for their trauma and everything that's wrong now;" said Jonathan Bernstein, who wrote "Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Teenage Movies" (St. Martin's Griffin, 1997).
Bernstein calls Hughes the Phil Spector of teen films, for bringing depth to what had been a bubble gum genre. He considers "The Breakfast Club," released in February 1985, to be perhaps the finest teen film ever.
"'The Breakfast Club' took teen angst seriously, and opened the door for everything that's followed, like Dawson's Creek," Bernstein said.
That was apparent in an episode last season that paid tribute to "The Breakfast Club" by having the "Dawson's" gang serve Saturday detention. Kevin Williamson, the current teen-angst king who created "Dawson's Creek" and wrote "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" has said he wants to be the Hughes of the '90s.
THE STUDIO HATED IT.
Kevin Smith, who wrote and directed "Chasing Amy" and "Clerks," has thanked Hughes in his closing credits for "giving me something to do on Saturday nights."
And the triple-named teen vixens -Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt - have pledged their allegiance to "The Breakfast Club" time and again.
Sheedy, who played Allison Reynolds, saw "The Breakfast club's" influence even earlier, in Winona Ryder's late '80s films.
"Allison's whole look came out of students I used to see at Columbia when my mom took me to women's liberation meetings. You know, the pale, intellectual college girls who wore berets, dressed in black, read a lot of Sylvia Plath, didn't talk a lot, and hung out listening to poetry in Greenwich village coffee houses. I hid behind this black wall of hair and clothes and shapeless androgyny. A couple years after that, I saw Winona Ryder in 'Beetlejuice.' I thought, 'Wait a minute! That's Allison!"'
Now those characters are everywhere, with movies like "Can't Hardly Wait," "She's All That," "Rushmore," "Cruel Intentions" and "Jawbreaker" - films that take high school insecurities, prom politics, graduation anxieties and popularity seriously
Hughes, at home in Chicago, remembers no one taking "The Breakfast Club" seriously when he first pitched it to Hollywood.
"The studio hated it. They walked out of the room furious," Hughes re-called. "They said it wasn't funny, that it didn't have any story. They had no hope for it at all, which is why they dumped it by putting it out in February."
Thinking as a teen, as he would throughout the 8Os with "Sixteen Candles," "Ferris Bueller's Day off" and "Pretty in Pink," Hughes was thrilled.
“When you're in high school, there's nothing worse than the middle of February. Your winter jacket is dirty. There's not a holiday in sight. 'Wow, a movie that's just for me. I'm there."'
And 15 years later, even if insults like neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie" seem more totally '80s than A Flock of Seagulls, watching "The Breakfast Club" remains a rite of passage.
"I dealt primarily with the mutable things in human character, like belonging and loneliness," Hughes said.
"Those are all things that are never going to change. Those core high school feelings don't change. That's why something still works about those relationships, between Molly and Judd's characters, and Ally and Emillo's. That's the nature of young possessive love."
In a class of its own?
Other than "Rushmore," Hughes hasn't seen any of the '90s teen-oriented films. But the people behind the new movies have seen his.
"I remember seeing 'Breakfast Club' opening night at the Galleria. How perfect is that?" said Darren Stein, 27, who wrote and directed. "Jawbreaker," a 90’s update of the '80s teen flick "Heathers."
"The theater was packed, and the movie was just genius. Right from the beginning, just the way the glass shattered and the Simple Minds song started, you knew it was going to be some thing different, Stein said.
"And it was. All this started with ‘The Breakfast Club’, everything from all these teen movies today, to the cliques on 'Melrose Place' and 'Beverly Hills 90210! It's such a timeless, special movie."
Indeed, the film proved so formative to so many that it seemed to freeze the five stars as teen-agers.
Ringwald, ingrained as the teen princess on the cover of Time, never found the right role to make her an adult star. Hall, so good as the nerd couldn't transcend that image in unconvincing turns as a fugitive (Out of Bounds") or the jock ("Johnny Be Good", Hall battled alcohol; Sheedy struggled with bulimia and an addiction to sleeping pills.
Right now, however, all five are doing some of their most acclaimed work.
Sheedy won the Independent Spirit Award for best actress for her harrowing portrayal of drug-addicted photographer Lucy Berliner in “High Art." She'll be seen next in director Allison Anders' much-anticipated "Sugar Town."
Ringwald is winning raves on stage in Los Angeles for her role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "How I Learned to Drive," and is poised for a film comeback, cleverly cast by "Dawson's Creek" creator Williamson with the current teen queen he helped crown, Katie Holmes, in the upcoming "Killing Mrs. Tingle."
Judd Nelson is a regular with Brooke Shields on NBC's "Suddenly Susan."
Estevez stars in two intriguing independent movies, including "Sand," with Denis Leary, Jon Lovitz and Julie Delpy. Hall, the nerd once more, plays Bill Gates in TNT's upcoming "Pirates of Silicon valley."
One thing they won't be doing next is returning to Shermer High for a class reunion. Despite constant Internet rumors, Hughes said he has no plans to film a "Breakfast Club" sequel, though he has considered writing a follow-up and posting it on the Web.
"I know everybody would love to watch it. But I'm too fond of those characters," Hughes said. "I thought about it. I could do it in prose. I know what will happen to them. I know them. But to do it with real actors - with Molly and Judd and Ally - they'd never come back together again. There's no excuse that could ever put them in the same room ever again. There isn't anything in their lives after high school relevant to that day."
"It's like Ferris Bueller. You don't want to see him today You'd hate him. He'd either be a bum or a politician,” said Hughes.
Pretty In Paris
By Bruce Feirstein
Those pouting lips, those flaming curls. those heartbreaking roles in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink made Molly Ringwald the all American teen ingenue of the 80's. Now 26 and living in Frace, she updates Bruce Feirstein on life after High School.
The first time I met Molly Ringwald, she was standing in the parking lot of Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. It was one of those sweltering, stultifying, the-air-is-not-moving Los Angeles summer nights. The year was 1982.
Her bee-stung lips were not yet famous; the signature bobble of red hair was still unknown; the rumors of her friendships with Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz and the gentleman on the cover of this magazine could not have been imagined. The John Hughes high-school angst trilogy (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles. Pretty in Pink), which would iconize her as the quintessential 80s ingenue, and eventually land her on the cover of Time, was unshot, unwritten, not even log lines on a studio development slate.
On that particular evening, Mann's parking lot was covered by a white catering tent. The occasion was not just the premiere of Paul Mazursky's Tempest but, more to the point, the big-screen debut of Molly Ringwald. She was 14 years old.
"Oh my God," Ringwald, 26 now, shrieks into the phone from Paris, the city that she currently calls home. "I was so terrified that night. So scared. . . " She pauses, and wistfully summons up an image: "I was wearing this. . . bright red dress." The words hang for a moment; she laughs. "That was sooo long ago."
Ostensibly, Ringwald is on the phone to promote her latest film, Seven Sundays, the first American movie by Cousin, Cousine's director, Jean-Charles Tacchella, in which she appears with Rod Steiger , Susan Blakely, and French star Thierry Lhermitte. But first there's the issue of geography to clear up. "I came here two years ago to do a French TV movie," Ringwald explains in a voice that sounds exactly as it did in the old days, but also somehow older. Smokier. More sophisticated. "I just fell in love with the city. I'd already sold my house on Mulholland Drive. So it was like the gods were saying,
'Move there!"'
What about the language problem?"It was hard at first. Sometimes it's still hard. But the thing is, it was a great change for me. People here don't really know my work. They may know the Tempest or that I played Cordelia in Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear. But the John Hughes films didn't have as big an impact here. I can walk down the street and be myself."Curiously, when one considers the press treatment Molly has received over the past few years, the word that comes to mind is "cruelty." For example: an L.A. Times story snickered, "Ringwald plays the title role, but she is not the star," after her appearance in Alan Alda's Betsy's Wedding. And following a string of noble enough efforts that became box-office disappointments~Fresh Horses, The Pick-up Artist-Premiere magazine condescended to label Ringwald "a case study in career decline." Reading these things, you can't help but wonder: What were they thinking? She was 20 or 22 years old! Given the usual arc of celebrity-drugs, alcohol, Betty Ford, early marriages, the Tabloid Life-shouldn't they have given the girl a break?
"I started acting at nine, to make money for college," Ringwald explains. "I was a middle-class kid. But when you suddenly make a lot of money, and suddenly become a star, everything changes. . . . I feel like I missed a whole part of my life," she says with an attitude that somehow manages to combine determination and vulnerability. "That's why I'm in Paris. I just wanted to be normal."
Not a bad goal. And on the basis of the phone call, I'd guess she is succeeding. Especially when you consider that, in spite of everything, she has managed to build a more than respectable body of work, including the much-lauded Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story. the wildly popular ABC presentation of Stephen King's The Stand, and a new short film, Some Folk's Call It a Sling Blade, which will show at the Chicago International Film Festival this fall.
"Please don't tell people that I've arrived or that I'm suddenly all grown-up and mature," she teases. "I'm more like a work in progress."
All that explained, a few final bits of business remain. Re: What happened to the famous red hair?"It's part of the normal thing," she chuckles. "Brownish red was my natural color. I dyed it for the movies." And the red dress she wore to the Tempest premiere? She laughs. "Calvin Klein just gave me this new red dress that I absolutely love," she says. "I like the stuff Dolce & Gabbana is doing; I adore Ann Demeule-meester's shoes." She pauses. "No. That's not true. I don't even own any of her shoes. I just like saying her name." She proceeds to repeat it three times, in three different European accents: " Demeulemeester . De-meulemeester. Demeulemeester. "
It's time to hang up. Molly is due to meet her current beau, French novelist Valery Lameignere, for dinner ."Some days I'm ecstatic. Others I'm blue. I'd like to do another play with Godard; I'd love to do a movie with the guy who directed Thirty Two Short Films Ahout Glenn Gould. On the other hand, if you talk to me next week, I may be moving to Spain."
Hey, Molly, do us all a favor; leave a forwarding address and keep sending back those pictures.
Molly Ringwald - People Magazine 1999
By Samantha MIller and Dan Jewel
After fleeing the country, she's back - and busy again
With her flaming carrot top and a 1986 TIME cover pro-claiming her the "model modern teen," Molly Ringwald stood out from the Pack. But adult fame proved elusive, and the quirky star of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink moved to France in 1991. Her 1996 return in the sitcom Townies didn't last a season.
"Molly was the quintessential teen actress," says writer David Blum, "and when people remember you as this perfect teenager, any sign of aging is hard to take.
Still, Sacramento-born Ringwald, 31, looks back on the Brat Pack era "very fondly," she told ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY in 1996. Five years younger than most of the other Packers, she only dabbled in their social scene, though she did step out with Anthony Michael Hall. ("He was the only person I knew who was my age," she told Movieline in 1995.) Later she dated rock scion Dweezil Zappa and Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.
But after flops such as 1990's Betsy's Wedding and squabbles with her mentor, director John Hughes, Ringwald headed to Paris. "I didn't know who I was yet," she told USA Weekend in 1996. "I needed to figure it out." Five years later, she returned with several French film credits and a Parisian steady, writer Valery Lameignere. They got engaged a year ago but have yet to set a wedding date or establish a home base. Ringwald now bounces between L.A., New York City and her amour's Paris pad.
Since Townies, Ringwald has wrapped five movies (including this summer's Killing Mrs. Tingle) and starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive. After her debut, a beaming, relieved Ringwald "looked as if she'd just swum the English Channel," says Drive coproducer Douglas Aibel. "She's in top form as an actress," he says. " And she's looking for good work to do."
Miss America - Young Americans Magazine
The princess of the pack is back and she's acting her little pink socks off Molly Ringwald: This is your life.
In the early eighties the brat pack exploded onto the American film scene. It was a group dominated by males but one young girl muscled in, stole the limelight and became not only the queen but the leader of the pack.
Now Molly Ringwald has graduated from the pack and she's making her first movie outside the Hollywood circuit. With "Loser Takes All" , Miss Ringwald takes her place alongside co stars John Lindsay and Margi Clarke and fits neatly into the realm of great actors. Not that she hasnt alway's been a touch more class than your average bratter.
Her film career began at 13 with a performance in Paul Mazursky's "Tempest" which won her a Golden Globe nomination. Already the young Molly Ringwald was showing a sensitivity and maturity beyond her years. Her next two roles are ones best forgotton, "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone", a 3-D action movie co-starring the dreadful Peter Strauss being particulary embarassing.
Enter brat pack guru John Hughes with his script for "Sixteen Candles". Hughes wrote the screenplay about a girl whose parents completly forget her sixteenth birthday over a 4th of July weekend. Hughes stated that he alway's had Molly in mind for the part of Samantha Baker. He even had a photo of her taped to his word processor while he wrote the script.
After a highly praised performance in the made for tv movie "Surviving" where she played a suicidally depressed teenager, she returned to the Hughes fold for "The Breakfast club". Belived by many to be THE classic brat movie, Molly was perfect as the spoilt High school princess, Claire Standish, who learns a lot about herself while stuck in detention with a motley crue of schoolmates.
The huge success of "The Breakfast Club" was immediatly eclipsed, however by that of her next film, the touching love story with a twist - "Pretty In Pink". The title described Molly's character Andie perfectly. She's a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, a zoid who makes her own clothes and works part time in a record store to make ends meet. Her rivals in love are the smooth rich kid Blane and the loveable wacko Ducky.
Molly felt very close to the character Andie because it mirrored to some extent her own outsider childhood. "Kids can be incredibly cruel. You're dead if you dont belong to a certain group, and I never did because I was an actress", she remembers. "That must have been the worst year of my life, when I was in sixth grade. I was doing a television series and all the kids knew me from the series. But they hated me because I was famous. It made me stronger. But it also made me bitter.
By the time of 'Pretty In Pink' Molly had no worries about being popular. Wannabee fans, dubbed Ringlets, crowded US cinemas to see their heroine.
Her next movie project was "The Pick Up Artist" with Robert Downey Jr. It marked a new maturity in the roles Molly undertook, she was now officially a woman - on screen. "Fresh Horses" with Andrew McCarthy and "Maybe Baby" with Randall Batinkoff have seen her explore new areas as an actress.
Her next movie "Loser Takes All", taken from a Graham Greene novella and the tale of a small time gambler who hits it big in Monte Carlo, is a major departure. No Hollywood, no bratpack co stars, no John Hughes. She's happy about the growth in her career and quietly confident about her future.
"I put all my energy into one thing at a time" she states. "I'm very organised about my career".
From her past successes, it doesnt look like she has any cause for concern.
Molly Moves In - Cosmopolitan March 1997
By Samantha Kluge
Molly Ringwald's home away from Hollywood is proof that you can live large even if your pads puny.
It may have taken actress Molly Ringwald four years of living in Paris to decide it was time to move back to America, but it only took her four days to find a New York apartment with Parisian charm.
The star of two new films out this spring, Office Killer, and Dogwater, and former teen-movie princess of such blockbuster hits as
Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles wasted no time when she returned to American soil one year ago after her prolonged sabbatical in France. "I had 15 realtors working for me at once and saw as many apartments as I could cram into one day," recalls the 29-year -old red-head, eyeing her one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan's West Village neighbourhood of mostly 19th-century brownstones.
"House-hunting in New York City is all about compromise," admits Molly. "You're lucky if you find a place that offers a third of what you put on your wish list!" So when Molly walked into the second-floor apartment of an 1800s carriage house' and saw that it possessed two items at the top of her list-prewar details and a terrace-she took it on the spot and discarded her notions of finding a fire place. And what she gave up in space, she made up for with typical French features: high ceilings, decorative moldings, and hardwood floors.
"The apartment was in great shape," remembers Molly. "All I had to do was paint and decorate." Not wanting to part with all the pieces that she'd spent years collecting from French flea markets and antique stores, Molly shipped over practically every stick of furniture and numerous paintings and sentimental objects, including a lighted 1950s globe stand and a Sculpture of a bullfighter.
For weeks, boxes and bubble wrap filled her life. "I was forced to face' how much stuff I'd actually accumulated during the past four years," she confesses, "and it wasn't a pretty sight." Many of her favorite pieces wound up in storage.
"One day, I'll find a home for them," Molly assures, "but for now, I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible."
For now, though, everything is in place (except Molly, who is forced to divide her time between Manhattan and Los Angeles). In the full, festive kitchen, apple red walls complement black-and-white checked floors, and no-frills shelves boast a collection of new, miniature Hermes' circus china.
Around the corner, in the living room, a '70s-style moss green leather sofa and matching chair rest on hardwood floors, and an entire wall is fitted with weathered-wood bookshelves displaying first edition books. "My friends joke that there isn't a single subject matter that I don't have a book on: says Molly.
Nearly all the walls are painted a cheerful shade of yellow-a color that took more than one' try to achieve. "The first time, I made the mistake of asking for yellow with a touch of white," laughs Molly, "and I wound up with an apartment that looked like one big legal pad!"
The bathroom, however is the only place you won't find color: Walls are painted eggshell white; a transparent plastic serves as a shower curtain; simple white, tiles line the floor, a distressed white country cabinet houses old perfume bottles and keepsakes.
Her favorite relaxation room - the terrace - is just off the bedroom and overlooks neighbouring gardens. Here, potted topiaries line wrought iron shelves, and a small metal table and two mismatched chairs huddle in the corner beneath the open sky. "Gloria and Louise love it out here, " she says referring to the two adored cats she brought with her from Paris. "It's not Saint Tropez, but they can still sunbathe all day.
Now if Molly could just stay put for a while, she and her feline friends might have a chance to really enjoy the place.
Molly Blooms - Allure Magazine 1995
In a fit of teen angst, Molly Ringwald broke open her piggy bank and headed for the beauty shop in search of a more colorful identity - By James Servin
Previewing a New Look:
In my new film Malicious, I play a wealthy femme fatale who seduces a college student. In the beginning, she's so made-up she looks like a mannequin. As the movie goes along and she starts falling apart, the makeup becomes more severe. Because so many films I've done have accentuated my mouth, I wanted to try something different and accentuate my eyes. I wear lots of charcoal and black eyeliner. False eyelashes on the ends bring out that cat-eye thing.
Cheap Frills:
As a little girl, I did all the daredevilly things boys did, but in a dress. I wore frilly pink dresses. unfortunately, I was the youngest kid, and we were always economizing, so I got my sister's hand-me-down jeans.
Sister Act:
My sister was happening. She had blue eyes, blond hair, the full-on Farrah Faweett wings. WhenI was 9 or 10 and she was about 13, I gave her hair spray for her birthday.
Better Red:
I knew I could never look like my sister, so I adopted another look. When I was 14, I asked my friend Florent, who was a hairdresser, "Can you make my hair bright red'? I'll pay you when I get my allowance." He spent the whole day on it, and I went home with carrot red hair. My mom screamed, "Oh, my God, it looks horrible! You shouldn't be a red-head!" She said I could keep it for a month.
Learner's Permit:
When you are young, you wear make up to look older. The older you get, you realize that you look a lot younger and better without it. Like most 15- or 16-year-olds, my character in Sixteen Candles packed it on. I was also trying to cover up my freckles. So in every movie I did, until recently actually, I was always wearing a lot of base so people wouldn't see that I had freckles. The rule was, the more base the better.
Think Pink:
John Hughes wrote the Pretty in Pink script when we were finishing Sixteen Candles. He knew I loved pink, so he wrote it with that in mind. For years after the movie came out, I couldn't wear pink. Everywhere I went it was "Oh, you are pretty in pink, aren't you?" Or, if I wore another color: "You're pretty in red." "You're pretty in black too."
I See France:
I once wrote an entry in my journal describing my imaginary dream night in Paris: I would be at a cafe, sitting at an outdoor table, wearing lace-up sandals. When I went to Paris to make a film, I put my house on the market. I took seven suitcases with me. Two years after I wrote that journal entry, I was sitting at a cafe, in a scene exactly as I'd imagined it, right down to the sandals.
Coming Clean:
If makeup looks too polished, it doesn't look human. I like people to be able to see my skin. I wear a very sheer base by Origins called Some Coverage, Lancome waterproof mascara, and Poppy sheer lipstick.
Frozen in Time:
I look at myself on the cover of Time (May 1986) and I would like to change everything. My hair is overprocessed, I am wearing way too much makeup, and my skin is too puffy. It's like that yearbook picture that you just want to never, ever have anyone see.
The Mouth That Roared:
In all the pictures that were taken of me when I was young, I'm biting my lip, trying to make my mouth look smaller. Then Kelly LeBrock became a big model. She had a really big mouth, and I thought, Maybe it's not so bad.
Rethinking Pink:
The color pink is back in my life again. Last night I wore a lipstick that was almost rosy.
Taking a Stand:
I came back from Paris to do Stephen King's The Stand, and that's when I let my hair go back to brown. When I saw the film, I thought brunet was OK, but it's not my best look. So I went back to red. Everyone immediately said, "I liked you better as a redhead."
Working Girl
As a blue -collar waitress on "Townies", ex brat packer Molly ringwald attempts to reinvent herself as a tv star
by David Browne
The scene is both eerily familiar and strikingly different. On a Hollywood soundstage made to resemble a girl's suburban bedroom, the star is sitting straight-backed on a bed. Her hair is once again an orange-peel shade of red. As cameramen set up shots, the actress and her costar run through their segment, which centers on an eternal debate: Is that cute guy hovering around you your friend--or your boyfriend?
"He is kinda sexy, even in those stupid clothes his mom buys him," recites the actress, pausing for a laugh that, with any luck, an audience will supply later.
The scene could have been lifted from Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, or Pretty in Pink, the mid-'80s, John Hughes-directed movies that transformed Molly Ringwald into both a movie star and a role model for high school girls everywhere. It didn't matter that she dyed her hair (from its natural dark brown) and seemed about as average as Claire Danes later would on My So-Called Life. With their potent combination of parent bashing and MTV-geared soundtracks, the movies plastered a new coat of paint on timeless adolescent angst.
The difference on this summer afternoon is that it is 1996, and the setting is not a feature film but a sitcom--Townies, an ABC series in which Ringwald stars as Carrie, a New England diner waitress. After a few more run-throughs Ringwald, who at 5'8 1/2" seems taller than she appears on screen, retreats to her sparsely decorated dressing room. She lights up a cigarette and puts her feet up. Her face is narrower than it was, but there remains the air of the cultured high schooler who always made the honor roll and had a really sharp car.
A sitcom job isn't the only aspect of Ringwald's world that has changed. She recently returned to Los Angeles after a four-year hiatus in Paris, and she talks about her first encounter with her new neighbor Shannen Doherty. "[My roommates and I] said, 'Hi, we're your neighbors!'" Ringwald recalls. "She said to me: 'I know who you are. You don't live here--you rent!'" Ringwald's eyes spring open, as if still startled by the incident. Welcome--or welcome back--to L.A.
The house that Ringwald has just moved into is an airy, Spanish-style Hollywood Hills home. Empty boxes litter the driveway; a massive stereo has yet to be hooked up. Curling up on a couch near her pool, Ringwald talks about the 26-year-old she plays. "There are lots of people in my generation--those characters I played in Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles--that have grown up and gotten to that point of 'What do I do with my life?'"
Ringwald herself, who is 28, could qualify as one of them. After her initial fame, her career seemed to end as soon as the '80s did. Seeking to escape stereotyping, she played a white-trash nymphet (1988's Fresh Horses) and appeared in Jean-Luc Godard's avant-garde King Lear, among other duds. Whether confused or bored, her audience drifted away, and her box office plunged--especially once she stopped working with Hughes: 1985's The Breakfast Club grossed $46 million, but five years later, Strike It Rich took in approximately one percent of that--$553,000. A production deal with Columbia amounted to zip.
"I wanted to work, and I felt rejected," she says. "On the other hand, people didn't know where to place me. I wasn't a teenager anymore, but I didn't look quite like an adult yet. With all those things, it was good I went away for a while."
Where she went was Paris, in 1991, to work on one of the many independent, low-budget films she has made and that few have seen. Always intrigued by French culture, and disliking Hollywood, she decided to stay. She says her agent laughed when she told him; her mother, Adele, cried. "We were happy for her," says her father, jazz pianist Bob Ringwald, of her move. "And she was away from the pressures of the business."
Letting her hair grow out and return to its natural shade, Ringwald devised a plan: She would return to the States for a quick job, then scoot back with the cash to Paris and her beau, fledgling novelist Valery Lamiegnere. "I thought, 'I'll just go back to America and it'll be like the cash register.'" The scheme worked financially, but not professionally. The films made during those years are, says Ringwald, "nothing I am incredibly proud of." In 1995's Malicious, a college-set Fatal Attraction with Ringwald as the Glenn Close-style obsessive, she smoked constantly and wielded a knife. In this year's Baja, a lovers-on-the-lam flick, she smoked constantly and wielded a gun. Malicious, she says, is "the one that made me wake up and say, 'I can't do this.'" This January, she came home.
Steven Levy, Ringwald's new agent, watches his client film a scene from the empty seats on the Townies soundstage. Young and eager, Levy--along with Jason Weinberg, Ringwald's manager--is on "a mission to turn this girl's career around!"
"In the beginning, people said, 'Old news,'" recalls Levy. "They felt her time had come and gone." His predecessors, particularly the William Morris Agency, had attempted to steer Ringwald into series TV but were rebuffed; Ringwald claims the implication was that her movie career was dead.
By the time Ringwald returned to the U.S. this year, that game plan had changed. Her first job was a guest role in the American Movie Classics cable series Remember WENN, for which she was paid scale ($1,800). "When I told everyone that Molly would be on the show, they said: 'What happened to her? Is she still alive?'" recalls producer Howard Meltzer.
Since then, the hustling has paid off, at least in terms of exposure. Ringwald landed a role in Office Killer, a black-comedy horror film due next year; a cameo in David Schwimmer's directorial debut, Dogwater; and Townies. "I think this series will do great things for her," Levy says, then stops to knock wood on the arm of his chair.
"We heard she had reached a point where she would do the right TV project," says Harvey Myman, one of the executive producers of Townies. Asked about Ringwald's career troubles, the amiable Myman questions whether there was a decline and grabs a list of Ringwald's credits.
"Betsy's Wedding," he begins reading. "The Breakfast Club. Face the Music--I have no idea what that was. For Keeps--I saw that. Wasn't bad. Fresh Horses--I don't think I saw that. Malicious--she was okay. I didn't like the movie." He pauses. "If you look at anybody with that long a list, there's going to be [some] crummy movies."
Townies is intended to be a Roseanne for blue-collar Gen-Xers. If it is hard to imagine Ringwald as a working girl slinging chowder, you're not alone. "There never is and never will be anything schlumpy about her," admits Myman. Says Ringwald, "They were sort of worried, because of the way I dress and speak. And I kept saying 'Well, I'm an actor, and an actor acts!'" Also, Ringwald, never known for a comedic flair, refused to do a test reading ("I'm bad at auditions"). Says Myman, "We basically rolled the dice."
Arriving at the Townies set, Myman watches over one last run-through before tonight's filming. Between scenes, Ringwald sips from a Starbucks cup and casts an impatient eye around the set, as if she's waiting for a late bus; at times, she seems like a grown-up version of The Breakfast Club's aloof Claire Standish. "She's a trouper--a real professional," says Myman admiringly. He's right; during two days of rehearsals, Ringwald never flubs a line. Yet watching her adjust to sitcom timing is disconcerting, like watching John McEnroe return from retirement to play Ping-Pong.
Back at her house, Ringwald grabs a cigarette and a bottle of spring water. Like everyone around her, she is anxious to see whether the public embraces a downsized version of her old persona or greets her as rudely as Shannen Doherty did. A phrase she uses several times is "leap of faith": how her producers took one by hiring her, how she took one to do a sitcom, how she took another to sign with a manager, even though "I can't say that anyone has my best interest at heart except me and my family."
She says she looks back on her Brat Pack era "very fondly--although for a while I felt it was all I was known for." She sees her fellow Packers "rarely" and mainly on screen, as when Emilio Estevez had a part in Mission: Impossible. "I'm always sort of happy when one of my own"--she pauses and laughs--"no, when one of them breaks out and does something good." Asked if she tried drugs--which ensnared some of her Hollywood peers--she will say only, "Like anyone else, yeah."
"I'll never get immersed in this business like I was at one point," she says. "You have to have something else." She glances around at her new rental, which she preferred to moving back into her old house. "I didn't want to feel like I hadn't gone anywhere. Even though it's not decorated and it's a mess, it feels like I'm someplace else."
Molly Ringwald's Making Wishes
By Shelly Lyons
"Be careful what you wish for — it may come true" is the old saying put to use, or rather to celluloid, in the Lifetime original "Twice Upon A Time," in which a woman wishes for another life.
The Thanksgiving morality tale of sorts stars Molly Ringwald, who entered the world of TV as the redheaded scamp on the "Diff'rent Strokes'" spin-off "Facts Of Life," and then became a pop culture icon as the It Girl of American Cinema in the 1980s. Her work in "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty In Pink" consolidated the sultry-lipped girl-next-door's status as a Brat Packer, movie star and unfortunately, in the 1990s, somewhat of an anachronism.
In "Twice Upon A Time," Ringwald plays Beth, who's bored in her relationship with longtime beau Joe (George Newbern) and frustrated at work after missing a promotion. During a Thanksgiving getaway, she wishes upon a turkey bone and wakes up in a parallel world where she's attained everything she's always wanted: a great job, glamorous life and a celebrity husband. Although there are similarities between the two worlds — work associates, friends and beau — the differences mar the dream. For instance, in the parallel world, Joe is in love with Alana, Beth's office nemesis.
Soon, shades of "It's A Wonderful Life" creep in, and Beth realizes that her previous existence wasn't so bad after all. Once this is acknowledged, Beth can truly enjoy her spiritual Thanksgiving and find meaning in her life.
This role really marks Ringwald's return to American TV after her stint on the ABC sitcom "Townies," which premiered and was canceled in the 1996-'97 TV season. Former "Townies" co-star Jenna Elfman went on to "Dharma & Greg," and co-star Lauren Graham is in NBC's new comedy "Conrad Bloom."
Ringwald is endeavoring to enter the millennium as a more matured actress and less a poster girl for an era, seasoned by small roles in seminal films (the short version of "Sling Blade"), French cinema ("Enfants De Salaud") and upcoming films. Look for Ringwald in "Killing Mrs. Tingle," directed by "Dawson's Creek" creator Kevin Williamson, and the TV movie "Since You've Been Gone, directed by David Schwimmer ("Friends").
Molly's Travels - Times 1994
Molly Ringwald is alive and well and living in Paris. Actress who lives in Paris stars in U.S miniseries as a new world survivor - By Susan King Times Staff Writer
A decade ago she was everyone's favorite all-American teen-ager, thanks to her winning performances in John Hughes' popular comedies: "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and Pretty in Pink." But two years ago the actress packed her bags and left Los Angeles for the City of Light.
"I went to Paris a couple of years ago to work.' '."Ringwald explains. I was just so happy there. It was during the summer and the sun goes down at 10 at night. The whole city just seemed alive. I wanted to see what it felt like living outside of America and get a different perspective."
Ringwald acknowledges it's been a bit tough playing the expatriate role, mainly because of the language barrer. But she's currently going to French class four hours a day. "I am getting to be fairly bilingual. Living in Paris has its own set of problems I have to deal with, but those problems, compared with living in L.A., to me are much better. Living as a celebrity or a famous person in L.A. can really get you down after a while."
And she desperately craved a normal life. The films that I did were released in France, but they didn't have the impact, obviously, they had here because all of the John Hughes films were so American. So I can walk around and just be normal. I can breathe."
Ringwald's in Los Angeles to visit her family and promote her latest project, "The Stand." ABC's ambitious eight-hour miniseries of the Stephen King novel chronicles a future world where a deadly flu has wiped out most of the population. The survivors are divided into two camps: those who seek a new beginning on Earth and those who are loyal to a satanic demon in blue jeans named Randall Flagg (Jammie Sheridan). Ringwald, Gary Sinise, Ray Walston, Rob Lowe, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee are among the benevolent survivors.
This late afternoon, Ringwald is nursing a cup of coffee at the Bistro Gardens in Studio City She's definitely grown up. In fact, at age 26, there's an air of European sophistication about her. The hair, dyed red in the '80’s, is back to its natural dark brown. The trendy, often outrageous, clothes have given way to a tailored, stylish look.
Lighting a cigarette, she acknowledges she kind of just turned off' inside during her heyday "Life was happening around me. I can't really say how much I felt, because I couldn't. It was overwhelming. I was just caught in a tornado that was going very fast and uncontrollably It was nothing I planned. I am glad [the movies] did well."
But at the same time, she says, their success "kind of stunted me. Everything came to a screeching halt when it was time to grow up. That's hard. It's hard enough to grow up, anyway The normal thing is to work your way, to train, to prepare yourself for what you want to do. You are not supposed to accomplish it at that age. I had to deal with growing out of those movies and growing up. It was tough If I hadn't moved to France, I would have gone somewhere. Her post-Hughes films, including Betsy's Wedding, The Pick-Up Artist" and "King Lear" have not performed well at the box office. But Ringwald doesn't regret making any of those films.
"I have a million different people telling me what I should do," Ringwald says matter-of-factly "I think I need to do what I feel like I should. Those films [I did] were interesting to me. Some of them didn't turn out the way I wanted them to turn out. I don't so much regret the choices that I made. There was a reason for it. Maybe now, maybe knowing what I know now; I wouldn't have made the same choices. But I think everything is a learning experience."
Ringwald laughs. Let's face it, actors are severely overpaid anyway It's not like I need to make a film and have it make a ton of money That's not what I need to survive. I think what I need to survive is to do things I feel good about, that are interesting to me, and I feel like I am challenging myself, like I am working myself."
And she doesn't necessarily mean just acting. "If I can sit down aid write and express myself in any way artistically, I feel like it is worth while," Ringwald says. 'I've always been writing since I was young. My mother told me there were three things I excelled at when I was young and that was singing, writing and acting. It just happens that one of them took off and I became known as that. But writing is something that interests me a lot."
Ringwald has continued acting since moving to Paris, but in very non- commercial projects, including a French-English production called "Seven Sundays," which, she says, will be released here later this year.Ringwald took the decidedly high-profile "The Stand," she says, because she needed to balance the non-commercial "with things people see. People get very testy with me sometimes when they see me on the street. They say, 'Why haven't I seen you in something?' They are mad because I was such a staple in people's minds. I thought this would be a chance to do something people would be able to see, and then I can still do all the other stuff."
Breaking Away - US Magazine August 1990
Breaking Away
By Jerry Lazar
At age 18, she was the Brat Pack princess. Four years and several flops later Molly Ringwald is on her own and attempting a comeback - US Magazine August 1990
MoIly Ringwald sits behind a cluttered desk in her cramped but cozy office on the Columbia Pictures lot in Burbank, California.
Girlishly clad in shorts and a baseball cap that covers very short, very red hair, she hardly looks like a studio executive. But at 22, this onetime Hollywood heavyweight is in the throes of orchestrating a major comeback. . . by herself.
In an effort to take charge of her floundering career, Ringwald has been spending these sunny, spring days holed up inside her Kelbeth Productions office (named after her older brother and sister, Kelly and Beth), poring over stacks of scripts and taking meetings with promising screenwriters and directors. "Development is hell, but I enjoy it. It seems like a normal, natural thing for an actor to do in between movies because it gives you some sense of control without waiting for the phone to ring," she says. "Every time I read a good script, I want to embrace the writer. I want to say,'Thank you! Thank you!' I'll jump around the office and act out the script. I get very animated. But that's not very often".
Evidence of Ringwald's early fame and reminders that the actress is still barely out of adolescence adorn the walls: A bulletin board plastered with snapshots of family and friends resembles the inside of a high school locker. On the same wall hangs her prized photo of XTC, the British pop band whose members have adoringly inscribed their image with "Oh, Molly! Oh, Molly! Oh!"
Nowhere in sight is the Time cover that Ringwald graced back in 1986, shortly after screenwriter/director John Hughes gave her career a powerful boost by casting her in Sixteen Candles (1984),The Breakfast Club (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986).
Just when it looked like Hollywood would do anything for this doe-eyed, pouty-mouthed redhead, things began to sour. First, her growing reputation as a spoiled Brat Packer began to dampen their enthusiasm. Though she continues to describe herself as "naturally rebellious," she now admits that "when you grow up, you don't have as much to rebel against." Is she still quick to anger? "I have a temper," she acknowledges. "I get mad when people lie, when people are antagonistic, if I'm in a bad mood. I can get very passionate and very dramatic." That, coupled with a string of box office stinkers - The Pick-Up Artist (1987), King Lear (1987), For Keeps (1988), Fresh Horses (1988) and Strike It Rich (1989) - helped transform Ringwald from hot ingenue to tepid has-been.
"Every actor, from Hoffman to De Niro, has done films that are not successful," says Betsy's Wedding producer Martin Bregman, defending his decision to cast Ringwald in his film. "Molly's a fine actress. There's a sense of joy about her. She's a contemporary young woman with a lot of energy and a mature quality."The problem has been finding a project to showcase that "mature quality."
After a four-year career slump, industry insiders are saying that Ringwald - like most Brat Packers who seemed destined to rule Hollywood in the Nineties - has shown herself incapable of making the transition from teen queen to leading lady.
Ringwald recently put together what she hoped would be a winning formula. She did Alan Alda's Betsy's Wedding which she has the title role - the flamboyant young fashion designer marrying into a stuffy, well-to-do family. She follows that with next month's classy HBO Showcase Dusk Before Fireworks, based on a Dorothy Parker story. Ringwald plays a petulant young thing who unsuccessfully vies for the undivided attention of a much-in-demand gigolo (played by RoboCop's Peter Weller). The mix of a wholly commercial movie with an artier project was designed to give her broader appeal and credibility - a deft move, if it works.
Ringwald's next effort might be a surprising one: a musical. While the public is not aware of her talent, she is an amateur singer, a gift she developed with help from her father, blind jazz pianist Bob Ringwald. Father and daughter occasionally perform on Sunday nights at My Brother's Place, a club in the San Fernando Valley, with Molly belting out Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald tunes. "I would love to do a musical," she confides."But I don't want to do it just to show everybody that I can."
Her other dream is to do a film that is set in her favorite era - the roaring Twenties. "I've always liked old movies, old songs, old clothing, old jewelry," says the girl whose lust for thrift shop clothes set fashion trends back in the late Eighties. "I got to be known for wearing lots of layers of old, floral stuff, lots of weird jewelry. But that kind of wore out as I got older and more conservative. The clothes I like to wear now are pretty simple."
Still, Ringwald gathered much of her Betsy's Wedding attire from her personal closet: "I was able to pullout every weird thing that I've ever purchased over the years."
In keeping with her love of all things old - and in her search for the perfect film role - Ringwald has been reading a lot about, yes, the stars of yesteryear. "People like Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin and Samuel Goldwyn," she recounts with enthusiasm. "I'm really getting obsessed with the silent era. It's interesting to me." But, she notes,"this industry is reluctant to do period pieces because I think they've gotten burned on a lot of them.
And with what Ringwald calls her "rookie status," she admits that she doesn't have much power in terms of getting a film made. "I haven't been doing this for that long," she says of her work in development. "This is more of an educational period for me, to find out if this is what I would like to pursue." She needs no further education in handling the press, which she has been skillfully dodging since the age of 16. Ringwald fields overly intrusive inquiries with professional savvy. She won't comment on the Brat Pack and is careful to reveal little about her widely reported falling out with her former mentor John Hughes.
1 haven't talked with him in a while" is all she'll offer of their current relationship. She does say that she would be interested in collaborating with him again, though she has no immediate plans to do so. She doesn't offer much on that other famous filmmaker she's been linked to either, the one who sought her out after catching her screen debut - Warren Beatty. Yes, they are still friends, she allows (they were once rumored to be romantically involved), but she is loath to divulge more than that. "He's a very private person," she says pointedly. I like to respect his privacy." Ringwald seems a pretty private person herself. Whoever she's currently dating is none of your damned business, either.
And the fact that her name doesn't appear in newspaper and magazine articles the way it used to suits her just fine , too. "At one time I was a lot more recognizable than I am now, when I was on the cover of all the magazines and stuff like that. But that kind of calmed down," she says, sounding genuinely relieved. I like to be a working actress, obviously; I'd like people to go see my movies. But I never want to get to the point of [being] some crazy superstar. I just don't think I could deal with it. I don't feel comfortable with that. It just gets to that point where you don't have a life. It's hard to go out and do stuff."
She remembers an incident that occurred while filming Fresh Horses in Cincinnati. "They were out-of-their-minds crazy when we came," she remembers in horror. "We were in the paper all the time. Some guy wrote an article - 'Desperately Seeking Molly,' or something stupid like that. He went everywhere that I went. He would go to a restaurant and print what I ate. He would go to my dry cleaners. I just found it kind of weird and creepy."
Ringwald's main bone of contention with the media these days is not its intrusiveness but its persistence in wondering whether her career will survive adulthood. "The press likes to pigeonhole people," she complains. "[Reporters] are always saying, 'Oh, do you think you are going to have a hard time making the transition?' They are making it such a bigger deal than it actually is. The fact of the matter is, people grow up. It's a natural thing. It's not a big deal."
Or maybe it is. A few weeks later, boxes crowd her little office. Columbia Pictures is moving and there's no office space for most of the actors' production companies including Ringwald's - at the new location. In one of her more painful lessons on adult life, she is forced to fold Kelbeth and postpone some of her carefully mapped career plans. Her routine these days sounds, well, routine - workouts at the gym, evenings at restaurants or movie theaters, or just hanging around her airy, sunny Hollywood Hills home and listening to music with friends or her three Persian cats: Esme (named after a J.D. Salinger character), Cymbeline (a Shakespeare character) and Wolf (after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).
Still, while she may be down, don't count her out of the game yet. I like to be busy -I'm happy if every moment of the day is busy. I don't like to be idle. I have this real work-ethic thing," she says, sounding determined. I have to be doing something. "
Molly Ringwald on The Arsenio Hall Show 1990
Arsenio Hall - This guest as a 3 year old sang a song called, "You Gotta See Mama Every Night or You Won't See Your Mama at All." She sang the song at a fair and got a standing ovation. And from that point she's been piling up the stardom with things like the Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, and most recently, Betsy's Wedding. Please welcome Molly Ringwald. (Music and applause)
Arsenio Hall- That's so cool! Do you remember that song?
Molly - Do I remember it? It was a long time ago. I was 3 and a half.
Arsenio Hall- I mean ah, is it something like getting a standing ovation up? Well the first standing ovation I got I never forgot it. Do you remember those people standing?
Molly - I remember the fair, ah, but I don't remember or not whether I got a standing ovation?
Arsenio Hall- That was a long time ago.
Molly - Yeah, that was a while ago.
Arsenio Hall- Ah You and I have a lot of things in common. Other than liking (the Blues?). (Giggle from Molly.) You wanted to be black when you grew up.
Molly - Yeah, and you are black.
Arsenio Hall- Yeah.
Molly - I used to sing a lot of jazz cause my father is a jazz musician, and all of my idols from the time that I was , yeah know, 3 was, yeah know, Ella Fitzgerald, Betsy Smith, and Billy Holiday, and they all have one thing in common, other than the fact they are great singers, and that's that their black, so I thought that when I grew up that I would be a jazz singer and that I would just magically become black. Yeah know, (chuckling) and it didn't happen that way...
Arsenio Hall - Did you practice?
Molly - Did I practice becoming black?
Arsenio Hall - Yes. (Molly chuckles)
Molly - No. I just thought it was going to happen! yeah know, when I was in second grade we did a thing on famous Americans. Did anybody ever do that at school? (To the audience.) Yeah, and most of the kids, all the boys were doing George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and all the girls were doing Florence Nightingale, and Claire Barton, and I did Bessie Smith. (Pause. No audience reactions so Molly says Does anyone know who Bessie Smith is!? (Applause) My idol! (Grunts from Arsenio)
Arsenio Hall - More important. Did the kids in your class know who Bessie Smith was?
Molly - No, but they did after I was finished. (Molly chuckles.)
Arsenio Hall - And did you sing?
Molly - Yeah. And my father, plays piano. He came in and played and I sang, "Give me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer."(Everyone chuckles) yeah. I sang.
Arsenio Hall - Your dad is a jazz musician. Still playing?
Molly - Ah huh. He plays with the Great Pacific Jazz Band every Sunday at "My
Brothers Place" in Northridge. (Pause) Not MY brothers place. It's called that.
Arsenio Hall - And your dad's a blind musician!
Molly - Ah huh.
Arsenio Hall - Blind from birth?
Molly - No. He was blind from the time that he was thirteen, I guess.
Arsenio Hall - That must have been real cool having a dad who's a Jazz musician.
Molly - Yeah.
Arsenio Hall - Did you all ever have a jam and sit around and sing?
Molly - I sang with him from the time I could speak, and it was real different having a person around who played music all the time. I didn't really realize how different it was until I got older.
Arsenio Hall - Even though having a father who's a great jazz musician is fun, being a blind jazz musician must have its downsides also.
Molly - Well more for him, I think, than me. It didn't really effect me at all. It effected my mother - slightly. You know different things can happen when you
are blind like for instance he ran over her with a lawn mower once. (laughter). It was a push mower though so my mother is fine and well so don't worry, but he ran over her foot and thought it was a tree root, because she didn't say anything. I guess she was in shock or something. So then he went to go over her again and she said, "Stop it Robert. I'm here." Then they took her to the hospital and she was OK. And then one time when she was pregnant they were picking apricots off a tree and all these cows kept coming and eating the apricots before they had a chance to get them, and so my father was taking a tree branch and sort of swinging it around to get the cows away and, yeah know, he thought my mother was a cow. (laughter) She was pregnant at the time. But other than that it was smooth sailing.
Arsenio Hall - How did it help to formulating your appreciation for music? What do you listen to now?
Molly - I Listen to a lot of jazz. Still. Cole Porter. Gershwin, I love. I like Elvis Costello a lot and David Bowie and some rap music, and Bob Dylan. I'm pretty eclectic.
Arsenio Hall - Lets take out a little commercial and come back with the eclectic Molly Ringwald. (Music and applause)
Interview resumes after commercials
Arsenio Hall - I actually wanted them to dig something up for me, ah, because I knew you wouldn't sing. Molly - Yeah! (nervous laughter from Molly)
Arsenio Hall - So Sandy if you will play that for me. Plays Molly singing 'OH! Daddy' from her recording at 6 years old. "Oh Daddy. Look what your doin.
Look what your doin. Oooohhh!! Daddy." (Much laughter and chuckling by Arsenio and audience. Obvious embarrassed sounds from a surprised Molly.)
Arsenio Hall - Aughhhh! Molly - No!
Arsenio Hall - I'm sorry.
Molly - I'm proud of it.
Arsenio Hall - You remember that?
Molly - I remember that when I was 6 years old.
Arsenio Hall - I knew your memory would improve if I just played some from 3 years early-later than the fair, yeah know. "But I--" (Molly laughing in the background.)
Molly - But my voice has improved too, so.
Arsenio Hall - That's true.
Molly - Well thank you. Arsenio Hall - You must have wanted that.
Molly - Oh yeah.
Arsenio Hall - Ok, Now we'll talk about the HBO project.
Molly - Its called Women and Men. Note that it's Women and Men. (short laugh by Molly) Its with me and Melanie Griffith and Liz McGovern and we're 3 different short stories. One by Dorothy Parker and one by Hemingway and one by McCarthy. And I am in the Dorothy Parker one with Peter Weller, and the story is he plays sort of a gigolo who I am in love with. Or sort of in lust with I guess. And I have come for my night of passion, and I guess we have a clip here.
Arsenio Hall - And it is actually "Women and Men. Stories of Seduction." Right?
Molly - Yeah, and Peter Weller plays the guy with me, and Bo Bridges is with McGovern, and James Woods is with Melanie Griffith.
Arsenio Hall - That's interesting! I've seen a lot of trailers for it. Watching HBO. Lets look at the clip you have.
A clip is shown of Molly with Peter Weller dressed in 1920's clothing in a room and talking very sexy and breathless about what kind of person he is.
Mostly low key.
(Applause at the end of the very short clip.)
Arsenio Hall - Hummm!
Molly - (Mostly covered over by audience sound) relationship. Pretty racy.
Arsenio Hall - Is that why it is an HBO project?
Molly - Well, I think it is an HBO project just because feature films are a little bit hesitant to do anything that's---literate! (Nervous laugh.) HBO seems to be doing that now. Their taking a lot or risks, and hopefully everybody will like to see it. They're really interesting I think.
Arsenio Hall - What do you consider seductive in a man?
Molly - Ahhhh... Intelligence. I think. Brains. I'm a real brain lover. I think people who are real smart are sexy.
Arsenio Hall - So all those Cosmos articles, tush, eyes, all the kind of stuff, you want a smart guy. (Molly laughs at this.)
Molly - Yeah. I want a smart guy.
Arsenio Hall - This is a smart girl.
Molly - Uh ha. (Audience laughs with her.) Thank you!
Arsenio Hall - You find men intimidated by intellect.
Molly - By--smart women? Some men are. Some men just aren't interested. Are you interested?
Arsenio Hall - Yes
Molly - In smart women?
Arsenio Hall - I think you get bored quick with dumb women. I mean. You know. It's cool. It's real fine, its cool for awhile, but then you know, you want to, you know--talk. (Molly is continuing laughing and agreeing during this little speech by Arsenio)
Molly - yeah. yeah yeah yeah (Unintelligible comment) (Audience applause.)
Molly - Yeah, I think intelligence is the only way to go, but I think that a lot of people are intelligent, but we sort of tend to put people in boxes, you know.
Especially if people that are good looking or anything, then they are just supposed to be that. So not really give them a chance. I don't know.
Arsenio Hall - I'm not good looking so I try to read-A LOT! (Audience laughter.)
Molly - Chuckle and unintelligible comment. (I thought you would?)
Arsenio Hall - I don't want you to think I am being flirtatious or anything, but I am looking for bruises and stuff. Someone told me you were very accident
prone and you always had bruises all over.
Molly - (chuckles) Yeah, I do. But I'm wearing stoc--well there's one. (Pause) Right there. yeah. I am always running into things.
Arsenio Hall - What is the latest thing you bumped into?
Molly - The funny thing is I never really know! During the day I'll run into something and I won't really realize it until the end of the night. I just have bruises
all my le-. It's a mystery. I don't know.
Arsenio Hall - I know cause people do that all the time. Where did that come from? I don't know!! That's the good thing about being black. Like you hurt, but you don't really see it.
Molly - (Continual yeah)
Arsenio Hall - You see, I was saying, "Huh! Ain't nothin there but... Damn, I wonder what that could have been. Do you remember your audition for Tempest?
Molly - Yeah
Arsenio Hall - Was that like your first movie?
Molly - Yeah. That was my first movie.
Arsenio Hall - I heard about that too, tell me, tell them about that audition.
Molly - Well Paul (Mazursky) directed it and he wanted a New York kid for the movie and I had never been out of California before. He wanted someone that was real tough, so one of the things he did was he said "Well tell me about yourself, oh by the way I am going to throw a penny at you for every stupid thing that you say" And I said. "OH OK" and then I just kept talking and he kept chucking pennies--
Arsenio Hall - What was his purpose-his rationale?
Molly - I am not sure, I never really asked him about it, but I think, you know, to see whether or not I would burst into tears, or laugh or just to see how I would respond to it, I suppose.
Arsenio Hall - To give you some kind of pressure or some kind of adverse situation huh?
Molly - yeah. But he was OK. He wasn't mean about it. I mean I thought it was real funny, and I just kept all the money (quick laugh). I mean (ha ha) it
seemed like a good plan.
Arsenio Hall - How many pennies could he have thrown?
Molly - Well, then he ran out of pennies, so he started throwing nickels, and quarters and--(laughs).
Arsenio Hall - Oh. Maybe you should have said stupid stuff!
Molly - yeah. Well I am sure I was.
Arsenio Hall - That's an easy way to get--I should do an interview like that (throws pieces of paper at Molly who giggles) Running out of pennies.
Continued laughter by both. Thanks for stopping by and good luck with this project. It airs Sunday for the first time. Right?
Molly - Sunday. That's right.
Arsenio Hall - On HBO and it's called "Women and Men".
Molly - Right.
Arsenio Hall - Stores of Seduction.
Molly - Right
Arsenio Hall - Thanks for stopping by.
Molly - Thank you!
Arsenio Hall - Molly Ringwald (Applause and theme music out)
Molly's Fresh Start - Film Review July 1990
Former teen queen Molly Ringwald grows up and gets serious in her new film, Fresh Horses. But are her fans ready for it ?
By James Cameron - Wilson
Molly Ringwald is trying to become a actress. Crowned Princess of the brat Pack - thanks to such hit movies as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club
and Pretty in Pink - the teen queen was on call to play every tortured, freckled, introverted, redheaded individual that came along.
She was useful as a commodity. Her name was well known : she was pretty in a sort of cute, dopey way: people liked working with her: she was extremely professional and experienced (she had been acting since the age of four); and she could make scripts totally believable.
But perhaps her greatest asset was that the average female teenage filmgoer could identify with her. She was not drop - dead good looking, but her features, her red hair, her sensuous lips - were very photogenic. Her problems on celluloid (virginity, dating, class, money, school) were ones far removed from the set - backs of, say, Modesty Blaise. But then, damn it, Molly Ringwald grew up.
In her new film, Fresh Horses, she plays 'Jewel', a married, frumpish woman of indeterminate age with a violent husband. In the course of the film, she is
mentally abused, raped and all but emotionally destroyed. Although Jewel is accused of being sixteen, we are never entirely sure of her age as her mystery remains intact.
Based on a play by Larry Ketron, the project has been around for a while. Originally the film was to have been directed by Peter Masterson, with his
daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson, in the lead role. But, when the screenplay fell into the hands of filmmaker David Anspaugh, the project fell into place.
According to Anspaugh, Molly Ringwald "was the obvious choice once we decided to go with a star. If you're making a film about young people with a
character as unique as Jewel's, you're crazy if you don't expose the material to Molly. She's very perceptive and very bright, and one of the most talented performers of her generation.
"Working with Molly in a role 180 degrees from any character she had played before was very challenging indeed," he continues. "It was a risky way to go, but i had an enormous amount of faith in Molly's talent.
"Once we began shooting, I found myself mesmerised. It was fascinating to watch her work. She could do take after take, and each would be different, yet each was as honest as the last. She was wonderful to work with."
The story of Fresh Horses takes off when a good looking 22-year old college senior, Matt Larkin (Andrew McCarthy), drops his engagement to an attractive rich girl to court the enigmatic Jewel. It is an unlikely union, but one that keeps us guessing about it's outcome until the end.
"Jewel falls for Matt because he's the only person up to that point in her life who has treated her like a human being," the actress explains - "and she really believes that she'll never have anybody in her life again quite like him. Like everyone else, she wants to be loved.
"I think Jewel knows all along that their relationship can't work, however desperately she wants it to," Ms Ringwald continues. " Their passion is very real,
but they come from two different worlds. They could never begin to really understand each other - and, of course, that's what a relationship really needs.
The film is set in Cincinnati and accurately captures the barren landscape of an environment deprived of cultural wealth. It is a neutral setting that could be a backdrop for any number of dead-end love stories.
Fresh Horses is, however, a hard film to warm to, unlike the more cheerful diversions of Molly's recent past.
"I fell in love with the story," she reveals, "and i felt it very important that we keep it's regional voice. I've never done any kind of dialect before on camera, and the role is certainly the most passionate and sexiest I've ever performed.I'm always looking for different things to do in my work, and this role was
definitely a challenge to me."
Unfortunately, the film was not a success at the American box office - indicating, perhaps that Molly's fans of yore are not ready for the serious, adult look.
Also, her more recent cinematic outings - The Pick Up Artist, Maybe Baby, and the disastrous Strike It Rich, with our own Robert Lindsay - were all box office bombs.
Maybe Baby should have been enormous. A genuinely funny, sentimental, yet strangely accurate examination of young parenthood, it was both ahead of and before it's time. Babies and and parenthood were not yet the tools of the box office certainty, and America was not yet ready for a child - bearing version of it's perennial teen. Good Golly, Miss Molly, we can't be talking diapers!
But Miss Molly was eager to grow as an actress, to change her image, to try anything. Perhaps her strangest career move was to pop up as Cordelia in
Jean Luc Godard's bizarre trashing of Shakespeare's King Lear. It was a pretentious experiment that you loved or didn't and most people hated it.
On the publicity side, Ms Ringwald pretty much kept herself to herself. Pooh - poohing a suggested romance with Warren Beatty, and refusing to talk about her Beastie boyfriend Adam Horowitz.
Desperate to stretch herself, Molly found that America wasn't prepared to extend her leash. With Strike It Rich, in a role vacated by Emily Lloyd, the actress relinquished centre stage and top billing to Robert LIndsay. The American reviews were understandably cruel (this was a clumsy, old fashioned soufflé without any air), although they might have been unkinder to to her interpretation of an English newlywed.
Lately, there has been talk of her co - producing a project tentatively titled Queens Gambit, in which she would star, and of a long delayed film biography
of Andy Warhol victim Edie Sedgwick (at one time rumoured to be directed by Warren Beatty).
In the real world, she has had to accept a supporting role in a new Alan Alda ensemble comedy, Betsy's Wedding, co-starring alongside Alda himself,
Madeline Khan and Ally Sheedy.
All this may be depressing news to Molly Ringwald, but there are enough people in the business who think she is one of the most authentic actresses of her generation. And, even if the movies have gotten smaller, the reputation of the 22 year old star has remained as big as ever. And all it takes is one movie...The ambition and talent is there.
Good Golly Miss Molly - Film Review January 1988
By Curtis Hutchinson
Film Review Profiles pink- pretty Molly on the eve of her new movie The Pick Up Artist
By rights, someone who started in showbiz shortly after their fourth birthday could be expected to be a little precocious, especially when they describe
themselves as stubborn, very moody and always correct. But, judging by the awed tones in which Molly Ringwald is described by those she's worked with, this highly talented young actress is universally well liked.
Molly is nice, not precocious. She love's Mom and Dad, but prefers junk food to home-made apple pie. She's not quite the girl next door, but for millions of teenagers around the world she is a believable person who plays believable characters. She has what America's leading film critic, Pauline Kael, succinctly describes as "charismatic normality". Practically unknown to anyone over 30, Molly Ringwald has become a powerful symbol of teen moderation and level headedness.
Girls may daydream about emulating the vampish man-eating sexuality of Madonna or Monroe but they've probably got more in common with the pretty
red head who doesn't always get the guy and copes with teenage angst without feeling the need to express herself in open rebellion. Her admirers are not restricted to the millions of teenagers who saw her ill The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink and will undoubtedly flock to see her in The Pick-Up Artist.
Molly's praises are sung loudly and often by the likes of John Cassavetes, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Paul Mazursky, Warren Beatty and, of course, John Hughes, the American writer-director often credited with making her a star.
Molly Ringwald has packed a lot into her 19 years. The youngest daughter of the blind jazz musician Bob Ringwald, her prodigious talent to entertain soon made itself known. By the age of four she was singing with her father's band "I did a lot of Bessie Smith Songs," she recalls, "and we'd have to change the words, say 'playing house' instead of 'making love' and stuff like that. When I was young I thought I would grow up to be black and sing in nightclubs".
At six Molly had recorded all LP of stage favourites and made her acting debut as a preacher's daughter in the Truman Capote play, The Grass Harp. By nine she had clinched a sizeable song and dance role in a stage production of Annie which led to her being cast in a new television sitcom, The Facts Of Life. A promising career as a TV star was cut short when she was dropped after the first season. "I was devastated," she says, "but my Mom kept saying it was for the best and she was right, I didn't work for a year which gave me a chance to grow up a lot".
By now she was a worldly 13 Molly's first break ill the movies was as John Cassavetes and Gena Rowland's daughter in director Paul Mazursky's
Tempest. The film may have been a plodding attempt to update Shakespeare's play, but it did give Molly the opportunity to work with actors renowned for their improvisational techniques. More importantly, though, her spirited performance won Molly a Golden Globe nomination for Best Newcomer of 1982 and brought her to the attention of John Hughes, a scriptwriter who was itching to direct a film about teenagers. Hughes was so transfixed that he stuck her photograph to his word processor and began work on a script for an actress he hadn't even met.
Tempest was followed by Spacehunter Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, a none to subtle reworking of the Star War." movies, shot in 3-D. Molly was far from pleased with the finished result After seeing the movie she told The New York Times "The way its been cut makes it look like something's going on between me and Peter Strauss And I can't do love scenes at my age Peter was supposed to be fatherly. Ooh, I'm so angry."
Molly's integrity was ill much safer hands with John Hughes, the writer-director of her next film, Sixteen Candles. At their first meeting Hughes presented Ringwald with the Sixteen Candles script. They hit it off immediately. "We each started to know what the other one was thinking," says Molly.
"We would finish sentences for each other." The film was well received in the States; Time magazine described it as ". . a therapeutic documentary, a sort of survival kit of 80s cool." It wasn't released in the cinemas here, but it's available on a CIC video.
Shortly after completing Sixteen Candles, director and actress began work on their next project, The Breakfast Club "I figured we'd just make Sixteen Candles," she recalls, "but John said 'It's going to be Hughes-Ringwald and Ringwald-Hughes in a whole string of movies"' And so it was for a while. The Breakfast Club established Hughes' reputation as a gifted director bursting with ideas ( one Paramount bigwig even described him as "the Steven Spielberg of youth comedy") and introduced Ms Ringwald to a wider audience.
The couple then collaborated together on Pretty In Pink, this time with Hughes writing and Howie Deutch directing. Molly shone as Andie Walsh, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. "I had a lot of responsibility on that movie because my character was in just about every scene. This demanded that I had to become even more focussed than usual.
Through the massive film and video success of Pretty In Pink, Ringwald has become the role model for her generation and gender Her appeal is simple and complex. Her plain looks, mix-and-match DIY dress sense and credible expression of teenage inarticulation encourages immediate audience identification. Young audiences are inspired by Molly because they know she's one of them," says Hughes. "I think that playing her age has been one of the positive factors in Molly's success.
Ringwald is now approaching an interesting turning point in her career. Next year she turns 20 and is therefore unlikely to be lured back into a teen film. Also she has voiced minor dissatisfactions with her one time mentor, John Hughes. "When John moved from Chicago to LA after The Breakfast Club," she recently said, "he changed. I don't really see him anymore. l still respect him a lot, and if he gave me a good script I'd read it but I don't think we'll work together again real soon".
So what does the future hold? In The Pick-Up Artist Molly comes of age. She plays a fiercely independent young woman who holds down a day job while
trying to payoff her drunken father's gambling debts. She is unafraid of the local heavy and is prepared to use her would-be courter for sexual and financial services. In choosing this film, Ringwald appears to have made a conscious decision to grow up and move on as a performer.
"One of the most important things about being an actress," she says, "is to have a strong sense of your own experience, emotions and style. That's one
reason I admire Diane Keaton. She has a real aura and personality, a style of her own. I like Jessica Lange, because she can be vulnerable and still strong."
Since graduating last year, Molly's found time to fit in stage work between film projects and has clearly found the experience rewarding. "It's so different from the movies, it's like a different craft," she says of the theatre. "I don't think one's better than the other; I like the variety I'd like to alternate between the two Theatre is a lot more demanding in a way, because you have to get it right all the time. That can be frustrating, because you can't have it great all the time, but you have to learn to deal with that In a movie if you don't get a take right you just do it over and over again."
In returning to the stage Molly Ringwald is showing that she's not going to sit pretty on past achievements. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she is
prepared to go out on a limb to do something different" A lot of people when they're successful, just want to stay with that, and don't want to take a step,"
she observes "I want to take chances"
One risk that's been on the cards for the past couple of years is a biopic about doomed Sixties flower child and underground superstar Edie Sedgwick. No role could be further removed from anything she's done before than this tragic drug-dazed Andy Warhol protegee. If the film is made, then it will be produced and directed by Warren Beatty, who Molly describes as "loyal friend" Beatty has been a Ringwald fan since he saw her in Tempest and was struck by her "level of intelligence and spontaneity, the lack affectation in her acting." Since then the couple have become "loyal friends." Naturally this association has been misinterpreted by gossip columns and subsequent rumours of romance were fueled by Molly's jokey off the cuff retort to one reporter's incessant probing: "Of course I'm expecting his child!"
Even if Edie doesn't materialize, Molly's hardly going to be short of work as she recently signed a lucrative three-picture deal with United Artist.
__________________________________________________________________ Seventeen Magazine 1986 Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald Interviews John Hughes
MOLLY RINGWALD: Growing up, were you obsessed with girls, as so many of your male characters are?
JOHN HUGHES: No. I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw Doctor Zhivago every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater. The usher would say, "Hiya, your seat's ready." And I just sat there, glued to the screen. Most of my characters are romantic rather than sexual. I think that's an essential difference in my pictures. I think they are more accurate in portraying young people as romantic - as wanting a relationship, an understanding with a member of the opposite sex more than just physical sex.
MR: What about teen sex in your movies? You never show it in Sixteen Candles or Breakfast Club. Did you want to leave it up to the viewer's imagination? Or were you just looking for a PG rating?
JH: No. What's the point? In Sixteen Candles, I figured it would only be gratuitous to show Samantha and Jake in anything more than a kiss. The kiss is
the most beautiful moment. I was really amused when someone once called me a purveyor of horny sex comedies. He listed Breakfast Club and Mr. Mom in parentheses.
MR: Oh, god!
JH: I thought, "What kind of sex?" Yes, in Mr. Mom there's a baby in a bathtub and you see it's bare butt. And in Breakfast Club, there's some kissing.
MR: You wouldn't believe how many people came up to me after they saw Breakfast Club and said, "So what really happened between you and Judd in
the closet?"
JH: Older people or younger people?
MR: Mostly older people.
JH: Yes, older people asked me that question too.
MR: I never even thought about that. I did a phone interview and somebody said, "So, what really happened in the closet?" And I thought, "Why are you asking me that? What happened was shown there on the screen."
JH: Yes. The only thing we took out of the scene was a bit of dialogue. You walked into the closet, and I cut away to the other story I was telling.
MR: You did cut out one great kiss between Judd and me, though.
JH: Too much kissing. I find that screen kissing wears very thin very quickly. I go into the editing room and say, "Less, less." Why watch someone kissing when people really close their eyes when they kiss?
MR: I see your point, but I just thought you cut out a great kiss. Anyway, would a woman like Kelly LeBrock have been your ideal when you were a teen?
JH: No. Too scary.
MR: So why did you create the character she played in Weird Science?
JH: Well, the object there was -
MR: That she taught them a lesson, right?
JH: You're making fun of me.
MR: No. I'm sorry. Go on.
JH: Two lonely guys tried to create the perfect woman. But, they didn't. They created a physical fantasy who turned out to be an actual person. They hadn't planned on getting a real person, just a great body. They were concentrating on the physical, which is only a very small part of anybody's identity.
MR: Isn't it a contradiction to talk about how kids have more on their minds than just sex and cars and then show two characters dreaming up the perfect mate? That was purely sexual. They didn't even want to give her a brain at first.
JH: No. I don't think there's a contradiction, because when those guys got her, sex was the last thing on their minds. They wanted a girl, but they had no idea what girls were. They didn't understand them at all, because girls weren't really accessible to them. So, their concept of girls was media-based.
MR: Do you think that goes for most teenagers?
JH: I don't think so, no. There's a very fine line there. And it's a line that I probably didn't respect enough in directing the film. You know those sexy pinup
posters people put up in their bedrooms? I always saw them as being kind of silly and vacant. That was to be the point of the movie - that this glistening
body in this semi-revealing outfit with this come-on look on the face is a real empty, pointless image to carry around or to look for.
MR: So, which of your characters were you most like while growing up?
JH: I was a little bit like Samantha. A lot of my feelings went into her character. I was also very much like Allison in Breakfast Club. I was a nobody. And I'm also a lot like Ferris Bueller.
MR: But of all the characters, which would you say is most like you?
JH: Most like me? I'm a cross between Samantha and Ferris.
MR: How did you write the story of Pretty In Pink?
JH: You told me about the Psychedelic Furs' song.
MR: About Pretty In Pink? I just love that song.
JH: And the title stuck in my head. I thought about your predisposition toward pink. I wrote Pretty In Pink the week after we finished Sixteen Candles. I so
desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away. That's why I tend to work with the same people; I really befriend them. I couldn't speak after Sixteen Candles was over. I returned to the abandoned house, and they were tearing down your room. And I was just horrified, because I wanted to stay there forever.
MR: Do you think you'll always work with young actors?
JH: Not every time, maybe, but . . .
MR: You won't abandon them?
JH: No, I won't abandon them.
MR: Do you think the Brat Pack's recent obnoxious image is deserved, or does the press just pick on them because of their age?
JH: I think that this clever moniker was slapped on these young actors, and I think it's unfair. It's a label.
MR: People my age were just beginning to be respected because of recent films such as yours, and now it's like someone had to bring them down a peg or two, don't you think?
JH: There is definitely a little adult envy. The young actors get hit harder because of their age. Because "Rat Pack" - which Brat Pack is clearly a parody of - was not negative. "Brat Pack" is. It suggests unruly, arrogant young people, and that description isn't true of these people. And the label has been stuck on people who never even spoke to the reporter who coined it.
MR: Such as myself. I've been called the Women's Auxiliary of the Brat Pack.
JH: To label somebody that! It's harmful to people's careers. At any rate, young people support the movie business, and it's only fair that their stories be told.
MR: A lot of people said in the reviews of The Breakfast Club, "Why should somebody make a movie about teenproblems?" I couldn't believe that. I mean, we are a part of this society . . .
JH: I think it's wrong not to allow someone the right to have a problem because of their age. "People say, "Well, they're young. They have their whole lives ahead of them. What do they have to complain about?" They forget very quickly what it's like to be young.
MR: Who would want to remember? I'm tortured. People forget the feeling of having to go to school on Monday and take a test in physics that you don't
understand at all. It's hard. Right now, I don't think I'll ever forget it.
JH: Ferris has a line where he refers to his father's saying that high school was like a great party. Ferris knows what his father was like, and he knows that his father has just forgotten the bad parts. Adults ask me all sorts of baffling questions, like, "Your teenage dialogue - how do you do that?" and "Have you actually seen teens interact?" And I wonder if they think that people under twenty-one are a separate species. We shot Ferris at my old high school, and I talked with the students a lot. And I loved it, because it was easy to strike up a conversation with them. I can walk up to a seventeen-year-old and say, "How do you get along with your friends?" and he'll say, "Okay." You ask a thirty-five-year-old the same question, and he'll say, "Why do you want to know? What's wrong? Get away from me." All those walls built up.
MR: Do you think that society looks at teenagers differently today than when you were one?
JH: Definitely. My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us. But now, there are fewer teens, and they aren't taken as seriously as we were. You make a teenage movie, and critics say, "How dare you?" There's just a general lack of respect for young
people now.
MR: I think so, too. What were you like growing up?
JH: I was kind of quiet. I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly girls and old people. There weren't any boys my age, so I spent a lot of time by myself, imagining things. And every time we would get established somewhere, we would move. Life just started to get good in seventh grade, and then we moved to Chicago. I ended up in a really big high school, and I didn't know anybody. But then The Beatles came along.
MR: Changed your whole life?
JH: Changed my whole life. And then Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home came out and really changed me. Thursday I was one person, and Friday I was another. My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on. I liked them at a time when I was in a pretty conventional high school, where the measure of your popularity was athletic ability. And I'm not athletic - I've always hated team sports.
MR: You've been sticking pretty close to Chicago, but now that you and your family have made the transition to L.A., do you think you'll go back and film
everything in Chicago?
JH: I think I will. I'm very comfortable there. It's out of the Hollywood spotlight. And I like the seasons.
MR: What about what you were saying about the way Dylan and Lennon were constantly moving forward? Don't you think you've done a lot of movies about Chicago?
JH: No, they weren't about Chicago. Chicago's a setting.
MR: But, they're about suburban life . . .
JH: I think it's wise for people to concern themselves with the things they know about. I don't consider myself qualified to do a movie about international intrigue - I seldom leave the country. I'd really like to do something on gangs, but to do that, I've gotto spend some time with gang members. I'd feel extremely self-conscious writing about something I don't know.
MR: I think one of the most admirable things about you is that you do write about the things you know and care about. I think that teen movies were getting a bad reputation because these fifty-year-old guys were writing about things they didn't care about.
JH: I love writing. When I finish a script, it's a joy to sit down and go all the way through it. It's a very private thing, because a screenplay is not like a book. When a book is written, it's a final product. But, when a script is finished, it's really just a blueprint. And it's an extraordinary experience for me to watch someone take what I wrote and imagined and make it three-dimensional. And it's great if someone adds something I hadn't thought of.
MR: Would you consider yourself fashion-conscious?
JH: Yeah, I think so, as far as I'm conscious of everything. I'm a former hippie, so clothes are important to me - your clothes defined you in that period. I guess clothes still defines people. But, I change a lot. I'm in my Brooks Brothers period now. I think when I first met you, it was -
MR: High-top tennis shoes.
JH: Yeah? But I've changed.
MR: So how does your wardrobe define you?
JH: My wardrobe is a hundred shirts, and I don't like any of them. How does that define me? Well, I get bored easily. I have a real short attention span, and that feeling transfers to clothes as well. And if I see somebody else wearing the same thing I am, I always think he looks better. I admire people like Judd Nelson, who have an innate sense of fashion. Judd could wear a bathrobe and sanitarium sandals and a fedora and look good.
MR: If you weren't in film, what might you like to do?
JH: I've always wanted to be in music, but I'm not talented at all. Now I just go to concerts, and I'm fascinated by the bands and their music. When I go to a concert, I can't believe that people pay lots of money to see a band that they obviously like and then they dance the whole time.
MR: But a lot of people dance as a way of communicating.
JH: You can go home and put the record on and dance. I want to watch how the band does it. I want to look at their faces.
MR: When we went to see Squeeze, these girls were standing on their chairs and getting on top of people's shoulders to dance with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. They were right behind me and my sister, and we were tempted to do something violent! It really bugs me when people act like going to concerts gives them license to act like jerks. But I don't mind people dancing. In fact, I hate it when people say, "Sit down, sit down" when I want to dance.
JH: I suppose it would be really alarming to an artist to play in a concert and see everybody just watching.
MR: Oh, that's terrible!
JH: I'm one of those who do that.
MR: Yeah, I've been to a concert with you.
JH: I'm not a good-time guy. I'm not one of those guys who says, "Oh, we had some good times last night." I'm just not.
MR: But you wanted to be in a band at one point?
JH: Yeah, but I'm too old for that now. Rock 'n' roll is a young form. People over twenty-five ruin it. This whole censorship thing has come about because old people are playing with a form that is essentially young and rebellious. Do you know how brilliant it was for The Beatles to break up when they did?
MR: Yes, it was great. But I don't think rock 'n' roll burnout has anything to do with age. I just think that people can go only so far. People reach a point.
JH: I can't deny people their art form. But you have to be challenged, and you have to meet that challenge.
MR: What are your favorite bands?
JH: The Beatles and The Clash are the greatest. I've listened to the Beatles' White Album for more than sixteen years, and when we were filming Ferris
Bueller, I listened to the album every single day for fifty-six days.
MR: That's the album I listened to all during Pretty In Pink, remember?
JH: Yeah, I know.
MR: How do you see yourself changing in the next fifteen years?
JH: Growing older.
MR: I know.
JH: It's a foregone conclusion. What's next for you?
MR: I don't know. I'd like to finish high school, and I'm totally late on everything to do with my SATs. I'm going to apply to colleges soon. So do you have anything you're dying to do?
JH: I have a hundred things I'm dying to do. Make that a hundred and four. I'm going to write for a while. Going to see Pretty In Pink. Get to go sit in theaters and look at the film with great pride. I like watching you work - you know that. _________________________________________________________________
Life magazine 1986 Molly Ringwald
Those Lips, Those Eyes. At 18, Hollywood's Top Teen Bids Adieu To The Roles That Made Her A Star - March 1986
If you ever get an audience with this teen queen, you might be rewarded with a load of juve jive like this: Nuclear war? "I think it's very immature." Don Johnson? "I've had a crush on him since I was twelve and he was on those cheap miniseries like The Rebels. Now everyone is in love with him, and I saw, 'Hey, I was in love with him first.'" The Carson show? "They didn't think I was interesting enough at first. Now they call and go, 'Oh, she'd be great with Joan,' but I haven't done it. I have my pride." Are these the thoughts of a normal teenager? "I'm not a normal teenager. I'm not, and I never wanted to be."
The bloom of womanhood and the dazzling glow of henna have already begun to envelop the birthday girl of Sixteen Candles. "I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a kid because I am a kid," she says. "But it's time to move on to more adult things."
Spending her kidhood strutting her stuff in everything from the West Coast production of Annie to TV's The Facts of Life, Molly really cut her eyeteeth on
such glandular epics as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and her current film, Pretty in Pink, where she plays a snubbed high school senior. Having
just turned 18, Molly will graduate this spring from the Lycee Francais in L.A. With a fire-alarm moptop and the look of an unspanked child, this '80s flapper chronicles her teen years -- 13: "confused and insecure"; 14: "mental, crazy"; 15: "growing"; 16: "confident." Now she facing the confounding questions of adulthood: What's her next film? Will she go to college? Buy a house? In Queen Molly's own words, she's "confused again."
Unlike the diffident and occasionally alienated teenagers she plays in her movies, Molly relishes the warmth and security of her family and their modest home in the San Fernando Valley. Her father, Bob Ringwald, is a blind musician who coaxed Molly into singing with his Great Pacific Jazz Band when she was just four. Her mother, Adele, is a housewife. "She's an amazing cook, an amazing woman," says Molly. "She can do just about anything."
When Molly is not working or going to school, she tools around L.A. in her BMW with Dweezil, rocker Frank Zappa's son. "You want to go to all the parties," says Molly, "but once you're there, you go, 'Ugghh, I want to go home.' I want the security of my family, of my dogs." She has three.
A more typical evening is a movie and dinner. A favorite haunt is Du-par's, a hash house in Studio City. "We hang out," says Dweezil. "We just enjoy
each other's company. We write song and do answering machine tapes."
Warren Beatty is another of Molly's friends. He is not her career guru, however. "He gives me his opinion, and I respect all my friends' opinions," says Molly. "But I never call Warren and say, "O.K., you mentor you, tell me what you think of this.'"
It would seem as if Molly has just about everything an 18-year-old could want. And she does. But now that she is legally an adult and able to control her own money (reportedly topping a half million per pic), she feel the need to indulge her parents. "My mom's always wanted a Volvo," she says, "and I'd like to drop one off in the driveway and say, like, 'Here.' I want to do a lot of material things for my parents when I'm, like, secure."
Cosmo Magazine 1984
Molly Ringwald - The Sweet Smell Of Success
By Todd Gold
This going-on-seventeen gamin stirred up a storm in Tempest, glowed endearingly in Sixteen Candles-and with The Breakfast Club, makes a bold bid for leader of the kid-star parade! - Cosmo Magazine 1984
The telephone call was a symbol to then fourteen-year-old actress Molly Ringwald that she had, indeed, arrived. On the other end was actor Warren
Beatty, praising her movie debut in Paul Mazursky's Tempest and asking to meet her. "I just went' Ahhh,' " she remembers. "It was really exciting."
Now, two-and-a-half years later, they're so chummy that Molly occasionally drops by to watch movies in his private screening room and has realistic hopes of working with him.
A May-September couple? Molly rolls her eyes. "There's absolutely nothing going on. Warren's just a good, nice, and very loyal friend." Still, few would
blame Beatty if he were infatuated. In last year's sleeper , Sixteen Candles, Molly, a sweet sixteen herself (she'll turn seventeen this month), made
freckles and pouty faces and broken teenage hearts delightfully voguish. Breakfast Club, which opened in February, promises to do the same as Molly,
Candles pal Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy share the crimes and passions of high-school detention hall. On a more serious note, she co starred
with Marsha Mason and Ellen Burstyn in ABC's Surviving, a tale of
teenage suicide.
Her convincing portrayals of pained adolescence notwithstanding, Molly,who wants to be a writer "when I grow up," admits she's an a typical teenager.
"In just one word," she says, "I'd call myself 'unique.' "
Physically, Molly's just hitting her stride and starting to indulge her individualistic fashion sense with baggy coats and lacy antique finery. She'll tuck her
tumble of dyed red hair (it's brown by nature) under a fedora with an upturned brim-kind of Boy-George-meets-Zelda-Fitzgerald. "l like my hands," she says in a moment of self-assessment, "and my mouth. I don't really like my eyes, but I like my nose. Overall, though, I'm satisfied with the way I look."
It was the way she sounds, however , that gave Molly her start. The youngest of three children born to Adele and Bob Ringwald, Molly was just four years old when she stepped on a California State Fair stage with her father, a blind jazz musician, and belted out a blues standard. At six she cut an album and four years later won a role in a road company of Annie. "It's funny," she says, "but I've always been more nervous singing in the living room than up on stage. I guess because I don't feel connected to anyone person when I'm up there."
At home, the bonds are solid. "We're all very close," says Molly, who still sings with her father's jazz band every Sunday night at a club near the family's San Fernando Valley home. An older sister died of leukemia and the kids lived with the fear that they might inherit their dad's blindness. She credits her parents for keeping her from becoming a prima donna. "They've helped me put everything in perspective," she explains. "My parents always remind me who I am and where I came from."
Those lessons allow her to be just another eleventh grader at the private school where she' 'tries to avoid anything to do with math. I'm one of those types who, if I applied myself, could be an excellent student," she jokes, "but I don't." Instead, she hops into her Volkswagen Rabbit convertible and haunts local thrift stores, sushi bars, and movie theaters. "I'm mostly a hang-out-in-a-coffee-shop gal," she says. At night she likes to "get crazy" at rock-and-roll clubs, but Molly frets that increasing fame makes cutting loose difficult. "I used to be able to dance my brains out, and nobody would even know who I was. But the last time I went dancing, everybody watched and I felt really strange."
Although Molly is without a boyfriend, she's not lonely. "Let's just say I'm sowing my wild oats," she says. Whoever joins her must abide by her curfew-10:00 P.M. on weekdays and 1:00 A.M. on weekends.
Ask about the future and Molly's face lights up with a big grin. There is talk that Warren Beatty has purchased the film rights to Edie, the biography of socialite and Warhol beauty queen Edie Sedgwick, for Molly to star in. "I read about it in some column," she says, "and was shocked. I desperately want to do it, but not now-I'm too young."
In the meantime, while she takes the SA Ts and decides which colleges to apply to, Molly Ringwald also enjoys the simple pleasures-like bumping into Jack Nicholson at Warren's house. "Oh, it's okay," she says. "Sometimes it's frustrating. But more often than not, being a movie star is really fun."
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