The Breakfast Club Turns 30: Molly Ringwald on 9 Things You Never Knew About the Film Inline
Photo: Everett Collection1/9John Hughes nearly fired Judd Nelson because of his attitude toward Molly Ringwald.
“I think [Nelson] was just really in character and his character was supposed to get at me. I kind of knew what he was doing and it didn’t really bother me, but John was very protective of me.”
Photo: Everett Collection2/9Molly Ringwald was originally cast as Allison, but convinced John Hughes she should play Claire.
“I told him I was really more interested by Cathy [the original character name of Claire] and so he said ‘I’m going to have to go to the studio and get permission.’”
Photo: Everett Collection3/9Originally, the character of Claire was named Cathy, which Molly Ringwald changed.
“I just thought that Cathy was such an ordinary name, and I felt like Claire should have had a name that was a little bit more snotty. I felt like Claire just sounded like a family name. It wasn’t really a name that was used that much in the eighties, but Cathy was a very common name.”
Photo: (from left) Everett Collection; Getty Images4/9Robin Wright may also have been considered for the role of Claire.
When Ringwald told Hughes she was more interested in the role of Claire, she had a hunch that someone else was involved. “I have a feeling that Robin Wright actually was being considered for the part of Cathy . . . I sort of got the feeling that there was someone else that they had in mind for Cathy, so he had to get the studio to agree to let me do it.”
Photo: Everett Collection5/9The “marijuana” the cast smoked in the film was actually tobacco.
Rumor had it that the cast was smoking oregano, but Ringwald remembers otherwise: “They probably said that it was oregano because, I don’t know, the legality of smoking, but I think it’s been long enough that no one’s going to come after us. I remember it being tobacco.”
