Molly Ringwald has been reexamining her creative partnership with the late, great John Hughes – which spawned iconic eighties films like Sixteen Candles (1983), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986).
The 57-year-old Brat Packer shared the same February 18th birthday with the filmmaker, who was a 33-year-old married father-of-two when he penned the Sixteen Candles script as the 15-year-old’s headshot hung above his desk for inspiration.
‘It’s peculiar. It’s complimentary. I always felt it was incredibly complimentary. Looking back on it, there is something a little peculiar,’ Molly confessed of being John’s muse during Tuesday’s episode of Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky.
‘It’s complex. It’s definitely complex. It’s something that I turn over in my head a lot and try to figure out, how that all affected me. I feel like I’m still processing all of that and I probably will until the day I die.’
Ringwald had far more experience in the film industry than John as she already had a Golden Globe Award nomination after shooting three films and two major sitcoms – Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life.
‘Sixteen Candles was his directorial debut,’ the Feud: Capote vs. The Swans actress noted.
Molly Ringwald has been reexamining her creative partnership with the late, great John Hughes – which spawned iconic eighties films like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink (pictured in 1985)
The 57-year-old Brat Packer shared the same February 18th birthday with the filmmaker, who was a 33-year-old married father-of-two when he penned the Sixteen Candles script as the 15-year-old’s headshot hung above his desk for inspiration (pictured in 1983)
‘I had actually had more experience but I was still only 15 years old so I didn’t have a lot of life experience. It didn’t seem that strange to me [that I was his muse]. Now, it does.’
The coming-of-age teen comedy went on to earn $23.6M at the box office from a modest $6.5M budget.
Molly finds some elements of Sixteen Candles ‘troubling’ in a modern lens – most obviously with the racist portrayal of the foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe).
Hughes depicts most of the teenage boys as bumbling, sexual harassers and the movie climaxes with the hunky Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) urging Farmer Ted (Anthony Michael Hall) to date rape his drunk girlfriend Caroline (Haviland Morris) because ‘she won’t know the difference.’
Seven months after the National Lampoon alum died, age 59, from a heart attack – Ringwald joined Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Jon Cryer, Matthew Broderick, and Macaulay Culkin at the 2010 Academy Awards to honor his career with a tribute.
‘John believed in me, and in my gifts as an actress, more than anyone else I’ve known, and he was the first person to tell me that I had to write and direct one day,’ the flame-haired mother-of-two wrote in The New Yorker in 2018.
‘He was also a phenomenal grudge-keeper, and he could respond to perceived rejection in much the same way the character of Bender did in The Breakfast Club. But I’m not thinking about the man right now but of the films that he left behind. Films that I am proud of in so many ways.’
John also directed Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Curly Sue, She’s Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck.
Hughes produced and wrote National Lampoon’s Vacation, Mr. Mom, National Lampoon’s European Vacation, The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Dutch, and Beethoven.
Molly has roles in two upcoming feature films – Jeffrey Obrow’s thriller Pursued and Sean Nalaboff’s mystery Montauk.
Molly confessed of being John’s muse during Tuesday’s episode of Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky: ‘It’s peculiar. It’s complimentary. I always felt it was incredibly complimentary. Looking back on it, there is something a little peculiar’
She continued: ‘It’s complex. It’s definitely complex. It’s something that I turn over in my head a lot and try to figure out, how that all affected me. I feel like I’m still processing all of that and I probably will until the day I die’
Ringwald had far more experience in the film industry than John as she already had a Golden Globe Award nomination after shooting three films and two major sitcoms – Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life (pictured)
![The Feud Capote vs. The Swans actress noted: 'Sixteen Candles was his directorial debut. I had actually had more experience but I was still only 15 years old so I didn't have a lot of life experience. It didn't seem that strange to me [that I was his muse]. Now, it does'](https://usercontent.one/wp/www.newscabal.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1741737976_647_Molly-Ringwald-admits-039peculiar039-relationship-with-iconic-80s-director-33.jpeg)
The Feud Capote vs. The Swans actress noted: ‘Sixteen Candles was his directorial debut. I had actually had more experience but I was still only 15 years old so I didn’t have a lot of life experience. It didn’t seem that strange to me [that I was his muse]. Now, it does’
The coming-of-age teen comedy went on to earn $23.6M at the box office from a modest $6.5M budget
Molly finds some elements of Sixteen Candles ‘troubling’ in a modern lens – most obviously with the racist portrayal of the foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe)
Hughes depicts most of the teenage boys as sexual harassers and the movie climaxes with Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) urging Farmer Ted (Anthony Michael Hall) to date rape his drunk girlfriend Caroline (Haviland Morris) because ‘she won’t know the difference’
Seven months after the National Lampoon alum died, age 59, from a heart attack – Ringwald joined Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Jon Cryer, Matthew Broderick, and Macaulay Culkin at the 2010 Academy Awards to honor his career with a tribute
