Molly Ringwald made her stage debut at age 3. She played Sally Bowles on Broadway, starred in the Tony-nominated best play “Enchanted April” and is now headlining the national tour of the musical “Sweet Charity.”
But no matter what the calendar says, when Ringwald gets on the phone with a reporter, any reporter, the year instantly turns back to 1984. It’s not “Tick Tick … Boom!” that makes her questioners tick. It’s “Sixteen Candles.” “Pretty in Pink.” “The Breakfast Club.”
More than two decades later, the Brat Pack films that made Ringwald a star are both her blessing and her curse. After all, how many know that even as she was shooting those seminal teen films, she also was playing Miranda and Cordelia in film versions of “The Tempest” and “King Lear”?
“I am mindful that those films made a significant impact,” Ringwald, now 38, said from a “Sweet Charity” tour stop that on Tuesday comes to Denver.
“And so I do indulge every reporter who asks about them. … I just can’t muster too much enthusiasm,” she added with a good-natured laugh. “I have talked about them so much, ad nauseam. They are what they are. They have a place in American pop culture, I can’t deny that. I am fortunate that I’m not known for something that makes me cringe. But I am also very interested in my future and what I am doing today.”
However, her many fans would far rather talk about why she gave her panties to Anthony Michael Hall in “Sixteen Candles” than any Shakespearean role she’s played. Her very name inspires nostalgia – an ’80s cover band is called The Molly Ringwalds – and not only among those nearly 40.
The new documentary “Don’t You Forget About Me” examines the lasting impact of John Hughes’ movies. It says teens most often cite the Brat Pack films as those that best represent how kids look, feel and act even today. In a society where teen cultural interests turn over every few years, that’s remarkable.
Hughes’ characters are more identifiable because they are less perfect, less beautiful and thus, more believable. Teens can much more readily connect with the awkward loser Ringwald played in “Sixteen Candles” than with anyone Hollywood cutouts like Lindsay Lohan or Chris Klein portray.
“That does not surprise me, because kids come to ‘Sweet Charity’ and tell me that all the time,” Ringwald said. “John Hughes really tapped into something. His kids really do act like kids. We didn’t sound like jaded 30-year-olds in a board meeting.
“Every time I see any kind of teen thing now, it seems like no kids I know talk that way, and I certainly didn’t talk that way. It just seems nobody’s been able to capture that since then.”
Ringwald became a star just as Hollywood was taking its established obsession with extreme physical perfection and applying it to teenagers. That’s wreaked havoc on young audiences by perpetuating harmful body-image stereotypes.
“I have a 3-year-old daughter now, and that’s exactly why we don’t even have a TV at home,” said Ringwald, who is mother to Mathilda with boyfriend Panio Gianopoulos.
“I know I can’t shield her forever, but there really is incredible pressure on kids to look a certain way, and I want her to grow up without that for as long as possible.”
Some critics say film’s emphasis on teen beauty started with Hughes. But for every Demi Moore, Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez he introduced, there was an Anthony Michael Hall, an Ally Sheedy and a Ringwald.
“We all looked a little goofy in our movies, and I kind of like that,” Ringwald said. “I was doing my own hair, I was having bad experiments with color, and I was putting my own outfits together. That’s what kids did then, and that’s what they do now.
“The only time kids don’t do those things for themselves is in Hollywood, where they have handlers and stylers. I’ve never been interested by that.”
Ringwald grew up in Sacramento, Calif., the youngest daughter of Adele and Bob, a blind jazz pianist. Her first role was at age 3 with brother Kelly in “The Grass Harp.”
At first, her community theater group thought she was too young to memorize lines. “So I would just watch, and anytime anyone would (forget) their lines, I would yell it out from the audience until finally they were like, ‘We can’t stand it. Let’s give this kid a part.”‘
Ringwald surprised Hollywood when she put her stage and film career on hold and moved to Paris for four years in 1991. The America she came back to looked different from the America she left behind.
“I think we grow up with this American mythology that is drummed into you at a young age,” she said. “Yes, America is a great country and it was founded on great principles, but … there is a different perspective there, and I thought that was really valuable. It made me question things more.”
Ringwald is getting to know America like never before on the national tour of “Sweet Charity.” She was attracted to the sad story of the girl who just wanted to be loved. It’s based on a Federico Fellini screenplay lightened considerably for the stage by Neil Simon and a scorethat includes “Hey, Big Spender.”
“Fellini and Neil Simon together – isn’t that just crazy?” said Ringwald. “In the original movie, Charity finds out the guy she’s completely in love with is actually planning to kill her, but for this, they wanted her to end up more empowered. That’s really the only way you could end it and still keep to the genre because it is, after all, a Broadway musical.”
Ringwald is attracted to darker territory and complex characters, but she’s no Ally Sheedy.
“Anytime you go to a darker place, it’s definitely more interesting for the actor and the audience,” she said. “But I truly love musicals. I always say I want to be in a big, fluffy, nonsense musical, just because that would be so much fun.
“But somehow I always end up in these really complex parts that make me have to bleed for everyone,” she added – with a laugh.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
Ringwald onscreen
Molly Ringwald’s TV and film highlights:
“Facts of Life,” 1979-80: Ringwald played Molly Parker for the first two seasons of this popular TV sitcom about a boarding school for girls.
“Sixteen Candles,” 1984: In the first of John Hughes’ Brat Pack films, Ringwald plays a girl whose “Sweet 16th” brings every embarrassment possible. Quotable: “I can’t believe my grandmother actually felt me up.” … “I can’t believe I gave my panties to a geek!”
“The Breakfast Club,” 1985: In perhaps the most influential teen movie ever, five stereotyped high-school students meet in detention and discover they have more in common than they thought. Ringwald plays the prom queen. Quotable: “Do you know how popular I am? I am so popular. Everybody loves me so much at this school.” … “Doesn’t it bother you to sleep around without being in love? I mean, don’t you want any respect?”
“Pretty in Pink,” 1986: Ringwald plays a poor girl who falls for a rich and popular boy. Quotable: “I just want them to know that they didn’t break me!”
“P.K. and the Kid,” 1987: Why is it on the list? It was partly filmed in Denver. Ringwald plays a runaway who’s sexually harassed by her stepfather.
“Betsy’s Wedding,” 1990: Ringwald plays an offbeat fashion student who just wants an intimate little wedding reception. Her father turns the affair into a bank-breaking showpiece.
“The Stand,” 1994: The human race is wiped out by a government-invented super-flu in Stephen King’s apocalyptic TV epic. Speculation is that Claire on “Lost” was modeled after Ringwald’s Frannie.
“Not Another Teen Movie,” 2004: Ringwald plays a flight attendant in this sweet sendup of all teen movies. It’s set at John Hughes High School.
– Compiled by John Moore from research, imdb.com
“Sweet Charity”
MUSICAL|National touring production|Buell Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets|THROUGH DEC. 17|Opens Tuesday, then 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday|$25-$65|303-893-4100, 866-464-2626, all King Soopers or denver center.org; 800-641-1222 outside Denver
