Molly Ringwald says all young actresses deal with predatory Hollywood

Molly Ringwald appeared on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast (via People magazine) She revealed that she tried to convince her 20-year-old daughter not to become an actress because of how difficult it is for young women in Hollywood. Ringwald, an icon of 1980s teen movies thanks to her roles in The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and others, said she was exploited as a young actress — and that it was nearly impossible not to be a woman while growing up. In Hollywood.

“I never felt like I was part of a community when I was in Hollywood, just because I was really, really young,” Ringwald said. “I didn’t want to go to clubs. I feel like I’m more social now than I was then. I was very young.

“Well, you’re lucky you didn’t get taken advantage of or get into a terrible situation,” Maron replied.

“Oh, I was taken advantage of,” Ringwald replied. “You can’t be a young actress in Hollywood without having predators around you.”

Ringwald said she was “definitely in questionable situations” as a young actress, but relied on her “incredible survival instinct and very large superego” to “figure out a way to protect herself” from predators in the industry.

“It could be terrifying,” Ringwald added. “I now have a 20-year-old daughter who works in the same profession, although I have done everything I can to convince her to do something else. It is difficult.”

Ringwald recently watched The Breakfast Club with her daughter, but found some of the material in the classic to be dated. “There’s a lot that I really like in the film but there are elements that are no longer there,” she told The Times of London. “I’ve aged well — like Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who sexually harasses my character.”

“I’m glad we’re able to look at that and say things are really different now,” she said.

In a widely read interview with NPR in 2018, Ringwald admitted that she feels “completely differently about the movies” that made her famous now. She notes a scene in her 1984 classic “Sixteen Candles,” where a fan of her character, Jake Ryan, suggests taking advantage of his girlfriend who has passed out at a party.

“When I made these movies with John Hughes, he wasn’t going to make Porky’s or Animal House,” Ringwald said at the time. “But I think, as everyone says and I think it’s true, that times were different and what was acceptable then is certainly (un)acceptable now, and it shouldn’t have been then, but that’s the way it is.”

“I feel very differently about movies now, and it’s hard for me to be in them, because there’s so much I love about them,” she added. “And of course I don’t want to sound ungrateful to John Hughes, but I’m opposed to a lot of what’s in those movies.”

Listen to Ringwald’s full interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast here.