Welcome to the (Breakfast) Club | Generation X

John Hughes was, you know, our prophet. Even though there are any spaceships and Wookiees, I'm part of the reason I do what I do today. It's because John made those movies: Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club. They have a lot of the pleasures and a lot of the sincere emotions of great old Hollywood romances, but they're set in the world of the suburban American high school.

And, you know, instead of Bette Davis, there's Molly Ringwald. It's one of the best scripts that I think I've ever read. He didn't talk down to kids; he gave a voice to a generation, to teenagers that was intelligent but still sounded like the age that we were. And you got your heart dies. Who cares? I can't when you were 15, 14, 13, feeling completely adrift, feeling unable to make connections.

The idea that you can be the skinny little nerd and you can talk to the cute redhead, a dream girl, and she won't look at you with scorn. Of course, that's empowering! Of course, that's exciting! I think every girl felt like Molly Ringwald. It wasn't like I looked at her and went, "Oh, she looks like me," but there was, on a grander level, I think I felt like, "Oh, I could be her."