Molly Ringwald Talks About The ‘Breakfast Club’ Scene That ‘Hasn’t Aged Well’

40 years after The Breakfast Club’s release, Molly Ringwald, who played Claire Standish in the 1985 film, had some thoughts about her role and her recent perspective of the movie. She told The Times that she does not “enjoy watching” herself on screen, but she had to because her 20-year-old daughter, Mathilda, “wanted to see it with me.”

The 56-year-old rewatched The Breakfast Club and noted some details that did not sit right with her. “There is a lot that I really love about the movie, but there are elements that haven’t aged well— like Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harasses my character,” she admitted.

Molly Ringwald’s thoughts about ‘The Breakfast Club’ today

While sharing her fresh views to the UK outlet about The Breakfast Club, which tells the Saturday detention story of five teens from varying social backgrounds played by Molly, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, and Judd Nelson, the mother of three said she is “glad we’re able to look at that and say things are truly different now.”

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In 2015, she told PEOPLE that filming the classic was “a great experience” because she “was really loving the work that I was doing.”

“John and I had a symbiotic, respectful relationship. I didn’t know I’d be talking about it years later! But it was a great experience,” she added, with a nod to director John Hughes, who also worked with her on 1984’s Sixteen Candles.

Molly looked back on her ‘80s classics, including Sixteen Candles, admitting that she opposes a lot of what is in those movies. “There were parts of that film that bothered me then. Although everybody likes to say that I had, you know, John Hughes’ ear, and he did listen to me in a lot of ways, I wasn’t the filmmaker,” she explained, adding that she would ask John to take out or tweak some parts back then.

On the bright side, Molly thinks The Breakfast Club allowed teenagers to talk about their feelings. “Teenagers’ feelings really matter. And I think that’s a really powerful message, and for that reason, I really love it,” she said. The Riverdale star acknowledged that “times were different and what was acceptable then is definitely not acceptable now and nor should it have been then.”

“I feel very differently about the movies now, and it’s a difficult position for me to be in because there’s a lot that I like about them,” she told NPR.