Molly Ringwald: 'These Films No Longer Belong to Me'

my guest today, Molly Ringwald. Molly strikes you as someone who had it all figured out early, that she systematically set out to be a teen icon, but her idea of success was far less defined than that. I think the only thing that I planned out was when I was seven years old, six or seven years old, I think I announced that I was going to be a famous movie star. Who to the mirror or two I

think they full well. I probably announced it to the mirror as well, but uh no, there was There was a particular time when I announced it out loud to I think relatives, cousins or something like that, and my grandmother and my mother's mother said, you can't say that, you know that that was That was unseemly or immodest

or something like that. And the reason why I remember it was because my mother became so enraged and infuriated that she grabbed me and all the kids and we left my aunt's house in this she was infuriated by someone that her mother. Yeah, well, because I think that's that's something that was told to her, and she would not can't do that. Don't do it to my kids. Discouragement, don't. Yeah, you can't do that. So I think that's the reason that I had this certainty that I was going to

be uh an entertainer. I don't even know if I said movie star, but I think I definitely said I was gonna be a famous entertainer. And you know, and I was already sort of like a season pro by then. I mean by seven years old, I had already been on stage, you know, performed with my dad's jazz and it was, you know, it was I had reason to believe that this was what I was going to do. Now,

your dad is he still alive. He's a musician, he is, And was that was music and culture and an appreciation of things cultural president in your household, Arry, Yeah, Yeah, but it was not only an appreciation in terms of art as something that is fun or interesting. It was also a job. He made a living as a pianist. Yeah yeah, I mean he he supported a family, you know, until I started working. He supported a family and a musician salary, which is no small feat. Now, your father

is blind. Was he legally blind from birth? He was legally blind from birth. Uh, and and then completely entirely blind by the time I think he was about ten. Between ten and twelve did he grew up. He grew up in Northern California, in Sacramento, and then he went away to the Berkeley School for the Blind when he was I think around twelve, and learned how to write

brail and he had a guide dog and all of that. Um, I mean people very often asked me, you know, what was it like having a blind father, And it's me, It's like I never knew anything else. So and and to me, he could do anything. I mean, he he was so if anything, I felt like my mother was was handicapped because she's painfully shy. Um. So my father made all the phone calls, you know. He was the

you know, the social calendar. He could talk to anyone, you know, he's he was an entertainer, and so you know, he just has always had that facility, and of course it wasn't easy, and which is now that he gets older and you know, he's more comfortable having people do things for him. And I will say, you know, but Dad, you could do anything, and he's like, that's ridiculous. Of course I didn't. I couldn't do everything. I just wanted you to think that I could. And he did. I mean,

he he was, he was. I think he was an amazing father and is an amazing father. When you know, you're at the very least you're rehearsing in the mirror before you go up and tell everybody in your family what your plans are. Um, when is that change? When does that really become real for you? I think, well, I think when I was when I was little, I really wanted to be Um. I think singing was the

most important thing. I mean, that was the thing that made the most sense, and UM I wanted to be Basically, I wanted to be Bessie Smith because that's kind of because that's who I listened to. My dad was a traditional is a traditional jazz musician, and so that was my early introduction to jazz music was listening to Bessie Smith, and there was something about her. I mean I was pretty shy. I still am pretty shy. Um, But when

I was little, I was very very shy. But the only time I didn't feel shy was when I was on stage in front of an audience. Um, and it had to be a big audience, like if if somebody

wanted me to know, I can't how many. Yeah, but I mean if it was like, you know, a couple of people in the living room that was too that was too close, if if there were if there was literally and I'm still a little bit like that, like for since I did um a couple of weeks at the Carlisle Hotel singing singing, Yeah, because I've I've recently taken up singing again. And I mean, of course you know that that room, Well, it's it's really hard because

you're really close to the people. I mean there's no way to have any kind of distance, So you know that. I think it worked really well. I mean I got and they put the people right. I mean the people were practically looking under my skirt. It was it was

really kind of I don't doubt that but who produced this? Um, Well, I decided, Um, okay, we're gonna we're gonna cut ahead from you know, from the time that I was little because a few things, a few things happened in between me announcing that I was going to be a famous uh star, and and then you know, so the music kind of was the first thing that I wanted to do.

And then I think by the time I did my first movie when I was thirteen years old, I think it was with John Cassavetti's and General Rollins and Susan Sarandon and Raoul Julie and it was just it was called The Tempest, uh, and I think it was that how did you get into the movie business? Okay, wait, um how did I get in the well? Where were you? Then?

We had moved from Roseville, California to Los Angeles when I auditioned for my first professional job when I was ten, um, which was Annie, the first West Coast production of Annie, and I got a part in that. And at the same time, um, my father got some job or something, and so we decided as a family to move from Sacramento to Los Angeles. And then once I was in l A, you know, I did you know that thing that happens where you get an agent, and then I went from the play and I went into a television

series and then just started. You were driven, You had the very driven Yeah, very driven, But I mean I also had to stay at home mom, who would drive me to stuff? You can't do that without having somebody that's going to you know, do you take you when you have a debt to your mom in a certain way. It was definitely a desire that I had that I wouldn't have been able to do at that age had it not been for them being on board for that.

Of course, if you talk to my mother now, she says, well, there's no way I would let you do that if I knew everything I know about show business. Now, there's no way. There's no way. But you went to school while you were doing You went to Lis frances I went to when I was in tenth grade, tenth to twelve. Did you go to college? I did not go to college. So the tempest, how does this estimable group of people, especially back then, you know Cassavetti's and Jenna and those people.

You know, they're still famous and making a lot of movies. How do they find you. I had auditioned and got really close to a job in an Alan Parker movie, UM with Albert Finney and died Keaton called shoot the movie to play their daughter, and um, they had to make up their mind by I think, you know, twelve twelve noon on a Wednesday, and they got the call. My mom got the call. I was at school, you know, at that they had decided to go with another actress.

And I was so heartbroken. I mean I really really really really wanted to do it. And then it was pretty much like all the rejects from them from that, you know, it was being cast. It was Juliet Taylor and April Webster and they they took all the kids from that and um, and then I auditioned for The Tempest and I just had an immediate connection to California. In California, Yeah, and I would like to be on the set of that movie with all these very highly

regarded actors. It was incredible. How did they treat you? Amazing? I mean they were John was was phenomenal. I mean he was he was so generous and so um. I mean it was it was a world that I really didn't know. I had never even been out of California until, you know, maybe to Nevada or something like that. But you know, I was playing a New York kid. I went to New York for the first time. I went to Greece. We filmed a shinnishitav you know, Fellini was on the set. I mean, it was like the entire

world opened up. Yeah, and I thought, this is this is what I want to do, this is this is it. And I think the singing at that time, like now, you're supposed to be able to do everything, you know, and in old Hollywood you were supposed to be able to do everything. You know, you dance and sing, you know, and then and then this little time when I sort of came of age, it was very specialized and there were there were not that many people that were singing

and acting and dancing. It was like you had to pick or you weren't a serious actor. And I chose acting, and that's really where I put on my focus. And I still sang, but I just didn't think about it as a as a career. After the Tempest, what happened after the Tempest? I did a really fantastic movie UM called Space Hunter Adventures in the Forbidden Zone in three D movie. That's so good. I remember showing you to my daughter, you know, when she was like five years

old or something. You know, I think it was maybe the first thing that I'd ever showed to her. You know, this is what mommy does. And she watched about twenty minutes and then went the edge. Who's making the decisions for you back then? You know, it was a combination. It was something you know that I read that I liked. I think I had pretty good taste. I mean, to

Stay Center was a good script. Um well maybe except for spe but you know, at that point, it was either be in high school or be At that time it was junior high. Get it. You wanted to be on a set. I wanted to work. The only thing that I said I did not want to do pretty much was I decided I no longer wanted to go out for commercials. I was that was not my thing. I didn't like what happens um after Space Center. I

might be forgetting a couple of things. I did a movie with Richard Benjamin, I think a television movie V. I did like a couple of other little things. And then and then I met John Hughes. Where did you meet John? I met John in Universal City. It was on the weekend. I remember I did not want to take this meeting because it was the weekend. And it was just like, not really what I wanted to do. You want to be in on a set until you want to go to the beach exactly exactly, or go

to the galleria. That's what That's what we did. And uh and so. But he was only there for you know, a couple of days, and they said I would just go go and meet him, and and and I did. I think I had read Um sixteen Candles, which I thought was really funny. And then I think the first thing I saw were his sneakers. You know, he always had those those big wild athletics sneakers, and I think

that's the first thing that I saw. And then I, you know, my eyes traveled up and he had that like spiky hair and those glasses and the first movie. I loved him, loved him that he was writing that or had the idea to write it during Breakfast Club. He wanted to write a series if she's leaving home, Um, she's getting married, she's having a baby. And then I think he didn't do the other two but just did that one. Um. Yeah, so we we just kind of

had an immediate connection. I didn't find out until later, or he might have actually told me in that meeting that he wrote sixteen Candles with my picture above his desk.

He had already written The Breakfast Club, which was going to be cast locally in Chicago, and it was over July four weekend, and he had just moved from CIA to I c M. And they gave him a stack of head shots and he sort of flipped through the head shots found my picture, you know, one of those really cheesy kind of head shots where your own Yeah, exactly, you're eating pizza playing ukulele that you can't play, uh yeah, and so and he put that over his computer and

he wrote sixteen Candles. You know, like in a day and a half or something. Now, this is a guy who sees something in you and he changes your life, and people to this day just love you in these movies. I mean, they just think you represent young femininity. Was any of the conversation with John about that. Did you talk about the character in that way or he didn't bother It's hard to really know what we talked about. I mean, how did you do what you did? You know,

I just I just trusted him. I felt like, and I've really never felt this since, you know, it was it was you know, I felt a little bit with Paumazerski, but it was. But it was different because because John was younger, I mean, John actually had less experience than I had at that point. I mean, sixteen Candles was his directorial debut. He had written Vacation and he had written Mr. Mom, but he had never been in that

position of actually like being on the set um. So it was really like we were kids in that way together, and he was really like a like a confidante, which I mean, to talk about it in retrospect seems you could say it kind of seems weird. You know, well, I mean, I'm older than than he was when we met. But when I was thirty six years old, like I didn't want to talk to people who were fifteen. I didn't.

Why do you think he did? I don't know. I I've often asked myself this, and I don't know exactly why, except for we had this like sort of mind connection, that that whole thing of like finishing each other sentences and he was very close to me, and he was also very close to Michael Anthony Michael Hall, and we were sort of like, I think, two sides of his personality.

I kind of feel like in a way that John experienced some kind of PTSD when it came to his teen years and and and how I mean PTSD is, you know, from what I understand, and you know, the definition or one of the definitions, is you experience something traumatic in your brain is not exactly able to distinguish the fact that it's not happening now in the present.

And for him, he would talk about things that had happened to him years ago, or a slight or something that somebody said to him, and it was you would think, it's so present for him. He's feeling this pain, in this anguish and this anger right now. And and so he completely connected with me and with with Michael and what we were going through, you know, of course, and I think it enabled him to write these characters with so much honesty and and and it was so raw.

He was a very sensitive guy. He was the most sensitive person that I've ever met in my life. And and I and I include myself in that um and There's a line in the Breakfast Club that that I thought was really sort of interesting when an a. It's a line that Alison has where she's as when you get old, your heart dies, and um, you know, and he he died of a heart attack. Too young, way

too young. But I feel like he carried around so much in in him, so much feeling and so like, I mean, this man could hold a grudge like like no one else you know. Um, so you know, So my feelings about him are you know, like anybody I think who's really incredibly important to you in your life. It's it's complicated and this seems this is going to sound kind of glib, but it's like que the theme song from To Serve with Love. When you do sixteen Candles,

refresh my memory? Does everything erupted based on that? Or does it erupted somewhat and erupted even more when you do Breakfast Club. Well, when sixteen Candles came out, it really was not considered a hit. I think it was sort of um in terms of box office it was kind of disappointing. Um, but we were already doing Breakfast Club when that happened. And and then Breakfast Club came out and that was an instantly a hit. And then I did another one which he did not direct, Pretty

in Pink, but he wrote it for me. Uh, And then that that was how he directed Pretty in Pink. That's right, that's right. Uh. Would you work with him on? He did this movie My Best Friend's Girl, with Dane Cook, and they wanted me to play Dane Cook's father. And I was this lascivious pig of a man who was divorced from the mother and the son had no hope of ever having any success in intimate relationships because I was such a horn dog slut pig. But I love Howie.

He's fun to work. Yeah, yeah, well he he Actually I have Howie to thank for that movie because John had written it for me. But by the time it was time to make this movie, and you know, he had moved from Universal to Paramount. John was mad at me and didn't want me to do the movie. They were going cast Jennifer Beals because she had just had

a success with Flashdance. In Pretty and Pink, the movie that was written for me, they were going to cast Jennifer Beals, and Howie was actually the one that said, but no, Molly has to be in this, this, this is, this is because that's what he did. I mean, maybe you didn't work with him enough enough to if you if you got close to John, then inevitably you were not close to John because he got mad at you.

And I think when I wanted to do different stuff, and um, it's almost as almost like, don't work for anyone else. Yeah, you know it's I'm ready. If I had to do it over again, I would have worked with him more. I do know that he was mad. When when you're doing these films Breakfast Club, it's this ensemble of young talent. Was everybody on like an equal footing?

Did he bring people on who were all kind of in the same place in their careers or were there some of you that were things were a little shinier than others. I think we were all sort of I mean maybe I think Ali had a lot of uh, you know, she had done war games and she did a movie with Sean Penn, and you know, written a book,

and she was she was she was yeah, exactly. Um, so I think she had, you know, and then and then Emilio was in the Outsiders, and he had that and he was of course, the son of Martin Sheen. And you know, I think I think we all kind of except for Judd. Judd was the only one that I think really didn't have any real experience, and in fact, he he got fired after like I think one week of shooting. John was ready to fire him, and then

we hired him. And then we hired him because I was going to say, the person who comes across the hungriest on camera is Nelson. Interesting. Nelson almost seems like he's a guy that they plucked off the street and threw in there and said, what would you like to be in a movie? And he just had this raw

animal so he was wild eyed. He was wild I mean, he was really and he was really doing that whole method acting thing where he was I think, you know, moonlighting in a school, which I mean, I'm sure would not go over today if this, you know, basically a somebody in their twenties just shows up at school like, hey, I'm just going to hang out, you know. He he would tell the kids that his parents had abandoned him

or whatever, you know, he was. He would like sleep in his clothes, you know, I mean, he just was completely into this character. And also that character was supposed to be different than the rest of us. I mean, we all bitch about our parents, but he's really the

one who's actually being abused for real. He has like a cigar burnt into his forearm, you know, so there was something different about him when that when that movie comes out, because I want to get beyond this period when that movie thank you, I do too, that movie coming to But but I think what's interesting, it's it's it's funny how one day you know you are a movie star whose work as a young leading lady in

these coming of age films were very popular films. Do you kind of like you're like, oh, yeah, okay, great, you don't really want to well, I mean I sometimes sure, But I mean I also have to accept the factor. I mean, I guess I don't have to accept it, but I do accept the fact that these films really no longer belong to me. They belong to everyone else, and they're very meaningful and I and I have to

sort of respect that. Um, you know. I mean, I'm wrapped up in people's memories and I'm part of their their slumber parties, and I'm part of their first kiss, and I and I mean, I can't tell you how many times I hear you got me through high school, you got me through this very difficult time in my life, you know. And and it's kind of people never say that to me. They never say that to me. They never say Glen Garry, Glen Ross got me through high school,

cut me through my twenties. Um, I can respect that. At the same time, it's not what is most interesting to me in my life. You know. It's definitely one of the highlights. But I'm more interested in sort of what I'm doing in the moment. Molly Ringwald is singing jazz at the moment, or rather next month at Birdland in New York City. Take a listen to the Here's the Thing Archives, where director Chris Columbus talks about the stroke of luck that led to his first movie Spielberg.

Steven Spielberg was leaving his office on a Friday and passed his secretary's desk, and it was sitting there. That's why so much of this business is luck. He passed the script and saw the title and said that looks interesting. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing. My guest today is author, singer, and actress Molly Ringwald. Molly Ringwald actually has something in common with another one

of my guests, Mickey Rourke. They both took a long time off from filmmaking after the massive success of films like The Breakfast Club and Pretty and Pink. Molly knew she had an opportunity to reinvent herself, but she was unsure how to begin. I guess I was just really young. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I don't think it was probably the right time for me

to do that. I mean, I look at people now like Lena Denham and and you know, and John was always telling me, you have to write, you have to direct, this is what you have to do. But it was like I just wasn't ready, and I had to I had to live a little bit before I was ready to sort of. I just I don't feel like I was a prodigy in that way. Um and and I needed to live life kind of away from everything and sort of learn how to be a human being and sort of be more well rounded. And that's sort of

what I ended up doing. When you make these films and you're very young and you're surrounded by people, but you're savvy. Who were the people you work with? It you ended up admiring actors. Director, who who's let's stick with actors for the time being. Who was somebody who you work with and you thought, wow, they were really they were good. John. I think John Cassavetti's um, I think about your peers, Raoul Julia in terms of my peers, Um, I'm trying to think who did I? Who did I? Really?

I really loved Sean Penn. I really wanted to work with him as an actor, but he was older than me. He was, you know, I think he's like a good ten ten years older than me. There was really nobody at the time that was that was my age, that that I could get paired up with, and and it was like another moment in time you've already been paired up with all of them. It was also a time where they weren't casting really young p bowl with older people like they are now. Like your leading man was

not thirty years older. It just wasn't done like right then in this like little tiny moment of time. And so we came across that that thing all the time. We're like, nobody knew who to set me up with on film. You weren't cast opposite Sean Connery, No, No, I was not. I mean I never really had any male co stars that were sort of that that could sort of where I was a little bit and that's what I did. But like Robert Downey at the time,

wasn't known. I mean he was, he was really sort of he had small parts I think in John's movies, but you know, he was a big part for him though. That was a huge part of Toback, our mutual friend Toback, who was a guest on this show by the way to back, I love Toback. He was great with me. I think I was probably the only woman that that he never made a play for, like in the history of the universe, you know, and that was just because you know, Warren was producing it and so I sort

of it was like having like the Mafia. They're like, you knew, you know, don't don't go near here. Um. Yeah. So it was just kind of like a weird time where I think people didn't really know what to do with me, and I was not. I mean, I was savvy, but I was not savvy enough to really know exactly what to do with myself, other than to get out

to sort of distance myself. I had a famous actress once in the late eighties, and she was shooting a film and she came to the set to meet me to talk about doing a reading of a script with her. And this actress, this famous actress who was a child star, said to me she was going to take off a year or something, and I said, don't you like to work? I said, how do you take off all that time? I mean, you must have endless opportunities to make films.

You're very talented and very sought after. And she said I hate working because she'd worked so much when she was young, and she really affected her. Did you feel the same way, UM, I don't know that I ever hated working. Um, Did you grow to feel like you've done enough of that? It was that I was so not turned on by the material, and I didn't know how to write myself. Then I was writing, um, and I've always written, you know, along with with singing and acting.

But it was I wasn't good enough and I wasn't confident enough in what I was writing to put it out there. So what did you do? What did I do? I mean, in those years after those films with John? What was your kind of compass you said to you use if I want to do what? I moved to Paris? Talk about that. How long were you there? I was there, I mean full time for about five years, and then and then pretty much on and off for about ten years. Um. I moved from Paris to New York and then I

kept a residence in both places. But I just I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, other than I wanted to be somewhere where I could just be myself. So I went to Paris. I got rid of the red hair, I you know, dyed my hair dark. I learned French. I mean, I went to French class. I mean before I went to Paris, I did what I was supposed to do and were single. You weren't married then, No,

I was not married. Um, I was still in Los Angeles, but I I Um, I applied to a college, you know, because I felt like that's what I was supposed to do. And I got accepted to usc UM with the agreement that I would take special math courses because I'm so bad with math uh. And then I went to Paris to do a job, one of those you know, stupid jobs that you know where it's a terrible script, but you know, hey, you're going to be in Paris in May, and why not, you know. And then I went there

and I just thought this. It was like suddenly breathing oxygen after you've been just suffocating um, and it was. It was the most incredible feeling. And I thought, I just have to chase this. I'm not married, I don't have any kids. If I ever do this in my life. Now is the time. I was about twenty three, and what did you do with yourself over there? I just lived. I just like drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of cheese and walked around and and learned

French and and become a part of something. Yeah. I mean, I just you know, eventually, I knew that my life was not going to end up there. I knew that I was not going to become, you know, the next Jane Berkin. I wasn't going to you know, that's not where I was going to end up. But it was. It was. It gave me some distance to sort of recharge and to figure out you know what what I was going to do with my life and who I

was going to be. And then I kind of had to sort of decide again whether or not I wanted to act as an adult, you know, because when I did it as a young person, it was so completely it was just all instinct, you know, and I and I, you know, can you really say that you make a decision when you're liner? You know, Yeah, I loved it, but it wasn't I wouldn't say it was entirely my decision.

So I kind of had to make that decision again as an adult and say, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing this, but I'm gonna do other stuff too. What did you step up to bad again? So to speak? With the acting was actually, you're a little bit instrumental in this. No, it's a it's a good thing. I think it's a really good thing. I you know, when you do something for so long and it comes easy to you, it's easy to kind of lose respect for what you do, and you sort of realized that not

everyone can do it. And I remember I was asked to do a to read a story for the New Yorker Festival, and you were reading a story too, and I was really pregnant at the time, I remember, and I wasn't crazy about the story that I was reading. But you did the most incredible reading I've ever heard. It was it was phenomenal. I mean, you had to do an Irish accent, you had to do an African acts. Do you remember this? Really? It was? It was it was an Irish ride her. Um. It was because I thought,

how is he doing? Like how much did he work on this? And it really kind of made me remember in a way what what was possible in terms of acting and how and how that it really is a skill. And I had to sort of look at that and say, like, well, how is he like does he just like work on accents when he's sitting by himself? And it was sort

of like a series. I mean that that wasn't the only moment, but that was like a moment like that sort of I had these moments and doing theater again and you're looking at someone and you're like, that's what that is? Yeah, And I want to see somebody like Cherry Jones. Every time I see Cherry. She's a very vivid example of someone who reminds me of why we do this. Yeah, And and also Jeffrey tamber and what

he's doing right now in Transparent. You know, I've always known him, I think, as most people as a comedic actor, and I you know, I worked with him, um and he was, you know, playing one of the buffoon of many that he played. And to see him play this part and not do the obvious thing. It's moments like those that remind me of why I'm doing what I'm doing and how and how challenging it can still be.

But in order to do work like that, you have to have great material, and unfortunately there is just a dearth of great material for everyone, but particularly for for actresses. It's it's even worse. So, you know, so I can't only do that. I think if I'm only an actor, I'll go out of my mind. And it's it's why I write books, and it's why I sing, and you know I do It's, Uh, it's the hardest thing that I do. For sure. It doesn't come easily, Like I

didn't come out of the womb writing books. So it's something that I always have to work at and I I don't I don't think that I've ever had that confidence in writing, but it's something that I have that I'm more proud of when I've written the hell out of something and I and I understand something about a care and why somebody does what they do, which I think is the same thing that I'm interested in in

in acting. It's it's the characters and how you can take somebody who's so flawed and see them from all angles and and that's just an obsession that I have. And when I do that and I do it well, there's no greater feeling. I feel like I'm flying. I love doing plays, and I don't get to do them as often as i'd like, especially now that I have little kids. Do you do you like performing in the theater? I do, yeah, But do you minimize that because of

your own family situation? Um? No, It's actually one of the reasons why I moved back to New York was because I really missed doing theater, and my kids all love theater. How old are your children now? I have a twelve year old and I have two six year olds, a girl and a boy. Adel In Roman, you have three children. I have three children, and you live outside the city. You're not in the city, No, not right? Now and that was what you needed to do with

your kids. Yeah, you want to get out of the the city. Yeah, well I wanted to have proximity to the city, you know. Um, but but you know, when we were in Los Angeles, we kept sort of trying out in neighborhoods and I just kept getting further and further out. You know, we moved back and I said, well, you know, when I was in Los Angeles, I was always on the east side. So if I have to go back, I'm going to be on the west side, and my kids are going

to grow up in the surf. So we started out in Venice, and then we moved to Santa Monica and then to Rusta Canyon, and then we you know, ended up into Panga until finally I just said, you know, in fact, I don't want to be here. I really don't want to No, I mean, I want to go back to visit my my parents are are in northern California. I just I don't like Hollywood. I just, um, you know, And I don't care if you're into Panga, if you're in the vicinity of Los Angeles. It's just it just

doesn't feel real to me. And and never really did. And maybe it's because I wasn't born in Los Angeles. I was born in northern California. But I and I feel like there's a real distinction between northern and southern California. But it just it always felt like artifice to me. It never felt real. And so when when I had everyone's eyes on me, it felt uncomfortable. When I had when I felt like no one's eyes around me, that feels uncomfortable. It just the whole the whole thing just

didn't feel good to me. And I finally, and I was really the one that wanted to move back to New York because my husband was raised on the East Coast and you know, for him California, he's a book editor and writer and uh, and then he took a little hiatus and got his MBA at Stanford. You're a genius, He's a he's a genius. Yeah. So, but he liked he liked it out there, you know, and he made

some good friends and it was very sunny. But I just said, if, if, I, if we moved back, we have to do it now because Matilda is leaving middle school and I don't want her to go to a middle school and pull her out of it. So if we do it, we have to do it now? Yeah, pretty much? Um? And I would have I would have just sucked it up and just stayed there if if it didn't happen. But I said, I really, I will

wither and die. Not that I'm dramatic or anything, but I will wither and die if I have to stay here. Please please let's go back, and so um and so yeah, so we're back. How driven and how creative and how uh stage worthy is Matilda? And how are you going to handle that differentely than yours? Percent? She I, I have a rule. I don't know if you made the same rule for your kids, but my my kids are not allowed to be professional as kids. And that's just

based on my own personal experience. I don't think that they just if they have talent, that talent will not go away. And if they go through college and get to or at least to that college age and say, you know what, this is really what I want to do, I'll do whatever I can to help them and support them. But they know that they can't do that before then. But I said, you can do theater, you can take classes,

you know you can. Um, you know, you can do whatever you want as long as it's not professional all. And it's been a battle. I think I think Matilda's somewhat resigned now, Um, but you know it's been I mean for a while it was a daily battle. You know, well, why why can't I? Why could you? Why was it okay for you and not for me? Um? And I just you know, we just it's both of us. It's not just me. My husband and I have made that decision. And I just want to see what they do. I mean,

they're extraordinary, you know. And and personally, I think if I was gonna, if I was a betting person, I would bet that she is is going to be a director, and I just hope that she'll put me in her room.

She I mean, she's a she's she's really incredible director, and she makes her own movies, and you know, and I think if she was all concentrated on going and you know, going to auditions and getting rejected and doing all of that stuff, I don't know that she would be doing what she's doing right now and and figuring that stuff out out of the public eye. And I

just think that it's the right thing to do. I think she's very lucky to have you as a mother with your perspective, because as I tell people, I go to acting classes sometimes and teach, and I'll say to them, but also remember that if you want to be happy, this is not a great business. It's not a great business. The thing about you that strikes me is there are people who become stars and it's only visual. You know, you're very striking looking and and it's only visual, and

then they go away. But you, as an actress then had something very unique and something very special. You had this tremendous emotional reservoir. You're very emotive in the films, and you had a bravery, you know, your character faced things. When people remember those films and they see you now, they see somebody who was very brave. And I mean there's a kind of a brave read you in those films that I really really loved. I love that and

and it's it's something that I hear from people. And also, um, I think the fact that I have survived and flourished, that that I'm still here, that that I more or less look the same, that I fantastic, that I'm then I'm okay. I think it's incredibly reassured. You're one of the few people in the world. Raise your plastic water

bottle with me. You're one of the first few people in the world I can be in a room with and say to John Hughes, if Molly Ringwald got you through high school, you may want to read her books. Getting the Pretty Back and when it happens to you, this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing