Shailene Woodley revealed she “didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was” while starring with the actress on Secret Life of the American Teenager.
In a recent Vanity Fair interview, Woodley, now 32, shared a surprising detail from her time on the ABC Family drama that aired from 2008 to 2013: she didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was when they began filming. Ringwald, a teen icon of the ’80s, starred as Woodley’s character’s mother in the series.
“I didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was,” Woodley admitted. “I was 15, didn’t grow up with a TV.”
“Like, every one of my parents’ friends were like, ‘You’re working with Molly Ringwald!’ ” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘What is her… Why? I don’t get it.’ Because I had never seen Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles or any of her films.”
Although Woodley hadn’t seen the classic John Hughes films that made Ringwald a star in the ’80s, she viewed that as a positive experience.
“I got to know her as just this, like, beautiful older sister motherly figure to me, who was really protective of honouring, like, my authenticity as a young person and who I was and just being, like, a kiddo playing a kiddo,” she explained.
Given her own background as a teen icon, Ringwald likely had unique insight into the challenges Woodley was facing as a young actress.
“She protected me in that way,” Woodley said, “and I’m so thankful for that because there is a pressure for people to grow up very quickly, especially when it comes to Hollywood.”
