The Breakfast Club’s five lead actors reunited in person for the first time in almost four decades at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), held this weekend in Chicago. Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy, who played Andrew Clark, Brian Johnson, John Bender, Claire Standish, and Allison Reynolds respectively, took the stage together and talked about John Hughes’ 1985 classic. 

The reunion marked a particularly special moment for Emilio, who has not participated in previous reunion events. He said that he couldn’t miss this reunion because it was held in Chicago, where the film was shot, and it was its 40th anniversary.

“I skipped all my high school reunions,” Emilio admitted. “So this just was something that finally I felt I needed to do, just for myself.” 

Emilio further shared that someone once told him that Molly wondered whether he simply didn’t like the rest of the cast, which deeply upset him. He stressed that he loves all of them, and that’s exactly why he finally decided to show up for the reunion.

“Someone told me that Molly said, ‘Does he really just not like us,’ and that broke my heart. Of course, I love all of them,” Emilio said.

For Molly, the moment was deeply emotional because this was the first time all five members of the cast took the stage together. “I feel really moved that we’re all together. This is the first time Emilio has joined us,” she said, while jokingly adding that they no longer had to use a cardboard cutout for Emilio, now that he was finally there in person.

During the panel, moderated by entertainment journalist Josh Horowitz, the cast took fans behind the scenes of the film that defined a generation. They shared stories about working with legendary writer-director John Hughes and reminisced about the unique energy on set.

During the panel, Molly revealed that neither she nor Anthony auditioned for the film. Recalling how informal the casting process was for him, Anthony said, “John just called up my home, and I was still living with my parents in New York and he said, ‘We are doing this film’, and I said, ‘Cool, let’s go’.”

Reminiscing about the deep connection the cast formed during shooting, Ally said that it was a joyful experience and they all genuinely cared about each other, which also translates on the screen.

Shot at Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, the coming-of-age comedy-drama film told the story of five high school students from wildly different social circles who spent one Saturday in detention and came out changed. As each character got a chance to tell his or her story, the others began to see them differently. When the day came to an end, they all knew that the school would never be the same.