(audience cheering) Hi, everybody.
We're back. I'm here with Molly Ringwald.
Now, what is the deal, let me ask you,
what is the deal with the Brat Pack now?
Is the Brat Pack, has that thing completely dissolved now?
Do you guys keep up with each other, you know?
(Molly laughs) Well-
Is there a newsletter that you can-
(Molly laughs) (audience laughs)
I was never really sure what the Brat Pack was
to be honest, I mean,
the phrase was coined by a clever writer
when he went out to dinner with,
I think Judd Nelson and Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez,
I think- [Conan] Right.
And then sort of everybody that was in those movies
became a Brat Pack member.
Right, there was a time, I guess it's the mid eighties
where that's all you would read about
is the Brat Pack went here
and did this, Yeah.
The Brat Pack ate a sandwich together,
Yeah. The Brat Pack-
Yeah. went swimming somewhere.
Yeah. Well, you know, we did a couple movies together,
but I didn't really hang out with a lot of those people
just because I was younger at the time.
I mean, when I did breakfast club, I was fifteen,
sixteen years old and they were already in their twenties.
[Conan] They're all much older now?
Well- Judd Nelson
is in his late fifties now, I think.
(Molly laughs) (audience laughs)
It's true. No.
He's on Medicare, it's true.
No, no, no, no.
He's had both hips replaced.
I'm just telling you- [Molly] No.
You've been away, you don't know what's going on.
[Molly] Oh, that's true. I'm just telling you stuff.
No, but, I was quite a bit younger.
So when they were going out,
drinking and doing crazy stuff,
I was going to school, so.
Okay. So.
You think there'll ever be a big reunion
where they get you guys are all in your eighties
or something and they get you guys together and you-
It could happen, you never know.
(Conan and Molly laugh) (audience laughs)
Well, we'll wait, we'll look forward to that.
All right. Sixty years from now.
That's gonna be good.
You got started very young, didn't you?
In show business, you were an Annie, is that right?
I was, yeah. [Conan] Okay, how-
I didn't play Annie. I- [Conan] Oh.
I was just one of the-
[Conan] You were Daddy Warbucks.
(Molly laughing) (audience laughs)
No, no, I was- Who were you?
I would think you were Annie. You look like Annie to me.
No, no. I was one of the orphans.
I was just one of the chorus.
[Conan] Oh, one of the kids in the back.
Yeah. Oh.
And how old were you when you got started doing that?
I did that when I was ten years old.
I started when I was, well,
I started as a singer because my dad,
Bob Ringwald is a jazz musician,
so I started singing with him and then that
kind of led into plays and then that led into movies.
Now was that pressure when you're a child star, I mean,
or when you were a child getting into acting,
you actually have to worry about if you have a growth spurt
or something like that, you know,
when you watch the old Brady Bunches or something,
and Cindy suddenly had that growth spurt and looked-
Yeah. It got scary
there for awhile. (Molly and audience laughing)
It really did. People were frightened. But-
Yeah. But what I'm saying
is that a hard thing to go through?
Is that, you know, were you worried about that
when you were ten years old?
If I grow too fast or don't grow fast enough.
Well, I think it was a problem, obviously, if you grew,
I mean, when you were all the,
there was the littlest one
and then there's the oldest orphan,
and I started out as the second-to-the-littlest
and then sort of the more you grow,
the oldest one gets booted out
and then the next one takes over and then, you know-
So it's like Minuto, kind of, yeah.
(audience laughing) Yeah, kind of.
Yeah, it's a good system. Exact same thing, yeah.
And so once somebody got to be the oldest orphan, they knew,
okay, in three months, I'm going to be one inch taller
and then I'm out. So yeah, it is a lot of-
It's a tough business. Yeah,
it's a lot of pressure for a young person.
So when your feet start to really get big,
you know you're in trouble, Yeah.
Because that means you're going to have a growth,
did you grow very tall? 'Cause you're quite tall.
Well, I grew six inches in one year. That year.
That hurts. Yeah.
That's really, yeah.
Yeah, but then I stopped after that,
I sort of reached my full height at about, you know,
twelve or thirteen.
I grew, literally, I grew like a foot and a half
or two feet in a year.
Well, you never stopped, I mean you're-
I'm still going, yeah. You're still going.
I was bombarded by radiation.
(audience and Molly laugh) At a government test site,
yeah, it's not pretty.
But it's not bad being tall, right?
Well, it's really hard when you get tall that fast,
because at one point in my life I was six feet four,
a hundred and fifty five pounds.
Mm. And that's,
that's just, it's like a puppet in a big parade, you know?
Yeah, yeah. (audience laughing)
They called out Japanese tanks to shoot on me.
Did you ever think about basketball or anything? I mean-
I was interested in basketball, but you know what?
I found out, you need coordination.
(Molly and audience laugh)
It's something I didn't know. [Molly] Yeah-
Yeah. I was like, I showed up and I was like,
I'm six foot four. Let's go.
Let's get started here,
and then they realized I was a freak and it couldn't go on.
I'm not winning you over with this stuff, am I?
(Molly and audience laughing)
Women love to hear this stuff. All right.
Well, there was, I guess, nineteen,
in the early eighties and into the mid eighties,
you were really the quintessential American teen,
I think for a lot of people.
(some audience clapping) What kind of pressure
is that for you?
(Molly giggles) Thank you.
I mean, is,
there has to be some kind of odd pressure
because everybody's sort of projects their ideal,
teen onto you. Did you find that
to be a pressurized situation?
Well. It was just funny because I was always trying
to be something else. I mean, I,
I guess the success of those movies were just because
the characters that I played felt so out of place
and they were always an outsider, you know,
ugly duckling and all that.
And I guess a lot of people feel that way,
so I sort of became the poster child for that.
(audience laughing)
Which isn't so bad- No,
But, I mean your character in Sixteen Candles,
so many people latched onto at the time and said,
I know what that's like.
Yeah, yeah.
It wasn't really that much of a pressure. I mean,
I thought it was not, it was just funny.
I mean, when I saw people cutting their hair like me
or dressing like me, it was just,
it was just funny because I always picked other people
to emulate and to, you know,
like Diane Keaton in Annie Hall was my idol
when I was that age. So I was trying to look like her,
and probably she, I don't know,
she was probably trying to look like someone else,
but everybody does that.
There's very few people I think you'll meet that say,
I'm great, I'm perfect the way I am.
Except for you, maybe.
Yeah, that's right, yeah. (Molly and audience laugh)
I don't say that a lot. (Molly and Conan laugh)
No, no one does. I wouldn't last long
in this world if I did that,
is that, by the way,
this is just a quick question,
but the song, we were talking about this in the break,
but the Sponge song, Molly, Sixteen Candles,
[Molly] Yeah.
Everyone's saying that's about you,
yet there are other people saying it's not about you.
Do you know if it's about you or not?
I don't know, I mean,
the song's called Molly and they talk about Sixteen Candles.
I mean, one would think, you know, but, but I don't know.
There's no proof and I don't know the guys who wrote it.
So, I like the song though,
I think it's a cool song. Yeah, 'cause if it is
about you, you should get some money coming.
(Molly laughs) (audience laughs)
And I'll split it with you- All right.
Because I brought it up. Okay.
All right, well,
let me make sure I mention the French comedy,
it's a film that you did,
you pronounce it 'cause I'll make a fool of myself.
Uh, the yeah- It's your movie.
(Conan laughs) Enfants de Salaud.
Come on, Enfants de Salaud, is that the way-
Enfants de Salaud, yeah.
Okay. All right.
Very nice. All right.
Well thank you very much. Okay.
I like it when you speak French.
(audience cheering)
Molly Ringwald, everybody.
Fran Lebowitz, Big Audio Dynamite coming up,
it's a good show, we'll be right back, stick around.