All Five ‘Breakfast Club’ Actors Reunite for the First Time in 40 Years; ‘I Feel Really Moved We’re All Together,’ Says Molly Ringwald

The five members of “The Breakfast Club” reunited Saturday, 40 years after the Shermer High School trouble makers first met in detention.

Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Anthony Michael Hall gathered for a panel at Chicago-based pop culture convention C2E2 (via People) to chat with fans about John Hughes’ 1985 classic. Entertainment journalist Josh Horowitz moderated the conversation.

“I feel very emotional and moved to have us all together,” gushed Ringwald, who starred as it-girl Claire Standish in the film. She went on to jokingly acknowledge the attendance of Estevez, adding, “We don’t have to use the cardboard cutout anymore. I feel really moved that we’re all together.”

“I felt that I needed to do it myself,” Estevez quipped back, before noting that the reunion felt “special” given that C2E2 takes place in Chicago, the city in which “The Breakfast Club” was shot.

Later in the discussion, Hall and Ringwald shared whether or not they auditioned for their “Breakfast Club” roles, given that they both starred in Hughes’ “Sixteen Candles” in 1984.

“John just called up and said, ‘I want you to come in.’ He didn’t have a script. He didn’t give me a script,” Hall said.

“Originally, was gonna do ‘The Breakfast Club’ before he did ‘Sixteen Candles,'” Ringwald said of her own experience. “And then he wrote ‘Sixteen Candles’ … and turned it into the studio and they said, ‘Oh, we wanna do that one first.'”

Sheedy, who played Allison Reynolds, then opened up about the bond the cast formed over the course of the film’s production.

“I was really happy when we were making this movie, we all really … I don’t know if you can tell but we all really do love each other. It was a dream,” Sheedy said. “A joyful experience.”