'Emotional' stars of 80s classic The Breakfast Club reunite after 40 years

It was a total nostalgia-fest for lovers of iconic 1985 film The Breakfast Club when for the first time - 40 years after that fateful detention day. The cast of, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and Anthony Michael Hall reunited at a pop culture convention in Chicago on April 12 - looking very different to how they did back in the day, fans still went wild.

Speaking at the C2E2 panel with her former co-stars, Molly Ringwald, who played highschool ‘princess’ Claire Standish in the beloved flick, confessed, “I feel very emotional and moved to have us all together," Ringwald said during the panel with her former costars.

The movie became one of the most iconic teen films ever, which seemed to capture the spirit of the 80s like no other, as well as the angst, humour and vulnerability of every teenager at the time. Everyone could relate to one of its characters - from the popular girl with hidden insecurities to the loudmouthed joker struggling with his own identity.

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It’s theme song, ’ Don’t You (Forget About Me), became an anthem for teenagers everywhere and one of the biggest hits of the decade.According to People, the 57-year-old also joked that the convention marked the first time that 62, had joined them, saying, "We don’t have to use the cardboard cutout anymore. I feel really moved that we’re all together."

Estevez, who played athlete Andrew Clark, explained, "I felt that I needed to do it for myself”, and went on to explain that the reunion being in Chicago felt even more “special” as the film was shot at a high school in the suburbs of the city, in the state of Illinois.

The last time some of the cast reunited was on February 7, when Ringwald, Sheedy, Nelson and Hall took part in another panel discussion at MegaCon Orlando. During that panel, Ringwald said The Breakfast Club appealed to her as it offered a totally different high school experience to her own.

"Whenever I got to do a movie I got to leave my school and that was amazing," the actress said. However, the part didn’t totally get her out of school: Ringwald and Hall attended classes on set, she said l. "We'd go do a scene in the library and then study algebra with our studio teacher. But it was fun."

Alas, the movie's stars also disappointed fans at the big reunion who might have been hoping there could be a where-are-they-now type sequel - saying another film wasn’t on the cards, out of respect for late writer/director, John Hughes.

The Breakfast Club, of course, helped launch the careers of its young stars, who became known as the “Brat Pack,” a group of actors who defined and dominated the teen movie genre of the 80s.

Molly, despite her success in other John Hughes films, including Sixteen Candles in 1984 and Pretty in Pink in 1986, turned down what could have been her biggest ever leading roles, in and Ghost in the 1990s.

After taking a break from the spotlight, she returned to the small screen playing a parent in the series The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and has released a book of short stories, as well as jazz record called Except Sometimes. Last year she appeared in the Disney Plus series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.

The actress, now 57, married her second husband, Greek-American writer Panio Gianopoulos, in 2007, and they have a daughter Mathilda, 22, and fraternal twins, daughter and son Roman, who are 16.

Anthony Michael Hall went on to join the cast of US sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live and star in films such as 1988’s Johnny Be Good and Edward Scissorhands in 1990, while, son of actor Martin Sheen and older brother of , become one of the biggest stars to emerge from the film, with continued success in movies like Young Guns in 1988 and The Mighty Ducks in 1992.

More recently he has ventured in directing, working on the 2006 film Bobby and The Way in 2010. Now aged 62, Emilio, who dated Demi Moore for two years in the 80s and was also married to Paula Adbul for two years in the 90s, has two children from another relationship with former model Carey Salley.

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