THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY RINGWALD
Former teen icon survived perils of early fame
Raising Expectations Debuts Sunday | Family Channel
The first episode of Molly Ringwald’s new family series Raising Expectations touches on an issue she’s deftly handled throughout her career: the perils of fame.
Airing Sunday on Family Channel, the comedy series premiere sees her character — a high-profile child psychologist and author and mother of five — recounting one of her husband’s tall tales at a conference. When the talk is posted online, it draws a flurry of accusations that the father (played by Jason Priestley), is lying and that the family isn’t as perfect as it seems.
Ringwald is on Twitter but says she doesn’t pay much attention to any online criticism she may receive. And she doesn’t read reviews.
“It’s a decision that I made when I was 19 years old,” says the former Breakfast Club star.
“I think I read something that was just incredibly hurtful and unhelpful to me and so I thought, ‘This doesn’t really help, so why read it?’ ”
Ringwald says the hurtful review made it “hard to go to work the next day,” so she “just made this decision not to read reviews.
“I made a decision that I would compile them and save them, and then one day when I wrote my memoirs, when I was 90 years old or whatever, that I would read them and then it ... wouldn’t really bother me that much.”
Ringwald says she feels she’s dealt with being in the public eye “pretty well.”
In 1992, after starring in the seminal John Hughes films Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, the member of the so-called Brat Pack group of young actors moved to France to flee the glare of Hollywood.
“I didn’t know that I was doing it for that reason,” she says. “At the time, it was really more instinctive. I just knew that I was happy there and that I had been working for a long time.
“I also knew that if I was ever going to do something like that, that was the time to do it. I didn’t have any kids, I wasn’t married, there was nothing that was really inspiring me where I was living in California, so I just thought, ‘Let me do this.’
“And I’m really glad that I did. I learned how to speak French and I really did a lot of self-exploration. It was really valuable and it was hugely important for myself.”
Ringwald continued to act in both France and the U.S., and in 2008, she landed a steady role in the teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
She also started a family and side careers as a jazz singer and a writer (she’s published a novel, a book of essays, an advice column and wants to pen a screenplay).
Ringwald and Priestley, Canadian star of the hit 1990s series Beverly Hills, 90210, connected over their early-life stardom.
“We definitely both were a part of a phenomenon — the John Hughes movies, 90210,” says Ringwald.
“We’re also people who have gone on and we’ve evolved and have built on this early success that we had.
“So I think that’s definitely something we share.
“We don’t spend a ton of time talking about that, there are too many other fun things to talk about, but we definitely get along.”
She adds with a laugh: “We share a similar sense of humour, a similar adoration of wine.”