We tried the first evening to go down Division Street and Rush Street, but we couldn't get in anywhere because they didn't like [ Emilio Estevez] sneakers and they didn't like my boots. This was 1983 or '84, so it was ridiculous. We ended up at a jazz club, where you go downstairs and there's a very cool place.

There was no one really like John Bender at my high school.

It is a career of make-believe, of masks. We all have masks in life.

We worked six days a week [on the The Breakfast Club], so you have one day off. So on that Saturday night, it's not like we could all go out and have a drink because Molly [Ringwald ] and Michael [Hall] weren't old enough. And Ally [Sheedy] pretty much kept to herself. So Emilio and I, every Saturday night, would go into Chicago because we were shooting outside of Chicago in Des Plaines. It's so funny, because even though we might be adversaries in the film, we certainly weren't off-camera. He's a very funny guy.

I think I was, like, 23 or something [on The Breakfast Club]. I was the oldest of the five. Emilio [Estevez] and Ally [Sheedy] were a year younger. The only real difference was that Molly [ Ringwald] and Michael [Hall] still had to go to school. They could shoot, like, a half day. So a lot of my close coverage was done with Molly's stand-in, so Molly could do her schoolwork.

[John Hurt] just really gifted, and I had a great time working with him and [am] very lucky to have worked with him.

[John] Hughes really wanted it to sound authentic. He was a real collaborator. He encouraged us to bring to the material things we thought were maybe more truthful.