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If you want to know the difference between an average director and a director with heart, then put on a John Hughes movie. You will immediately see the difference.

That’s because Hughes put his heart into all of his projects, and he wasn’t afraid to make his actors unofficial co-directors and scriptwriters.

This weekend, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy reunited for the Don’t You Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club 40th Anniversary Reunion panel at C2E2 2025. John Hughes - who unfortunately passed away in 2009 - wasn’t there physically, but he was there in spirit.

The Breakfast Club cast spoke about the director with such fondness and reverence that he might as well have been an unofficial panel guest. The cast also noted that Hughes’s son and granddaughters were in the audience, making the moment more special.

“The word collaboration, a lot of directors use it,” Judd Nelson said. “What they really mean by it is that during the first read-through they won’t boss you around. That’s not collaboration, that’s just they bite their tongue until they push you around. Hughes meant it. He said to us, ‘Participate in the process of making this movie.’ He liked us. I didn’t know how rare it was going to be for a director to like actors.”

“We are a lot of times a necessary evil,” Nelson continued. “A lot of times they say they want partners, but they want slaves. Hughes wanted partners. He said to us, ‘If it doesn’t feel authentic, make adjustments.’ The script supervisor, the guy who keeps track of everything all the character says, he retired after The Breakfast Club. He was pretty much done with that.”

Watch the 'Don't You Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club 40th Anniversary Reunion' panel from the C2E2 2025 Main Stage powered by CGC x JSA right now:

“The script was so good to begin with,” Molly Ringwald recalled. “It was really truly a joy to say those lines, and I always felt like we would usually do it as written and then we would kind of do whatever we wanted. And he loved it. There’s so much of the movie that’s improvised.”

“He meant it. He wanted us to be members of the Breakfast Club. He gave us freedom that I thought was going to happen all the time in movies,” Nelson said.

Popverse members can watch Don’t You Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club 40^th Anniversary Reunion from C2E2 2025's Main Stage powered by CGC x JSA for yourself as part of Popverse's all-encompassing coverage of C2E2 2025. 

Did you miss a C2E2 Main Stage panel? Don't worry, we're filming it all thanks to our partners at CGC x JSA -  our official authenticator & grading partner. Here is the C2E2 2025 panel list and release schedule.