10 Stories From 'The Breakfast Club' Set That'll Make You Glad You Never Got Saturday Detention

We all identified with one of them. Whether it was the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, or the criminal, one of those characters felt like they fit our experience.

The Breakfast Club has managed to become one of those iconic movies that completely defines a generation, and yet there is still so much we don't know about the movie.

Obviously working on a movie set with a bunch of young actors can get a little bit stressful, but some of the things that the cast and crew have revealed about their experience is pretty surprising.

Honestly, it's almost a miracle this movie ever got made because there was so much drama on set. Let's see what was going on!

1. Molly Ringwald was basically in charge

Ringwald already had a good amount of experience working with director John Hughes, after filming Sixteen Candles so the two were already very close.

He respected her opinion so much so, that at one point when she said she didn't like the actress cast to play a gym teacher, he actually let her go.

Casting director, Jackie Burch, revealed the decision was definitely influenced by Ringwald.

"There was another girl cast as the gym teacher, and I don't know if Molly didn't think it worked or what, but they got rid of her. That was devastating for that actress, but she went on to direct movies. Behind the scenes, Molly had John's ear."

2. Ringwald almost had Judd Nelson fired

That wasn't the only cast member she wasn't a fan of, she actually was getting really frustrated with Judd Nelson, aka, John Bender.

Burch revealed that she received a call from the set of the movie letting her know that it wasn't going well. They told her "You better get Judd under control or I'm getting rid of him!"

But she tried to defend the actor.

"What happened is that Judd became the character, like a method actor. These were kids! Some of these kids were minors. But Molly had John's ear, you know. They were very upset that Judd was taking it too far."

Ally Sheedy, the actress who played Allison Reynolds spoke about her time on set and explained how she had dealt with Nelson's behavior.

"Judd kind of does this very free-ranging thing with his body. You can see it in the movie. He’s not great at hitting marks, and he wanted to move around and stuff, and I think they were having trouble keeping him in shot."

"If I remember correctly, we all talked to him. The four of us. And I think my thing about it was just focus, just focus, just focus,"

Obviously they were able to get him to focus enough because the movie ended up looking pretty great.

3. Rick Moranis was almost the janitor

Moranis was the original janitor, but it quickly became evident that his vision for the character wasn't really going to fit in the movie.

John Kapelos took over as janitor Carl Reed, but he revealed what Moranis had intended, and why he was recast.

"From what I was told he wanted to play the character as a Russian with gold teeth and keys between his legs, playing with it provocatively... and so it’s like, it wasn’t organic, I guess is putting it politely and correctly."

4. There actually was an answer to the question "How does one become a janitor"

Kaeplos revealed his character's sad backstory that they left out of the movie.

"Really? You want to know? You have to have your heart broken by your teenage sweetheart in your third year of university when you’re doing a great football scholarship. Drop out. Lose her heart. Lose her affection.

"Make sure her father hates you even more and will never include you in his future plans. Even if you try to make up to her. And then you get a job at your old high school as a janitor, and you try to lick your wounds.

"That’s how you become a janitor. That’s Carl's pathetic backstory."

That's a little bit more backstory than I thought they had prepared for Carl, but it's nice to know they were thinking about him!

5. John Hughes had to change the script for Emilo Estevez

Estevez was exactly who he wanted to play the athletic Clark, but he needed to tweak a few things to make it work.

In the original script, Clark was a football player, but because of Estevez's size, they decided to switch him to a wrestler.

Burch revealed how it was a concern from the start.

"He's very short. I was worried that no one would really buy him as a football player. He's broad in the shoulders, but he doesn't have the height of a football player. Once John was willing to switch Clark to a wrestler, I knew we had that role."

6. The 'Brat Pack' name came a little bit after 'The Breakfast Club'

You might think the term 'Brat Pack' was around before this movie came out, but it was actually only ever used after several of the cast members of The Breakfast Club went on to appear in Joel Schumacher's movie St. Elmo's Fire.

Burch revealed that Schumacher had reached out to her for suggestions for the roles and having just worked with the kids from The Breakfast Club, she said that Nelson would be a good fit.

"I told him he should put Judd in there. He ended up taking Ally and Emilio as well, and that's where the brat pack came from. Before then, it was never called the brat pack. It all came about after combining 'The Breakfast Club' with 'St. Elmo's Fire' people."

7. Most of Ally Sheedy's costumes had to be custom made

The costume designer had a very specific look in mind, and she was having a very hard time finding what she needed.

Vance revealed that it was a bit of a struggle, one that resulted in her making almost everything herself.

"Nothing that I could find would have personified her personality as the outsider.

"We needed something black and grey, dull and sad.

"The only thing I didn't make for her was the sweater. I couldn't find anything! Everything was colorful. I don't know if you remember the '80s, but my God. Colors were just happening all over the place."

8. Part of the set was so hot it would make people pass out

The director of photography, Tom Del Ruth, revealed that the upper part of the library where the cast and crew would sit and wait between scenes was so hot that people would completely fall asleep.

Because of all the lights in the library, the temperatures would reach up to 95-110 degrees. That kind of heat would make the crew fall asleep without intending to, so they had to come up with a solution.

"They often dozed off in the heat. They'd start snoring. We had to have the assistant directors go wake them up in the middle of the shots.

"We had to hire two additional assistant directors to just work the second floor and keep the crew awake so they wouldn't snore and ruin the sound takes."

9. Molly Ringwald's character's design needed a complete makeover

The original look for Ringwald's character was a lot more of the typical "80s popular girl style." But she didn't want that.

Vance explained why they needed to make all the changes.

"Molly did not want to be the rich little spoiled girl. She didn't want to be the spoiled 'daddy's girl,' which is originally what was planned.

"She was going to be wearing a shorter skirt, a crochet look with maybe a beret. You know, something that would be more bratty.

"But she felt she was more sophisticated than that. We updated it, but the look still personified money."

10. John Kapelos offended Emilio Estevez on set

Kapelos made a big mistake while on set. He had started getting stressed out by the younger cast members goofing off, so he told them a story about his work on another movie, particularly the time when a cast member had a heart attack.

What he didn't realize was that the story he was telling was actually about Emilio Estevez's dad.

He said that he tried to appeal to them but his story didn't come across as intended.

"You guys would’ve been great if you were on the set of 'Apocalypse Now' with Martin Sheen, and he goes in front of you and starts having his heart attack, and you’re not believing he’s in trouble, and he’s just wincing and moaning in pain and ripping at his chest and you guys would just sit there and let him have his heart attack, right?"

"In other words, I was saying, 'Hey, I'm up here struggling. I’m in pain, and you guys are just letting me wither on the vine.'"

But obviously Estevez, aka Martin Sheen's son, didn't really approve of this joke, but Kapelos claims he didn't realize the two were related at all, let alone father and son.

"All of a sudden Emilio's face goes white. Like, I'm telling you, expressionless and white. And everybody's looking at me like I just shot the pope."

He tried to apologize, but apparently Estevez never accepted. Kapelos said "The garage door was going down. That's all Emilio wrote."

'The Breakfast Club' is one of those movies that has stood the test of time and managed to stay relevant even though it was made over 30 years ago.

Which one of these characters did you relate to most?

Because it's been so long since the movie we all grew up loving, it's interesting to see where the cast of The Breakfast Club ended up. Turns out a lot can change in 30 years.

For a lot of people, Judd Nelson was their original dreamboat crush. Don't believe me? Check out these dreamy moments and decide for yourself if he deserves the title.

But The Breakfast Club wasn't the only 80s movie that taught us a lot of important life lessons. We all had a whole collection of movies that helped us become the people we are now.

H/T - Huffington Post / Huffington Post