Comments about the movie/their characters, from the lead actors. Addresses of most of the main cast are also available.
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~Andie is a senior in a rich high school. She doesn't have money, but she uses her creativity and ambition to make up for it. Since her mother took off when she was 13, she also has to take care of her father who is unemployed and somewhat out of touch. She makes her own clothes and dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Pretty in Pink is mainly about dignity and pride and being proud of who you are. (Source: Paramount Handbook of Product Information)
~We're both very level-headed. We both know what we want to do and we do it. Andie isn't indecisive about anything. She has a lot of pride and dignity and admires small things others wouldn't even focus upon. She can look at something like a piece of fabric and recognize that she can make something more out of it, which is an important part of her character. I do the same thing. Andie is also very honest. It comes from knowing what she wants. She's not overly ambitious or nasty about it. She just knows that she's not going anywhere unless she does it all by herself. (Source: Paramount Handbook of Product Information) |
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~Blane is a guy who always had everything he wanted. He comes from a wealthy family, but now he's at a point in his life when
he's questioning it all. He makes some mistakes, discovering that his actions all have consequences.
The fact that Blane is rebelling leads him directly to Andie, a girl from the other side of the tracks, something he's never known
before, and so she represents a lot of things he's looking for. Aside from being smart and pretty, Andie is separated from his
normal social circle, which he's begun to question anyway. I think that's one of the reasons he's attracted to her. She's a "no-no."
He's told by his peers, "You shouldn't do that!" But, of course, that's just what he does. (Source: Paramount Handbook of Product Information)
~Question: A lot of us 30-somethings just love Pretty in Pink. How do you feel about it now? Answer: I don't have any feelings about it now; I haven't seen it in 15 years. I'm shocked how people were so moved or engaged by that movie. I like it; I think it's a nice movie, but when we were filming it I thought it was ridiculous--a film about a prom. But I have a lot of affection for it now; I have more affection for people's response to it than I do for the movie. (Source: TV Guide chat, 1999) |
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~I play a guy who is kind of an outcast from his school. He doesn't really care what anybody thinks about him, except for this
Andie character, played by Molly Ringwald. He's had a crush on her for about eight years, but it's been very one-sided all that
time. Pretty in Pink is really about what happens to their relationship when she falls for this richie character, Blane. I didn't know Duckie when we got started on the film, but through the shooting, I got to know him better all the time. He's a
special kind of guy who I understood very well. Even though he doesn't really care about the rich kids, he still likes to make fun of them, and that's how he sets himself apart. That's also the basic difference between me and Duckie. I use humor to make friends while Duckie uses humor to alienate the people he doesn't want to be with. (Source: Paramount Handbook of Product Information)
~Question: Did you relate to Duckie when you portrayed him, and how? Answer: Oh, yeah! I was tremendously like him as a kid. I didn't have his balls, he had the guts to be who he was. He's the guy I wish I was in high school. I admire that about him. But his style, his clothing, came from [costume designer] Marilyn Vance. Brilliant lady. It just kept building on itself. He was based on me, on the wise ass that I was in school. But at the same time, so many people had great things to offer me in terms of the costume. When I got thrown into the girls' bathroom, the reason I made the comment about the tampon machine is 'cause one of the prop guys asked me if I wanted to do something with it. Everyone knew someone like him in high school, so I flew off it from there. (Source: Hollywood Spotlight Chat) ~The original ending, which we did actually shoot, exists somewhere. Duckie shows up to meet [Andie] at the end and they walk in [to the prom]. [Blane] is there, he says the same thing he said in the movie. And then she and I dance the moonlight dance to David Bowie's Heroes and that's how it ends. Then there were problems, though. Molly had the stomach flu which made spinning difficult and made her nauseous. So, we'd do it and then she collapsed. So, we shot half a day and lost the other half. So the director couldn't shoot it the way he wanted. So when they edited, there were problems with the end. A lot of people felt it was an unsatisfying ending "'cause cross-class relationships could work" and it wasn't getting out there. Andrew was doing a show on Broadway where they had shaved his head and he had to get rail thin 'cause he was a soldier in a foxhole. So, he didn't look that healthy when we shot that. (Source: Hollywood Spotlight Chat) ~Molly had been ill with a stomach flu and we were shooting [the ending] and she literally collapsed while we were dancing the Moonlight Dance which, you know, sort of put a dent in her moment at the prom. We had to stop shooting for half a day because she was really ill. So we couldn't really shoot the scene the way we wanted to shoot it, you know. And then the preview audience didn't react well to it. They felt like if the audience had invested so much in the romance between Molly and Andrew that they'd really want it to have a more hopeful ending. Also, John Hughes didn't want to send the message that it is bad for poor people and rich people to try and fall in love, because the class thing is insurmountable. To this day, people regard that as a criminal ending that Duckie doesn't get her. People come up to me with the sort of anger that they really should be keeping for war crimes in Bosnia. They take it out on the ending of that film, saying, "You were robbed, man!" I just say, let it go. It's just a movie. (Source: The '80s Server) |
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