Anthony Michael Hall has raised generations of kids and teens with movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science. As just a kid himself when he was cast in those iconic John Hughes flicks, Hall always knew his ultimate goal was “longevity” — and with more recent roles in Halloween Kills (2021), Trigger Warning (2024), and Reacher Season 3, which is currently airing on Prime Video, the actor is certainly succeeding in meeting the objective he set for himself all those years ago.
The 2020s have marked significant milestones for Hall — who stopped by DECIDER’s studio last week to promote his role in the third season of Reacher. In 2023, he celebrated the 40th anniversary of director Harold Ramis‘ National Lampoon’s Vacation, in which he had his breakout role playing Chevy Chase‘s onscreen son Rusty Griswold. Then last year marked the 40th anniversary of Sixteen Candles, where he played a geeky (yet endearing) freshman who famously convinced Molly Ringwald‘s Samantha Baker to fork over her underwear.
This year, two more of Hall’s iconic films — namely, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science — will also turn the big 4-0. And for the first time since The Breakfast Club came out in 1985, the entire cast, including Hall, Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, and Ally Sheedy, will reunite at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo next month.
“I’m so grateful for it. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you if not for John Hughes,” Hall told DECIDER. “I’m a big fan of that saying, I think it was Isaac Newton, ‘We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants.’ And the giants in my life, unquestionably, were John Hughes, Harold Ramis, Matty Simmons, Lorne Michaels — these people that saw something in me as a child, as a kid. I was just a kid. So it’s really beautiful.”
Hall added that it’s “amazing” that The Breakfast Club has “held up over time.”
“I think it has a beautiful underlying statement to it that people really connect to. It’s also sort of an anti-bullying message in a way. But the idea that we’re all more alike than we are different is a really powerful and resonant message,” he said, noting that the movie has “become group therapy” to those who’ve seen themselves in the characters over the years. “The fact that John Hughes’s work still finds younger generations, I’m just so grateful for it. And for him.”
When we reminded Hall that Weird Science is also going to be celebrating an anniversary this year, he joked, “Am I 100 yet? I have all these movies turning 40.”
For Hall, who knows how fickle the Hollywood industry can be, he was just happy to still be doing what he loves.
“It’s good to be here. It’s good to be anywhere at my age,” he said. “You know, it’s an amazing feeling, I tell you.”
“I think a lot of times some people in our industry might try to create the perception like they chose this. And I think these things choose you,” he continued. “So I’m just grateful to God that the gift is the longevity. And that was something that was really my goal and intent. Even as a young man working with John Hughes, I remember thinking to myself, like, ‘I want to keep going with this. I’m never going to give up, and I just want to keep fighting through.'”
As avid TV and movie-watchers, we’re sure glad he did!
You can watch Hall in Reacher Season 3, which is currently streaming on Prime Video. The Breakfast Club and Weird Science are also available to stream on the platform.