Image Credit: Paul Zimmerman/WireImage
When she isn’t acting in The Secret Life of the American Teenager or singing with a jazz band, Molly Ringwald (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink) writes fiction. Her first novel, When It Happens to You (a “novel in stories,” according to the subtitle), comes out Aug. 14, and it’s a serious book that deals with infidelity and betrayal, among other subjects. We talked to the actress about her budding literary career.
I was skeptical when I heard you were writing a novel, but it’s actually good. How frustrating is it to deal with preconceptions?
[Laughs] I’m pretty used to it by now. I mean, yeah, it’s kind of insulting, but then I try to step outside of it and think how I would respond, and it’s true that there’s not too many actresses who write literary fiction. I would say expectations are sort of low, but I feel like the work speaks for itself. I’m pretty proud of the book.
Where did the urge to write come from? Were on the Breakfast Club set thinking, “Screw this, I really want to be a novelist?”
I always wrote fiction, even when I was doing The Breakfast Club. I just never wanted to publish anything unless I was proud of it.
Is there a drawer full of screenplays somewhere, or is that not something you ever tackled? READ FULL STORY »
