Ally Sheedy on Her New TV Comedy, ‘Single Drunk Female’
]
Lessons from Brat Pack life
Sheedy draws on her own often “disempowering” youth while making The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire and WarGames as cautionary tales for her own students, encouraging them to trust themselves. “That was not the message that I got when I was their age,” she says. “It was ‘make so-and-so happy’; ’look this way’; ‘behave this way’; ‘say the line this way,’” she says. “They need to be resilient and very self-reliant.”
Sheedy, who spoke out and wrote about the #MeToo movement, sees change in the points of view of the coming generation, but says it remains slow going. “There’s some behavior that’s getting called out, obviously,” she says, “but mostly the kids that I work with do feel, in spite of everything that’s on Instagram and social media, that there’s a place and opportunity for them. I’m not working with kids who think that they need to be skinny and blond. They have a completely different perspective and they don’t take a lot of crap. I’m not saying it’s totally changed, but the landscape is totally different now.”
Things were different for her. “When I was in my teens and all the way up through most of my 30s, I really felt like I was ugly. Now I’m 59½ and I see photographs of myself when I was 18, 19, 20, 25, torturing myself about what I look like, and I think, ‘My god, you were beautiful!’ What a waste of time, what a waste of time. All these untruths were really painful and diminishing, and now I wish that I could have seen myself not just for what I looked like but for the person who I am, for what I could contribute. Hollywood in the ’80s was a place where you were kept objectified. I also felt manipulation from people who were in control of young actors, especially young women. I had to figure it out on my own.”
Video Sofia Black D’Elia and Ally Sheedy talk new series, ‘Single Drunk Female’
]
Sofia Black D’Elia and Ally Sheedy talk new series, ‘Single Drunk Female’ The new dramedy is about a young woman forced to sober up and move back in with her mom after a very public flame-out.
‘Single Drunk Female’ star Sofia Black-D’Elia on why the show is universally relatable
]
EMBED >More News Videos Watch the trailer for “Single Drunk Female,” premiering Thursday, January 20, on Freeform.
“Single Drunk Female” tells the story of Samantha Fink, a 20-something alcoholic realizing things are spiraling out of control. Star Sofia Black-D’Elia said everyone can relate to the premise.“We are all touched by addiction in some way or another,” the 30-year-old actress, who plays Sam in the Freeform series, told ABC Audio. “We all sort of know somebody or are that person, so it’s sort of impossible to not relate to some part of this story.“For Black-D’Elia, the part of Sam’s journey she said she related to most is “when you realize that you’ve spent most of your 20s thinking you know who you are, and you were wrong and you don’t really know anything and you kind of have to start over.“The creator of “Single Drunk Female,” Simone Finch, said she also relates to the titular character and even admitted, “I think she is me, but me when I was an alcoholic.““Just kidding, I’m still an alcoholic,” Finch joked. “But when I came into AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) at 28, is sort of Sam – they’re very similar, I would say.“While alcoholism doesn’t necessarily sound like the premise for a comedy, executive producer Daisy Gardner would beg to differ.“The darkest moments of my life are also the moments that I laugh the hardest,” she explained. “Like, when stuff goes so awry and is so terrible, just something ridiculous will happen. And that’s truly funny to me.“On the show, Sam moves back in with her mother, Carol, played by Ally Sheedy, after her stint in rehab. The “Breakfast Club” alum, 59, told “Good Morning America” it was “love at first sight” when she met her TV daughter.Black-D’Elia said while she was “nervous” to meet Sheedy because she’d been a fan for so long, they “just clicked right away.“Sheedy even joked about how the two brought their mother-daughter relationship from the small screen into their everyday life, with Black-D’Elia joking that the “St. Elmo’s Fire” alum is “a lot like” her real mom if she doesn’t return her texts promptly.“From both of them I get full-name, all-caps texts if I don’t respond quickly enough,” she said. “I love it. I feel so lucky. I got a second mom out of this.”
“GMA” Guest List: Dionne Warwick, Ally Sheedy and More to Appear Week of January 17th
]
“GMA” Guest List: Dionne Warwick, Ally Sheedy and More to Appear Week of January 17th
As we enter a new week of television programming, Good Morning America has announced their guests for January 17th-22nd. The show will welcome actors and authors who will discuss their current and upcoming projects.
What’s Happening:
Every day millions of Americans tune in to ABC Good Morning America or GMA for the latest national news and entertainment.
or for the latest national news and entertainment. The network has shared their guests list for the upcoming week which features actors, musicians and more.
Good Morning America airs Monday-Friday (7:00-9:00 am EST), on the ABC Television Network.
GMA Guests for the Week of January 17th-22nd:
Monday, January 17 Hilary Duff ( How I Met Your Father ) Brian Cox ( Putting the Rabbit in the Hat )
Tuesday, January 18 National Geographic Cover Reveal Chef Charity Morgan ( Unbelievably Vegan )
Wednesday, January 19 Rachel Beller (Food swaps for nutrition in the new year) Dionne Warwick Kyliegh Curran ( Secrets of Sulphur Springs ) Performance by Dustin Lynch featuring MacKenzie Porter
Thursday, January 20 Melissa Garcia ( Emily in Paris looks for less) Sofia Black-D’Elia and Ally Sheedy ( Single Drunk Female )
Friday, January 21 Will Packer John Ortiz and Cecilia Suárez ( Promised Land ) Performance by Walker Hayes
Saturday, January 22 Deals and Steals with Tory Johnson Binge This! with Kay Adams
Good Morning America is a two-hour, live program anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Michael Strahan and Ginger Zee is the chief meteorologist.
‘The Breakfast Club’ Cast: Where Are They Now?
By Nicholas Hautman
|
It all started with a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal.
In 1985, the world was introduced to five teenagers with very different backgrounds who found themselves spending nine hours on a Saturday in detention. The success of The Breakfast Club helped make stars out of the so-called Brat Pack — Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson — and critics consider the teen drama to be one of director John Hughes’ best.
The movie centers on Brian Johnson (Hall), Andrew Clark (Estevez), Allison Reynolds (Sheedy), Claire Standish (Ringwald) and John Bender (Nelson) as they gather in the library of the fictional Shermer High School to serve detention from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, 1984. Their tyrannical assistant principal, Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason), assigns each member of the group to write a 1,000-word essay describing “who you think you are.” He also instructs the students not to speak, leave their seats or sleep until they are released — all while regularly checking in on them.
Over the course of the 97-minute film, Brian, Andrew, Allison, Claire and John bicker, share their darkest secrets, smoke a little marijuana and ultimately become unlikely friends. In the end, they submit a single essay to the assistant principal, signed, “Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”
The movie reunited Hall and Ringwald, who previously starred in Hughes’ 1984 classic Sixteen Candles.
Although The Breakfast Club was not nominated for any major awards at the time, it is widely regarded as one of the most iconic films in history. One year after the dramedy celebrated its 30th anniversary, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, joining the likes of game-changers including Titanic, Toy Story, The Lion King, Forrest Gump, Schindler’s List, A League of Their Own, Goodfellas, Top Gun, Purple Rain, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Shining, Star Wars and Jaws.
Speaking about the film’s 30th anniversary in March 2015, Sheedy said that she “loved” the script when she first read it, but she was still surprised by how much of a phenomenon the movie became.
“I had a feeling that it was something special, but I didn’t know it was going to be as wonderful as it was when it was all put together,” she told Elle at the time. “And I didn’t know it would be such an enormous success.”
Keep scrolling to see what the cast of The Breakfast Club has been doing since the film’s release: