Shailene Woodley ‘didn’t know’ Molly Ringwald on ‘Secret Life of the American Teenager’

Shailene Woodley revealed she “didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was” while starring with the actress on Secret Life of the American Teenager.

In a recent Vanity Fair interview, Woodley, now 32, shared a surprising detail from her time on the ABC Family drama that aired from 2008 to 2013: she didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was when they began filming. Ringwald, a teen icon of the ’80s, starred as Woodley’s character’s mother in the series.

“I didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was,” Woodley admitted. “I was 15, didn’t grow up with a TV.”

“Like, every one of my parents’ friends were like, ‘You’re working with Molly Ringwald!’ ” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘What is her… Why? I don’t get it.’ Because I had never seen Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles or any of her films.”

Although Woodley hadn’t seen the classic John Hughes films that made Ringwald a star in the ’80s, she viewed that as a positive experience.

“I got to know her as just this, like, beautiful older sister motherly figure to me, who was really protective of honouring, like, my authenticity as a young person and who I was and just being, like, a kiddo playing a kiddo,” she explained.

Given her own background as a teen icon, Ringwald likely had unique insight into the challenges Woodley was facing as a young actress.

“She protected me in that way,” Woodley said, “and I’m so thankful for that because there is a pressure for people to grow up very quickly, especially when it comes to Hollywood.”