Molly Ringwald wanted her actress daughter to use Ringwald as her stage name

I ended up sort of disappointed in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans – there were some amazing parts and everyone was acting their asses off, but they stretched out the story too much. It would have been a tighter, more interesting four-episode series but it felt dragged out. And after all that, Molly Ringwald was barely in it! She played Joanne Carson, Johnny Carson’s ex-wife, and Capote’s “LA Swan.” I wished there was more of Joanne because she really adored Truman. That being said, I love that Molly was included and I’m here for the Molly Ringwald Renaissance. Molly and her 20-year-old daughter Mathilda recently did a joint interview in the Times of London about the 1980s, fashion and nepo babies. Some highlights (just from Molly’s section):

Conceiving Mathilda: “I believe that Mathilda was conceived in the dressing room at Studio 54 right at the end of my run playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret in 2003. It’s so Mathilda to be conceived in such an iconic place. I always knew I wanted to have children but it took me a while — I was 36 when she was born. At that age the biological clock is a real thing and it had kind of become deafening. All I could think about was: must have kids.

On her family: My husband, Panio, an author and book editor, and I were both enchanted from the moment Mathilda was born. She was five weeks early, so she was on the smaller side, but she had these big, beautiful eyes…The hardest thing about motherhood was realising that my time was not my own. As an actress I’ve travelled a lot and learnt to live with instability, but that’s not great for kids. That’s something I am always looking to improve on and luckily I have a husband who is a planner and is very stable. I provide other qualities, like spontaneity, humour and creativity. We also have 14-year-old twins, Roman and Adele. All of our kids are good at communicating. They’re able to come to us when they need to, which I’m really grateful for. We at least did something right.

Her baby moved out two years ago: Mathilda moved out to Bushwick in Brooklyn about a year ago. She really needed to have her own space. As much as I loved my parents, I was definitely ready to move out as soon as I turned 18. Bushwick feels very far from where we are in upstate New York, but thankfully she still comes back home with her laundry.

Molly on Mathilda not wanting to use her name: “She and I are both emotional and headstrong. When she was learning to walk, if we helped her for a couple of steps she would stop and say, “Do myself lone” and go back and do it again. That’s still her attitude today, including in her acting career. She took Gianopoulos, her father’s name, instead of Ringwald. I said, “Are you sure? Ringwald is so much easier to spell and it might open some doors.” But she was adamant.”

The nepo baby discussion: “The nepo baby thing is ridiculous. Of course if you have a parent in the industry, it’s something that you’ve heard about and might be genetically predisposed to. We wouldn’t let Mathilda pursue acting when she was a child, as we wanted her to concentrate on being a kid. She fought us on that — she’s still kind of mad about it, but it was the right decision. I don’t think that professional acting is a great way for kids to grow up. It’s way too stressful and it’s a crap shoot on whether or not the kids can make it through. I did my first professional job at ten years old and it was not easy.

Watching ‘The Breakfast Club’: I don’t enjoy watching myself on screen. I only rewatched The Breakfast Club, which came out in 1985, because Mathilda wanted to see it with me. There is a lot that I really love about the movie but there are elements that haven’t aged well — like Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harasses my character. I’m glad we’re able to look at that and say things are truly different now. They were all really fun movies to make. Sixteen Candles, the first movie I made with the director John Hughes, in 1984, was filmed during the summer. He would just let the camera roll and we would improvise. It was a very free, creative experience.

[From The Times]

The nepo baby discussion from a parent’s perspective is funny! Molly is like “please use nepotism to get jobs, take my name, tell people you’re my daughter.” Molly’s basically like, of course I would do anything to help my kids break into the industry. Which is all fair – I understand why parents want to help, especially with such a fickle industry. But acknowledge it, acknowledge that your beloved child is a nepo baby who is being helped by your connections! Acknowledge that you’re helping your kid by doing mother-daughter interviews in a prominent British newspaper!

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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