John Hughes and the cast of The Breakfast Club were annoyed by Judd Nelson’s approach

John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” is, for better or worse, the defining comedy of Generation The story of five very different high school students – a brain (Anthony Michael Hall), an athlete (Emilio Estevez), a basketball case (Ally Sheedy), a princess (Molly Ringwald) and a criminal (Judd Nelson) – brought together for a day of detention on a Saturday continues to resonate, a testament to John Hughes’ ability to capture the volatile emotional wavelength of adolescents and the perfectly pitched performances of his cast of promising actors.

Placing the right actors in the right roles proved a bit of a challenge for Hughes and casting director Jackie Burch, particularly when it came to the role of hellfire John Bender. Estevez initially landed the role, but Hughes liked him more as the jock Andrew Clark. Nicolas Cage and Alan Ruck were considered for Bender, but Hughes ended up choosing John Cusack…for a moment. When the writer-director realized that Cusack lacked the physically intimidating presence that made Bender the straw that stirred the drink, he turned to Nelson. Hughes obviously made the right choice, but the decision came with its share of problems.

Nelson had given a dry run as Bender in Cannon’s 1984 teen comedy “Making the Grade.” It was a largely forgettable entry in that decade’s thriving genre, but Nelson impressed as a smart con artist hired by a rich kid to attend and graduate from a prep school for him (it makes just as much sense in the film itself). You wanted to see more of him, but Hughes and his actors ended up seeing a little too much of him.

According to an oral history of “The Breakfast Club” published in 1999 by Premiere Magazine, Nelson used a little method in his portrayal of Bender. As the unit’s publicist, Fredell Pogodin, said, “Judd could be arrogant as anything, but he was really smart, very quick-witted. And he was an uncanny observer. He knew where your Achilles heel was.”

Like his character, Nelson was particularly harsh on Molly Ringwald – which, interestingly, bothered Hughes more than Ringwald. According to the ‘Sixteen Candles’ and ‘Pretty in Pink’ star:

“Judd was becoming a bit of a character, trying to get under my skin, adding a lot of things that were supposed to be offensive to me. I didn’t think it was that bad, but John was very protective of me, and he may have had other issues. All of a sudden it was like, ‘That’s it, I’m going to fire him.’ I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

“My feeling was that Bender should be an incredible asshole,” Nelson said. “I wanted him to be ready to be violent from the start. So when I started, it was like, ‘Whoa! This is too much!'”

Hughes feared that Nelson’s approach would turn Bender into an unsympathetic bully. There was tension between the two which led to a disagreement over Bender’s claim that his father burned him with a cigar. Hughes thought Bender “stuck him in a fence.” Nelson replied, “Of course he was burned! Did he do that to himself? Why would he know so many caricatures of other people’s perfect families if it wasn’t a nightmare?”

In the end, Nelson kept his job and gave an iconic performance that gave the film its emotionally charged core. It’s impossible to imagine another actor from this era like Bender, and even though Nelson never topped that performance (and disappeared from Hollywood), it’s a hell of a high.