{"id":548165,"date":"2026-07-13T22:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/548165\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:12:11","slug":"todd-bridges-shares-what-one-the-breakfast-club-executive-said-to-him-that-led-him-to-walk-out-on-his-audition-for-the-teen-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/548165\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Bridges Shares What One \u201cThe Breakfast Club\u201d Executive Said to Him That Led Him to Walk Out on His Audition for the Teen Hit"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n

Todd Bridges was on a panel at Fanboy Expo Knoxville with Christopher Atkins on Sunday, July 12<\/p>\n

The actors each talked about the roles that they missed out on, with the Diff’rent Strokes star recalling his opportunity to be in The Breakfast Club<\/p>\n

The 61-year-old explained why a comment from an executive changed his mind about the film<\/p>\n

Todd Bridges<\/a> stands by his decision to walk away from one of the biggest teen films of all time.<\/p>\n

During his appearance at Fanboy Expo Knoxville, the actor, 61, revealed he had the chance to audition for The Breakfast Club after running into John Hughes<\/a> on a plane.<\/p>\n

“I was on a plane, on my way to New York, and John Hughes was sitting next to me. And he goes, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re\u2026 I like you. Your spirit, you’re funny,’ ” Bridges told fans during his panel with Christopher Atkins<\/a>, moderated by John Kotrides.<\/p>\n

Bridges continued, “He goes, ‘You know, I’m doing a movie.’ ” Hughes then offered to introduce Bridges to a business associate.<\/p>\n

“The movie was actually The Breakfast Club.”<\/p>\n

\""The<\/p>\n

“The Breakfast Club” cast: Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy
Credit: Universal\/Kobal\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The young actor agreed to meet with Hughes’ associate, but was disenchanted with the situation after he did.<\/p>\n

“So, I meet with the guy, and he looks at me. And he walks around me [judgmentally]. I’m like, ‘What the heck is he doing, man?’ And you know what he said to me? ‘We don’t know how to write for Blacks,’ ” Bridges said.<\/p>\n

In the moment, he responded, “The same way you write for white people.”<\/p>\n

“And I walked out. Maybe I should have been a little more tactical, you know what I mean? But I just couldn’t,” he admitted. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to work with this guy.’ “<\/p>\n

Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n

\"Todd<\/p>\n

Todd Bridges
Credit: Erika Goldring\/Getty<\/p>\n

Atkins shared his own story of the role that got away, revealing he auditioned for Footloose but wasn’t ready for the moment.<\/p>\n

“Mine was pretty sad. So I had the movie Footloose. They wanted me to do Footloose. And I was, I was a mess back then. I was partying it up way too much, and they called me in. They said, ‘Oh, they wanted to see you.’ I said, ‘Man, I can’t go in right now.’ I’ve been drinking and carrying on.’ And they said, ‘No, they need to see you.’ And I went in and I just blew that audition,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

“Because\u2014I mean, it wasn’t even an audition, I had the part. But I was so messed up that they said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to have to pass on this guy.’ And I’m almost 40 years sober, so there you go.”<\/p>\n

Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Todd Bridges was on a panel at Fanboy Expo Knoxville with Christopher Atkins on Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[119968,93,232371,61,60,91097,270,134549,232370],"class_list":["post-548165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-christopher-atkins","tag-entertainment","tag-fanboy-expo-knoxville","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-hughes","tag-movies","tag-the-breakfast-club","tag-todd-bridges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}