It’s not just Sam Baker who thought Jake Ryan was the “cat’s meow.” To Anthony Michael Hall — who played “the Geek” in Sixteen Candles — costar Michael Schoeffling was “like a big brother.”
Hall, still reeling from the recent 40th anniversary reunion of The Breakfast Club in Chicago, appeared on Entertainment Tonight, where he spoke to Nischelle Turner about other highlights in his career, like being the youngest cast member ever on Saturday Night Live, his forthcoming role on Reacher season 3, and the movie that started it all for him, Sixteen Candles.
“Hollywood is like campus,” noted the actor. “You kind of run into people — at work, or on the lot, or in pursuit of work. You’re running into people that you’ve worked with… and it’s always cool.”
But one such former costar Hall has not run into is Sixteen Candles hunk Schoeffling, the quintessential ’80s heartthrob who played Jake in the John Hughes classic.
“Where is Mr. Handsome when we need him?” he joked when Turner asked about Schoeffling’s MIA status.
“I think he married his high school sweetheart and he moved back to Pennsylvania,” said Hall. “In the late ’80s, he did a movie called Vision Quest after we did Sixteen Candles, and then he decided to take another run at life, which you have to respect.”
Hall added, “He was a great guy. It was fun. On that set, he was like a big brother to me. He was real cool, so we hung out a lot, even though I was a little kid.”
Phillip Faraone/Getty
Anthony Michael Hall, who will next be seen on ‘Reacher’ season 3, photographed at a 2024 Netflix screening in Los Angeles
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Schoeffling, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. — home to the gorgeous natural whirlpools formed by glacial meltwater called the Seven Tubs — made a few more movies after Vision Quest, like the Cher-led family comedy Mermaids and the Merchant-Ivory production Slaves of New York. But by 1991, he was out of the business.
PEOPLE reports that he did, indeed, return to Pennsylvania to “design and craft furniture.” (We will now take a brief pause to allow everyone to swoon.)
Universal Pictures/ Everett Collection
Michael Schoeffling as Jake Ryan in ‘Sixteen Candles’
Schoeffling maintains a private life and has not appeared at any conventions like the recent Chicago Breakfast Club event, but apparently, if you go full Jessica Fletcher, you might find him on the social media account of one of his kids. No, we’re not linking to it — you’ve got to work that one out for yourself.
Check out the chemistry between Anthony Michael Hall and Michael Schoeffling in this classic clip below.
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