When I got to Los Angeles at the beginning of this year, one of the first things I did was get a membership to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as well as the Film Club addition. Part of that Film Club perk is occasional invites to really cool screenings….and this month, one of the events was a live table reading of the shooting script for The Breakfast Club. If you haven’t seen that classic 80s movie, it’s probably worth going to go see, especially if you’re going to pay $5 each to see a table read. One of the mysteries about this event was who was going to actually play the parts….and with the curator of this event being Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman and director of Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air), there was potential for a stellar cast. Part of me was thinking it could be a TV show cast, something like Happy Endings or Community, but that wasn’t very apt, as it turned out.
I met Larry at the LACMA complex around 5:30pm after work so we could get some lunch at this fab restaurant, Ray’s, which is situated in the main patio area in the center of the complex. We were having a fantastic dinner with delightful cocktails (I was on my second or third Lost in Yonkers) when all of a sudden, Larry sucks in his breath and mutters ‘oh my god’. I look at him and realize there must be someone behind me that is a big deal, as he reserves that kind of shocked voice for celebrities and really hot guys. Somebody walks by me from behind and to a table in my view. I can’t tell who it is yet and he stammers out to me, “it’s Jennifer Garner!” HOLY CRAP. Sidney Bristow of Alias? 13 Going on 30? Mrs. Affleck?? Awesome. She was gorgeous in person. And she was so close. It looked like she was meeting some friends before taking the stage of the Bing Theater, which Larry correctly figured out. He even guessed which role she’d be playing….Molly Ringwald’s Claire.
After dinner, we headed to the theater, waited in the long line to actually enter, and then got our seats (me with my glasses on since I knew it was probably going to be important to be able to see their faces!). Sure enough, the lights dimmed (but not before both Larry & I saw that the crowd was filled with tons of attractive men) and the cast was introduced after Jason Reitman first came out:
- Carl the Janitor: JK Simmons (the character actor in everything, from Spiderman, Juno, to the Farmers’ Insurance commercials)
- Mr. Vernon: Michael Chiklis (star of The Shield!)
- Brian (Anthony Michael Hall): Patton Oswalt (hilarious funnyman in United States of Tara, the voice in Ratatouille)
- Andy (Emilio Estevez): James Van der Beek (Dawson!)
- Allison (Ally Sheedy): Mindy Kaling (Kelly from The Office)
- Claire (Molly Ringwald): Jennifer Garner (our new friend)
- Bender (Judd Nelson): Aaron Paul (from Breaking Bad, a show I haven’t seen but now want to, as he was awesome)
After the Breakfast Club at LACMA, Oct 20, 2011
