Shailene Woodley Had No Idea Who Molly Ringwald Was on Secret Life of the American Teenager, Had Never Seen 'Any of Her Films'

Shailene Woodley says she learned a lot from her time on The Secret Life of the American Teenager — including who Molly Ringwald was.

The ’80s teen icon starred as Woodley’s character’s mother in the ABC Family drama, which aired from 2008 to 2013. But as Woodley, 32, reveals in the most recent edition of Vanity Fair’s “Scene Selection,” she wasn't familiar with Ringwald's work going into the series.

“I didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was,” Woodley admitted. “I was 15, didn’t grow up with a TV.”

“Like, every one of my parents’ friends were like, ‘You’re working with Molly Ringwald!’ ” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘What is her … Why? I don’t get it.’ Because I had never seen Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles or any of her films.”

While she may not have been familiar with any of the John Hughes films that launched Ringwald to fame in the ’80s as part of the Brat Pack, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, according to Woodley.

“I got to know her as just this, like, beautiful older sister motherly figure to me, who was really protective of honoring, like, my authenticity as a young person and who I was and just being, like, a kiddo playing a kiddo,” she explained.

Ringwald’s experience as a teen star likely meant she understood what the young actress was going through at the time.

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“She protected me in that way,” Woodley said, “and I’m so thankful for that because there is a pressure for people to grow up very quickly, especially when it comes to Hollywood.”

Woodley added that she also learned a lot about storytelling and “the types of messages that I want to be putting into the world or maybe not putting into the world” working on the show.

“Secret Life was a great opportunity to learn those lessons at a very young age,” she said. “It was a fun journey and it was a great time, and I definitely learned a lot.”