Nothing says Friday night in the Eighties like a Molly Ringwald screening at your local cinema. If you booked a ticket and grabbed your popcorn to see the star's latest Hollywood adventures, there was a good chance co-star Anthony Michael Hall would be there to join her as the nerdy, shy stand-in for awkward teens across the country. John Hughes' number one choice for a lovable geek, Anthony hasn't stepped off our screens.
We're looking at his early rise to fame, the roles that had him star opposite 80s favourite Molly Ringwald and what he's been up to since his (fictional) high-school days.
© Michael Ochs ArchivesAnthony Michael Hall is most recognisable for his roles alongside fellow members of The Brat Pack
Who is Anthony Michael Hall?
Anthony Michael Hall is most famous for his work on 80s hits The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and National Lampoon’s Vacation. The actor found success as a nerdy teen in John Hughes’ classics like Weird Science and is counted alongside original Brat Pack members Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Rob Lowe.
The actor was born Michael Anthony Hall but adopted Anthony Michael on entering the Screen Actors’ Guild. He grew up in Massachusetts, raised by Mercedes Hall, herself an actress and jazz singer, and Larry Hall, a mechanic.
© Getty ImagesJohn Hughes' regular cast included two-time co-stars Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall
Co-starring with Molly Ringwald
Anthony starred alongside Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles (1984) and The Breakfast Club (1985). Both characters were typical of John Hughes’ go-to star for any role on the nerdier side, though Anthony Michael Hall initially appealed to the director for his more subdued take on the shy geek with a huge crush on Molly’s Sam.
The Hughes favourite recalled: “Every single kid who came in to read for the part did the whole, stereotyped high school nerd thing. Thick glasses, ball point pens in the pocket, white socks. But when Michael came in he played it straight, like a real human being.” And so, a Brat Pack legend was born. “I knew right at that moment that I’d found my geek,” the director explained.
© Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty ImagesOne of Anthony Michael Hall's early roles had him take on the infamous poet Edgar Allen Poe
Early career
The Sixteen Candles star got his onscreen start in commercials and early TV appearances, including ABC Weekend Specials episode ‘The Gold Bug’ (1980) as a young Edgar Allan Poe and on Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (1982).
Anthony got his big break the following year as Rusty Griswold in National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), the youngest child of Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo. National Lampoon’s Vacation follows the Griswold family’s problem-filled, epic journey to Walley World, driving from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki replaced Anthony Michael Hall as Rusty in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) six years later.
© Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via GAnthony Michael Hall had something of a comeback following 1990 cult classic Edward Scissorhands
What's he been up to since
Anthony spent some time away from the screen, enjoying New York’s club culture. By 1990, the actor revealed he had quit drinking, and also met his biological father, who had left while Anthony was little. He starred opposite Winona Ryder as her bullish jock boyfriend in Edward Scissorhands (1990) and followed it up with smaller roles in film and TV.
The second leg of his on-screen career has included roles in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Tim Burton’s Netflix hit Wednesday, and Season 3 of Reacher as Zachary Beck. He’s also returned to cosier storylines with roles in long-running sitcoms The Goldbergs and Community.
© Corbis via Getty ImagesAnthony Michael Hall has been married to wife Lucia since 2020
Inside his personal life
The John Hughes favourite has kept the early days of his love story with business woman and model Lucia Oskerova under wraps but they first started appearing together on the red carpet in 2014. The couple got engaged on 4 September 2019 while away on holiday and married the next year in a private ceremony on a Miami beach.
The couple welcomed their son, Michael Anthony Hall II, in June 2023 and renewed their vows on 11 November the same year, at St Mary’s Cathedral in Miami. His wife Lucia has worked as a model since the age of 15. After being awarded a degree in interior design and architecture, she chose to instead pursue a career in acting and has since appeared in White Chicks (2004), War Machine (2017) and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019) among others.
© Getty ImagesMolly Ringwald is still entrenched in pop-culture as the face of the 80s
His co-star Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald is synonymous with John Hughes’ hits of the 80s, starring in three of the director’s major hits Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles.
Spearheading three formative 80s teen flicks in the same number of years made the actress a name forever connected with common coming-of-age experiences like early crushes, complicated friendships and becoming that all-elusive ‘grown up’.
© Getty ImagesMolly Ringwald has taken on a parenting role in recent years to the next generation of coming-of-age stars
An 80s icon
The Pretty in Pink star has since returned to our screens, this time as the responsible parent watching (and attempting to prevent) the kinds of antics her characters regularly get up to. Molly’s first notable role as on-screen matriarch came in all four seasons of The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-2013).
She took on the role again in the Kissing Booth trilogy as Jacob Elordi’s mother, Mrs Flynn and flexed her more serious acting muscles in Netflix’s Monster series as Shari Dahmer. Most recently, she appeared in Run Amok (2026), the story of student Meg who plans to stage a musical reenactment of a high school shooting that took place 10 years prior.
