From 'Breakfast' to 'Broadway': Judd Nelson's journey leads to a new Henry Jaglom movie

It’s been a while since Judd Nelson has had this feeling: a movie where he was allowed to figure things out for himself.

“Movie-making is problem-solving,” says Nelson, 52, who stars in “Just 45 Minutes From Broadway,” a film by director Henry Jaglom that opens Friday.

“So I was encouraged by the opportunity to solve things, instead of the apprehension at the prospect of failure,” Nelson says. “Henry is so experienced; he works with people who are all on the same team, who have an esprit de corps. It’s not about the individual; the whole team wins.”

In “Just 45 Minutes from Broadway,” based on a play by Jaglom, Nelson plays an outsider who arrives with his fiancée at her family’s home in upstate New York — a clan that lives and breathes theatricality. A strait-laced type, Nelson’s James is seduced by the eccentric family and winds up falling for his fiancee’s sister (Tanna Frederick).

Jaglom’s approach, Nelson says, is that “the director is the captain of the ship. He may have a different course in mind than you do — but he’s the captain. And I like that.”

“Judd is a wonderful, underrated actor,” Jaglom says. “He’s more complicated and intriguing now. I saw shades of the old ’40s movie stars in him, something more profound.”

Still, it was a certain dangerous unpredictability that Nelson brought to roles in his 20s — specifically in “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire,” roles still remembered fondly by Gen-Xers — that persuaded Jaglom to cast Nelson, who was brought to his attention by Frederick.

“I think I was 15 when I saw ‘The Breakfast Club,’ and I was just entranced by Judd’s performance,” Frederick says. “He was so committed. And I loved working with him: He’s so incredibly focused.”

Nelson has only fond memories of working with the late John Hughes on “The Breakfast Club” — and isn’t surprised that it remains a touchstone, even for a generation that wasn’t born when it was released in 1985. The film was referenced (and excerpted) most recently in the high-school-set comedy “Pitch Perfect,” a fact that tickles Nelson.

“It’s a tribute to John’s script, and the truth that script offered,” Nelson says. “John believed that just because someone is young doesn’t mean they’re less.”

Nelson’s career in the subsequent 25-plus years has kept him working steadily (he was Brooke Shields’ gruff boss in the mid-’90s sitcom “Suddenly Susan”), even if the films have been forgettable. Nelson admits that “Breakfast Club“ probably warped his expectations of how exciting a film set could be — but he’s never lost his enthusiasm.

“Sometimes, you work on a project with people who treat it like they’re breaking rocks,” he says. “When I studied with [famed acting teacher] Stella Adler, she was very specific that the role of the actor is not a right — it’s a privilege. She always said you should love the art in yourself, and not yourself in the art. Sometimes, it’s easy, and sometimes, it’s impossible.”

Source : nydailynews[dot]com