Where is ‘Sixteen Candles’ Star Michael Schoeffling Now?

Sixteen Candles star Michael Schoeffling left behind a career as a Hollywood pinup for a quiet life as a woodworker.

Schoeffling was at the center of one of the ‘80s iconic movie love triangles — opposite Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall — as high school heartthrob Jake Ryan in writer-director John Hughes’ 1984 teen rom-com. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in May 2025, Hall reflected on Schoeffling’s friendliness behind the scenes and remembered his onscreen rival taking him under his wing while they were shooting Sixteen Candles.

“He was a great guy. It was fun,” Hall remembered. “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.”

Playing Jake Ryan catapulted Schoeffling into becoming one of the era’s most promising young stars. For a change of pace, Schoeffling followed up Sixteen Candles by playing against type as the peace pipe-smoking high school wrestler Kenny “Kuch” Kuchera in Vision Quest.

He told reporter Bobbie Wygant in a 1985 interview that it was important to separate himself from Jake Ryan due to the immense success of Sixteen Candles.

“I suppose I brought something to the character that people liked,” he explained at the time. “Vision Quest was a big stretch from Sixteen Candles. I need to make those stretches as an actor and I think I get the parts because I can bring something to the character that, maybe, somebody else couldn’t.”

Schoeffling only made eight movies after his breakout performance as Jake Ryan, including playing Winona Ryder’s love interest in 1990’s Mermaids and delivering an overtly dramatic turn in 1991’s Great Depression drama Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.

He married Valerie C. Robinson in 1987, after the pair met a few years earlier while they were both modeling in New York City. The couple share two children: Zane, born in 1988, and Scarlett, born in 1991.

Robinson and Schoeffling moved away from Hollywood to his hometown of Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, following the release of Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, to open their own woodworking design business. Very little public information about the business is available, other than that Schoeffling offers hand-crafted furniture.

Schoeffling has never given interviews since retiring from acting, with his wife telling People in 2014 that he simply values his privacy.

“He’s a very different kind of person,” Robinson explained. “He’s very reclusive and private.”

Robinson assured Sixteen Candles fans that Schoeffling is “doing fine” and is now “very happy” away from the Hollywood spotlight.

His Sixteen Candles costar Hall told Entertainment Tonight in May 2025 that he respected that Schoeffling wanted to live a quiet life with his family.

“Where is Mr. Handsome when we need him?” he joked. “I think he married his high school sweetheart and he moved back to Pennsylvania. 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.”

Despite the Schoeffling family’s reclusive lifestyle, Michael’s daughter Scarlett ultimately followed in her father’s footsteps as both an actor and a model. Scarlett is represented by New York Models and LA Models, in addition to acting in the hit TV drama Billions and the 2020 movie Blackjack: The Jackie Ryan Story.

Scarlett occasionally shares photos of her dad via social media, including posting a throwback to Michael’s GQ cover from the ‘80s for Father’s Day in 2023. She wrote alongside the photo: “My fathers day post is dads first GQ cover. slay.”