Actor Matthew Broderick has been in several movies over the years, and even Broadway shows have seen him take center stage, but he will forever be best known for playing the title character in the classic 80s teen comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Broderick’s quick-witted Bueller is a character who has gone on to be replicated, quoted, and re-watched generation after generation. He is close to the hearts of fans, but it turns out the experience of creating the film wasn’t as pleasant as it looks like it might have been.
In a recent interview on on The Hollywood Reporter‘s “It Happened in Hollywood” podcast, Broderick recalled his interactions with director John Hughes, who directed many of the teen hit films of the 80s, including Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. Broderick said that early on in the film’s shoot, Hughes was discouraged after some early costume test footage came back featuring the star, and his co-stars Alan Ruck, Jennifer Grey and Mia Sara.
“That was a big drama. When the footage came back, he said none of us were ‘fun to watch.’ We were ‘boring’ in our tests. Actually, some of us he did like, but some he did not, and I was one he did not.”
Broderick wasn’t new to acting, having already made several hit films, so he explained the confusion he dealt with when meeting Hughes’ disappointment:
“I had already done some work. I had done War Games and all that. I was not a total newcomer. So to have him say, ‘I’m not used to having somebody be so dead,’ or whatever he said to me. I wasn’t really ‘in it’ or something. That happened and I said, ‘So get somebody you like.’“
Broderick admits Hughes wasn’t the only director to confront him on set.
“I’ve heard that from other directors, too. I do drive people crazy sometimes because I don’t appear to be doing anything sometimes, it seems. But, hopefully, eventually, I do. He’s not the first director to grab me at some point and say, ‘What is wrong with you?’”
While that initial confrontation lasted only “half a day,” the two found themselves at odds again at other points in the shoot.
“He was somebody who could get angry at you. Not outwardly angry, but you could tell. He would turn dead. Dead-faced. I would say, ‘What did you think of that?’ And he’d say, ‘I don’t know.’ Just nothing. ‘OK. John doesn’t like that.’
He said, ‘I like when your eyes go wide, and then smaller, and then go wide again.’ I said, ‘If you tell me exactly what my face is doing, I get kind of self-conscious. Now I’m thinking of my face.’ And he was like, ‘Well, then, I won’t direct you at all.’ … And for a few days, he didn’t give me anything. Until I finally had to say, ‘John, you have to direct me, come on.’ That was our worst one.”
Still, Broderick emphasizes that the disagreements with Hughes were short-lived.
“He took the work very seriously, is what I mean. [John] wasn’t a loosey-goosey person. But he also didn’t hold a grudge and knew how to get himself out of it.”
It wasn’t all bad, making this great movie. Broderick fondly recalls spending hours in Hughes’ swimming pool in Brentwood around the time of the filming, “smoking cigarettes and eating potato chips” as they discussed the role that would eventually shoot the actor, then 23, to superstardom.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is currently streaming on Paramount+, and is available to rent on Amazon.