‘We didn’t want him to get hit!’: Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off | Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Matthew Broderick, playing Ferris Bueller

I’ve done WarGames and Ladyhawke and been sent a lot of “young man” parts. I was a little worried at first because Ferris is talking to the audience – I’ve done that in a couple of plays and I didn’t want it to seem like that’s all I could do. Meanwhile, my agent said, “You’ve been asked to do a John Hughes movie. You’re doing it.” I didn’t know much about John at the time, but I kept hearing him referred to as “the Spielberg of teen movies.”

I thought it shouldn’t seem like Ferris was trying too hard, because things had become easy for him. I wanted to be quiet and a little isolated. We didn’t want him to be someone you wanted to punch in the face. That’s always the danger with guys who get away with everything.

After a test screening, one young woman comments that she doesn’t like Ferris because he “makes me do things I don’t want to do,” so they eliminated the scene in which I try to convince Sloane [Mia Sara] Not going home and still having a good time.

now [Ruck, played Cameron] And I have timeless hairstyles because we were just in a military play, Biloxi Blues. Given the film’s production history, had we been able to, we both probably would have had a crazy mullet, and in that case, it wouldn’t have become a timeless classic.

John can be a very strict manager. A lot of times, I would implement his ideas as carefully as possible, but the scenes where I’m alone at home talking to the camera? We were just making things up. I picked up the clarinet and started playing because he was there and I pretended to play great. The plan was to replace the sound and make it really good, but John saw the footage and said, “I’m not going to do that.”

Marilyn Vance [costume designer] John came with my outfit. There are details you don’t even see. My socks had the flags of all the countries on them. I had the rabbit’s foot in my pocket there. John thought Ferris’ leather coat should be simple, like James Dean’s red jacket, but we went completely the other way. The hat was my idea.

The spectacle of the show was huge. We shot an actual parade one weekend, then did close-ups the next day. They ran a radio competition inviting people to take part in a John Hughes film and 10,000 people attended. It felt real. Window washers dancing? The camera guys have just noticed them. They were catching everything they could.

I spent weeks with choreographer Kenny Ortega, but I blew out my knee doing the backyard jogging scenes. He made the dancing very spontaneous. John will be away and the megaphone will shout: “Make something!” I was scared but once everyone was cheering for you, I felt like the king of the world.

When John was alive, I always thought: “Maybe we’ll do it again?” But a lot of time has passed. What happened to Ferris? He is very charming and creative but may have turned into his father. This is what most of us do.

Alan Ruck, played by Cameron Frye

John Hughes originally thought of Anthony Michael Hall or Emilio Estevez for Ferris but they wanted to move on to different things so he chose Matthew wisely. We were doing this play together, Biloxi Blues. In one scene, he was writing in his journal and we were supposed to be asleep. One night, he pushed me. I open my eyes and he shows me his diary. “They offered me Ferris Bueller,” she said.

Casting directors didn’t want to see me because I was 28 and they thought I was too old. My agent said, “He plays against Broaddrick every night. They look the same age.” I auditioned and they thought, “This will work,” but they didn’t offer it to me right away. Matthew’s manager kept putting the idea in John’s ear, saying, “Matthew would like to work with Alan.” He went a long way to get the part. Matthew and I were already friends. We didn’t have to make that up.

I always felt out of life. In addition to Ferris being his best friend, Cameron is definitely on the outside as well, due to his oppressive home life. It wasn’t free and easy. It was also easy to take advantage of that.

Matthew has a photographic memory of comedy routines and movie scenes. We were huge fans of Richard Pryor and he knew every routine. He was doing Tony Montana’s monologue from Scarface and making me angry. Gene Sacks, the manager of the Biloxi Blues, used to get mad at us because we were always messing around. Matthew was imitating him backstage, saying, “I can’t believe you’re soldiers in World War II!” When John asked me to create an authoritative voice for Sloane’s father, I was imitating Matthew, and I was imitating Jane. I just did it to see if I could make Matthew laugh – and I did.

Honestly, I can’t remember what was going through my mind during the gallery scene. I have experienced a number of personal losses and tragedies in my life, as we all do, and I have benefited from some of that.

We had three cars. One had a heavy-duty suspension for stunts. The car we traveled in had electrical problems. When we put it together after the show, we’d shoot the scene and it wouldn’t start. We did 16 takes. When we sent the third one flying out the window, the entire crew exploded in huge cheers.

There was a period when I didn’t want to do anything with the film. I was having a hard time getting work and everyone kept talking about Ferris Bueller. I thought this was good for me. Once I started working again, I really came to appreciate it. My joke is that Cameron’s dad came home and threw him out the window. The rest of that day wasn’t happy, but maybe things worked out okay. Maybe he’s now a lawyer in Chicago.