Matthew Broderick, the actor who shot to fame as Ferris Bueller in the 1986 film, has said it was “hard” to get people on board with his later roles.
The star, now 61, was in his early twenties when he played the high school slacker who skips a day of classes in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
In a new interview with The Guardian, which took place the day before the Hollywood actors’ strike, Broderick said: “I did have nice early success. But it’s not easy to maintain that first flush. It’s always a hard adjustment for child actors, young actors. People see the kid out of Leave It to Beaver grown up and they don’t buy it – they want to see little Beaver.”
He added: “People associated me with younger roles, but I wanted them to come with me and get used to the fact that I’m wrinkly. And it was hard. The Nineties were hard. Lots of ups and downs. But I always tried to keep at it, keep my heart in it. Hopefully that keeps you in the game.”
When asked what his legacy is, the actor replied: “Well, I’m Ferris Bueller, I suppose. I have to accept it. And I like it. I’ve made my peace with it.”
Broderick can next be seen in a new Netflix drama, Painkiller, about the opioid crisis in the US.
He plays Richard Sackler, the former president of Purdue Pharma who developed the morphine-based OxyContin, a drug at the centre of a huge addiction epidemic in the US.
Matthew Broderick now and in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’— (Getty, Shutterstock)
Talking about the drug, Broderick said: “I don’t think I’ve known anyone who’s been on OxyContin. Or who crushed pills and snorted them. Unless they didn’t tell me. But it’s a sprawling, complicated story, and we all have some experience. My mom had very bad pain from cancer. She was on those kinds of drugs for years – not OxyContin, but it was an opioid – and they helped her. So it’s difficult, because I can see the need for painkillers.
“I think the original intent to develop the drug is not inherently evil. It’s only when you get people hiding the evidence of how addictive it is that it becomes an awful story.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the actor discussed his 26-year marriage with And Just Like That star Sarah Jessica Parker and their plans for a West End production of Neil Simon’s comedy Plaza Suite.
