Matthew Broderick, star of the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, reveals tensions with the writer-director John Hughes. Broderick shows this during The Hollywood Reporter’s It Happened in Hollywood podcast. 

Broderick (now 61) states that Hughes (died at 59 from a heart attack in 2009) felt nervous that the movie would not come out right. However, Broderick says he still had fond times with Hughes such as discussing the role in Hughes’s swimming pool. Things took a turn, however, in Chicago in September 1985 when filming started. That day they were doing a costume check by walking around the city in their costumes being filmed. Hughes said that some of them looked dull looking back at the film, including Broderick. 

Broderick summarizes that Hughes said, “I’m not used to having somebody be so dead.” Hughes was not the only director to approach Broderick because he would sometimes appear not to be doing anything. Broderick said:

Hughes’s worst confrontation was, “I like when your eyes go wide, and then smaller, and then go wide again… If you tell me exactly what my face is doing, I get kind of self-conscious. Now I’m thinking of my face.

Hughes did not like this response and said he would not direct him then. That lasted a few days until Broderick spoke up. 

Although Broderick says disagreements were short-lived, Hughes took his work seriously and wasn’t easygoing about his work. However, he knew how not to hold a grudge.