Mia Sara, one of the stars of ‘80s classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, has revealed she did not enjoy making the beloved teen comedy.
The movie, which stars Matthew Broderick as a teenager who takes a “day off” from high school by feigning illness, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month and was the subject of a cast retrospective by The Times, published on Saturday (June 20). In the article, Broderick and co-stars Jennifer Grey and Alan Ruck looked back fondly on the making of the movie.
However, Sara, who played Ferris’ girlfriend Sloane, doesn’t have such fond memories, hinting at a difficult relationship with the film’s writer-director John Hughes. “I don’t really give interviews because making Ferris Bueller was not that good an experience for me,” she said. “But I’m very aware of what a precious thing this movie is, and I don’t want to disappoint people. But I didn’t get along well with John.”
She expanded on the difficulties, saying “John was a strange guy… He wanted us all to hang out together and to introduce us to the French New Wave films. But the others were seasoned actors and I was a snotty New York kid and had seen all those movies, so he was frustrated in that desire. I didn’t have the emotional maturity to deal with other people’s egos, or my own.” On a lighter note, she joked about falling for her on-screen love interest. “I had a massive crush on Matthew during the filming,” she said, “but it was very much unrequited.”
Mia Sara had a long acting career, which included Ridley Scott’s Legend and Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie Timecop. However, she stepped away from acting in 2013, pursuing a career in writing. The hiatus ended when she appeared in 2024 movie The Life Of Chuck, but she confessed not to enjoy the acting industry. “I never really had the resilience to deal with the audition process,” she said. “There are some things in my career that I’m really proud of, but overall it was not a happy career for me.”
In 2023, Matthew Broderick talked about his career struggles after he found success with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, revealing that “the ’90s were hard” and that “it’s not easy to maintain that first flush”.