Matthew Broderick Says 'Ferris Bueller' Director Would Get 'Angry' at Him: 'I Do Drive People Crazy'

Matthew Broderick is recalling some tension with late Ferris Bueller's Day Off director John Hughes, who the actor said felt "nervous" the movie "wouldn’t come out right."

During 61-year-old Broderick's appearance on The Hollywood Reporter’s It Happened in Hollywood podcast to discuss the making of the 1986 teen comedy, the actor recalled that Hughes, who died in 2009 at age 59 from a heart attack, "was not easygoing in some ways."

Broderick did note fond memories of spending time with Hughes, who wrote and directed several '80s coming-of-age hits, as they prepared to film the movie that launched then-23-year-old Broderick's career.

When it came time to actually film the movie in Chicago, though, Broderick said tensions rose as early as he and other main cast members Alan Ruck, Jennifer Grey and Mia Sara "did a costume test early on" in the shoot.

“That was a big drama. When the footage came back, he said none of us were ‘fun to watch.’ " Broderick recalled. "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."

While Ferris Bueller's Day Off launched Broderick into stardom, he described himself to THR as "not a total newcomer" at the time — and remembered not loving the criticism.

"So to have [Hughes] 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," he said. "That happened and I said, ‘So get somebody you like.' "

“He was somebody who could get angry at you,” the actor went on to say during the podcast, after noting that the first disagreement lasted only "half a day."

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“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. ‘Okay. John doesn’t like that,' " he recalled realizing, further explaining a time where he told Hughes he felt "kind of conscious" when the director noted facial expressions he liked from his leading actor.

"He was like, ‘Well, then, I won’t direct you at all,' " Broderick said. "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."

Despite noting temporary on-set disagreements, Broderick emphasized that Hughes simply "took the work very seriously, is what I mean,” while reminiscing on his Ferris Bueller days.

"[John] wasn’t a loosey-goosey person," he told THR. "But he also didn’t hold a grudge and knew how to get himself out of it.”

The actor also noted that Hughes was not the only director who has ever criticized his acting style on set.

"I do drive people crazy sometimes because I don’t appear to be doing anything sometimes, it seems," he said. "But, hopefully, eventually, I do. [Hughes] was not the first director to grab me at some point and say, ‘What is wrong with you?' "