February 11, 2003

Broderick is 'the man'

By Ann Oldenburg, USA Today

NEW YORK — Here he comes, sauntering down the street. Wearing a puffy jacket and a ski cap, he has his hands jammed into his pants pockets. It's cold. It's snowing.

It's Ferris Bueller.

Even after all these years and successes, it's hard not to think of Matthew Broderick in the cult classic that launched him into stardom and made him a hero to kids. The guy with boyish charm. The perfect teen con man.

Mothers wag their fingers about how it made their children want to skip school. Kids today who see the 1986 movie for the first time want him to sign autographs.

"For a while, I felt slightly that people weren't liking anything else," says the 40-year-old actor. "But I don't feel that anymore."

He has settled into a table at Pastis, a trendy restaurant he likes that's about five blocks from where he lives with his wife, Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, 38, and their nearly 4-month-old son, James.

"I feel glad that I was in a movie that stayed around," he continues, chatting about Ferris Bueller's Day Off. "I can't help but be very proud of that. It would be a drag if I was totally not doing anything now. That might be upsetting."

But he's totally doing a lot of stuff now.

Still flush from his role in last year's Broadway smash The Producers, he's about to start filming a movie called Providence, and on Sunday night he has the starring role in ABC's remake of The Music Man (7 p.m. ET/PT). It's true song-and-dance-man stuff, but that's not how Broderick sees himself.

"No, not quite."

Why not?

"I'd probably need to be able to sing and dance."

He explains: "I like dancing. I just can't do anything. I didn't go to dance class, I can't tap — the things you traditionally think of. Fred Astaire, they said — although it's supposedly not true — there was a studio report on him that said: 'Can't sing. Can't act. Can dance a little.' I can't sing, can't dance, can act a little. That would be my report."

But he has that boyish charm, a description used so often about him that he must be tired of it.

"Tired of it? It's OK, as long as it doesn't mean nobody can believe me playing an adult."

The question is: Will he be believable in the role made famous by Robert Preston as strong, smooth-talking Harold Hill in Meredith Willson's musical about trouble in River City, Iowa? In the story, Hill collects money from honest, hardworking people by trading on their love for their children, promising them a marching band in return. His secret: He knows nothing about music.

"Preston made us forget what Harold was doing with this charisma — he duped us, the audience, exactly the same way he duped the people of River City. Can Broderick do the same? I don't know," says Scott Miller, author of a book called Deconstructing Harold Hill and artistic director at St. Louis' New Line Theatre.

"He was brilliant as a similar character in Ferris Bueller — a very charming scoundrel — but Ferris was just skipping school. Professor Harold Hill is stealing good people's money by using their kids as bait, and we have to love him for it. That's a totally different ballgame."

People magazine says he's "a comparatively low-key Hill," and though "likable as usual," he's "miscast."

The actor says he was worried about tackling the role. "At first I was just like, of course not. I thought of it as this already-done thing. I grew up with it like everybody else did."

What made the part difficult was the fact that it's an odd melding of film and play, with the ultimate outcome being a TV movie.

"The real challenge," he says, "is it's just a very large role."

Another challenging role: turning 40, which Broderick did this year.

Was it momentous?

"I guess so. I don't know what to do about it. I'm glad I finally have a baby."

Does the baby make you feel older? Younger?

"Tireder," he says.

Still, he says, he hopes he and his wife have more children.

"I think about getting older, but it seems like such a hopeless thing. I don't dwell on it much. It's interesting to watch people I started with, and I look at them on TV or in a movie and say, 'Wow, he's got gray hair' and then think, 'Wait a minute. We're the same age.' " And, he concedes, "I've got a lot of gray hair."

Among people he has worked with is Jeffrey Jones, who played the frustrated principal in Ferris Bueller. Jones has been arrested on charges of possession of child pornography.

"I've lost touch with him," Broderick says, "but I always liked him so much. I don't know any of the details. I always thought he was great. I hope everything works out."

Onward and upward

That time in Broderick's life was filled with upheaval. He was involved in a car accident in Ireland just as the movie was coming out. He was driving with then-fiancée Jennifer Grey. A woman and child in the other car were killed. He was charged with reckless driving and paid a small fine. He has put it behind him "as much as you can," he says. "I don't think I'll ever forget about it."

Those days are far from these days. He's a hot Hollywood commodity, and he's married to one, too.

Last summer, Parker's Sex and the City was must-see TV on Sundays. And for Broderick, there was The Producers with Nathan Lane.

"It was one of the most amazing times in my life. We walked into the theater one night with our first preview with an audience, and we walked out and everything was different."

So as a result he has a stack of scripts waiting for him at home? "Sometimes I have a big pile. Sometimes I have two cable movies," he cracks.

Of course, he says, he's set financially. "I shouldn't say 'financially,' because who knows what's happening (with the economy)?" He knocks on the wooden table and takes a swig of his San Pellegrino water. "I can say I don't have to get a job." Then he grins. "I can live off my wife for at least 10 more years."

Her success with Sex has "just grown and grown," he says. "The time I was most aware, the time it was most, frankly, unpleasant, was when she was pregnant and when the photographers were very interested in photos of the baby."

But weren't things really bad before she even got pregnant? They were getting a divorce, according to gossip that started in 2001 after she didn't thank him from the Golden Globes podium.

"I didn't care about that," he says. "It was so not true."

Then he adds with a grin, "At least I wasn't aware we were getting a divorce. And I didn't mind not being thanked — for the record. I've never loved the 'I want to thank my lover.' I was there at (this year's) Golden Globes, and both Sarah and I noticed when Jennifer Aniston forgot to thank her husband."

Broderick's dad, James, was an actor, so he grew up knowing life in the fishbowl.

"I have been stared at for 20 years now, so I'm a little bit used to that. The part I didn't grow up with and I'm new to is the fame that has happened to Sarah. I was never in that league before."

And, he acknowledges, "I'm sure we'll be upset when nobody gives a damn."

For the past four months, however, they have been playing the role of new parents. It's tough. Just the other day, he says, they visited a "sleep expert," someone who told them to put the baby down and let him cry himself to sleep. They couldn't do it. "It's a very happy time," he says, "and sometimes — as people with a young baby know — you want to kill yourself."

He's a new dad. Forgive him.

Broderick's take on his life: "Overall, I feel, you know, cautiously optimistic. I'm very happy with my baby, and I never know how to put that — 'very happy' doesn't sound right. I really like the script I'm about to do. So those are very nice things. But, you know, I might get there and start shooting this movie and it might not be like I'm thinking it's going to be. I'm always ready for ..."

A big problem?

"Big problem," he confirms.

Where's boyishly charming?

This is gloomy.

"Some people have called me negative," he says. "I don't feel I'm negative. Sarah's the upbeat one. She's the nice one and I'm the mean one. It always looks that way. Actually, in reality, I'm the nice one and she's the mean one."

He smiles, then tries to elaborate: "With fans, I'm always grumpy and she's always incredibly sweet. No, we're both pretty nice. Although compared to her — she'll be like, 'Here's the keys, take anything you want.' "

The two of them will spend the next month or so in L.A. She'll have to come back to New York with the baby to begin shooting the final season of Sex and the City at the end of March. He'll come back on three-day weekends.

That's not hard on their nearly 6-year-old marriage, he insists. "We've been doing that forever."

'Sex' and the actor

What about other people on the set? Parker's show is about relationships and, well, sex. And his co-star love interest in Providence will be Calista Flockhart. Is that ever a problem?

"No. That's kind of a fun thing about being an actor. You have permission to do things like that. It's what we do."

But for all the comfort with each other, ask him if he sees himself being married forever and you'll see a person freak out. "If I think of it that way, I want to kill myself!" Then he laughs.

Taking it one day at a time, eh? "Yeah, It's a little like AA," he says, still chuckling. "I really like being married, honestly. But I can't think of it as a forever. But I know it probably is."