September 13, 2004

Matthew Broderick Interview

By Fred Topel, About.com

New movie The Last Shot

Matthew Broderick is one of the few celebrities I’d never met in my years as an entertainment journalist. So when the opportunity came to talk to him for The Last Shot, I had as many general questions as I did movie-related questions. I was not disappointed.

His perspective on the movie was cool and his thoughts on life were down to earth and modest. He still looks frighteningly like Ferris Bueller after almost 20 years. Pretty soon, his kid will be old enough to see his career making film and she’d think it was just made yesterday.

Broderick plays an aspiring filmmaker unknowingly caught up in an FBI sting. Stephen Schats has been struggling in Hollywood trying to get his script made, and when Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) makes him an offer, he can’t refuse it. Even when it becomes more and more clear that Devine is not a real producer, Schats holds onto hope for his directorial debut.

Do you know people who just believe in their projects so much when everyone else around them can see it’s hopeless?
Yeah, I think I do. I think I’ve known a few people like that.

How do you break the news to those people?
With some people you can’t. The more they hear it, the more they know that’s just another task for how passionate they are. It’s great to believe in yourself, but the downside is that you can, particularly in Hollywood, you can believe in your dreams so much that you end up lonely in a single occupancy hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.

Is this an accurate reflection of Hollywood?
Yeah, the jokes about studios and what happens to screenplays and the compromises in making movies, that Arizona would be shot in Providence, Rhode Island is not that big a stretch, or that a trash dump would have to do for the Grand Canyon, you’d have to just shoot around the seagulls, all that stuff basically is how movies happen.

You’ve had similarly ludicrous experiences?
Almost. It’s a heightened thing. Oh yeah, all of us could relate to all of that, particularly Jeff Nathanson who’s been a screenwriter, so they are the people who constantly see their stuff get [manipulated].

How did you balance between your character’s funny qualities and his sadness?
I don’t know, I felt very sympathetic toward him. I don’t struggle at the same level that Steven Schats does, but I feel like I’m two or three pieces of a gene, whatever those things are called, I’m an inch away from him. In a way, we all are. What separates [us is] you have a big break or you don’t, and all actors feel a little bit lucky that they work, because you can always envision the other happening. Of course, Steven as happy as he is he always keeps a happy, positive attitude, but I think right under the surface he’s aware that things are not going terribly well.

How bright is he?
Not very, very bright. I mean, he might be bright, but he’s one of those guys who never hears [the obvious]. Was it the Peter Sellers’ movie The Party, where he plays an extra and he knocks down the entire set? Like he pushes a detonator before the camera is rolling, and the director says, “You’re through, you’re finished. I’m going to see to it you’ll never work for the rest of your career,” and Peter Sellers says, “Does that include television too?”

Was it your idea to have some singing in the movie?
No, no, it was in the script. You mean “Short People?” No, that was Jeff.

Is it safe to say that’s not your Broadway voice?
Definitely not, yeah. No, I didn’t want to be like a singer. It’s more or less is my Broadway voice really, but I was just trying to be a guy singing.

Ferris Bueller and The Producers

How many times do people yell out to you, “Hey, Ferris Bueller,” in the street?
They still, not as much, but they still sometimes say Ferris. People love that movie. It’s amazing to me, sometimes even people who I know were born after it was made say, “Oh my God, I love Ferris Bueller. It’s my favorite movie.” It had a huge effect on people.

Do you ever get, “Hey, Leo Bloom?”
No, plays are different, you wouldn’t normally get that.

What do you think is wrong with current teen comedies that the old ones still resonant so much with people?
I don’t know. There are always some good ones and bad ones from any period. I’m very proud of that one, I do think it’s very good one, and I guess it tapped into some desire everybody has at something. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with today’s teen movies, and truthfully I probably don’t think there’s anything wrong because I don’t see any of them.

What sort of horror stories have you faced in terms of your career, the sort of production problems that go on behind the scenes?
Actors don’t always know about that stuff. I do know sometimes. They’re all a little like that. Not all, there’s the odd movie that just goes smoothly, but almost all of them have some location that burns down or something goes crazily wrong. They are all a bit of an experiment and you just see how they turn out. I don’t have anything like what happens in this movie, but I don’t think it’s all that farfetched.

How is the movie version of The Producers coming along?
It’s coming along. I think there might almost be a script now, a version of it. We’ll shoot in February or March.

Is now a good time for musicals?
I have no idea. It sure was a good time for the musical on stage. People really wanted that story right then. You never know when that is going to happen or really why that happens, and I don’t know if it will happen with the movie. I think Mel is in a very good point in his [career], he’s in a very creative [mood], he loves doing it. He’s always loved musicals and he’s finally getting to do it, and it makes him very happy. He’s kept Nathan and me and Gary Beach and Roger Bart are playing Carmen Ghia and Roger De Bris, so he’s kept a lot of the elements from the play.

Can it be done without comparisons to the first movie?
No, I’m sure it will be compared. The play was, although not as much as we all thought. Everybody in that rehearsal process adored that movie more than anything, me and Nathan both know the movie pretty much by heart. So we were always worried that we were messing with a good thing, always worried about that, but somehow adding the songs and all that makes it a different thing, and you have to remember, it is Mel Brooks, it’s not like we took Mel’s thing and changed it. Mel took his thing and added music to it, so all roads lead to Mel.

How was it to go back and do the show again?
It was really fun, we had a great time, we did it for three months. It was just very exciting, neither of us felt like we had to really prove anything, we just did what we want and we would try things that we’d always wanted to do, sometimes not good, but we would always try them, and they were so happy to have us back that they let us do whatever we wanted, so we had a very good time.