July 11, 2008

Taking a Day Off: Matthew Broderick

By Vicky Hallett, Express Night Out

» EXPRESS: This movie doesn't make Vegas seem like fun. Go there often?

» BRODERICK: Not really. I'm not a gambler, so I'm always just there to promote something. I've seen those fellows with the lions and tigers, though. I always find myself going to New York New York because I'm from New York and I think I should know how to get around from there.

» EXPRESS: Why do I think your life must be like a musical?

» BRODERICK: You know, we burst into song every 15 minutes or so. My son actually sings all day. He loves it. He makes up songs. He makes fun of Broadway by doing this impression of hat and cane dancing.

» EXPRESS: Given your wife's fashion icon status, do you get to choose your own clothes in the morning?

» BRODERICK: I pick what I wear, but my wife buys some of my clothes. She just recently got me a bunch of stuff from the J. Crew catalog. And if I'm going to an event with her, I'll piggyback on her stylist. I don't feel any pressure to be a fashion icon, but when you have to keep dressing up, it's hard.

» EXPRESS: What's your look these days?

» BRODERICK: This is summer and I'm on vacation on Long Island, so it's whatever is closest to my hand — a T-shirt, shorts and sandals. No one expects you to dress up at all. It's too hot. I have some old off-white corduroy pants I wear almost every day. I've had them a long time, but they're also fake old. Someone must have rubbed them with a rock and splattered them with paint.

» EXPRESS: So, Hamptons life is laid-back?

» BRODERICK: It's quieter. We're right by the beach, and I get a lot more time with my son. It's just much more simple. I cycle a lot. I ride to friends' houses, the vegetable stand.

» EXPRESS: Are you a tandem-bike guy?

» BRODERICK: We had a tandem bike, but it died. I think tandems are hilarious. I have a bike I attach to the back of my bike for my son — that's called a trailbike. My dream is to have a tandem with the trailbike so all three of us can be together. It might be a little cheesy, but I don't care.

» EXPRESS: So, when you head to that vegetable stand, what do you go for?

» BRODERICK: I'm looking forward to the good corn and the tomatoes — although there is that salmonella thing. We just found a farm that sells eggs and we're been eating a lot of those. I hope I don't have a heart attack.

» EXPRESS: And I hear you're into gadgets.

» BRODERICK: I have a BlackBerry, but as I drift off to sleep, I think about the iPhone and whether I should get one. It plays in my head all day. I have this deranged idea that something else better is coming along. But what else I think it would do, I don't know. I also really like cameras.

» EXPRESS: Favorite shot?

» BRODERICK: The one I like lately is of my son in a hotel room jumping from one bed to the other. He's in a split. I have a slight feeling it was taken by Sarah, but I'm going to take credit for it.