“Are those dials?”
Matthew Broderick hovers over a camera on a recent sunny morning at The Shakespeare Theatre’s Harman Hall, where he’s being photographed for a Metro Weekly cover. As the photographer shows off his preference for old-school camera bodies with physical dials, as opposed to digital interfaces, a casually dressed Broderick listens intently. The magazine’s publisher and the theater’s publicist, meanwhile, stand to the side, each nervously counting down the minutes left as the clock rapidly runs out on the 20-minute shoot.
“I prefer physical dials over digital,” says the photographer.
“Yeah, yeah,” Broderick nods in agreement, bringing up his own experience with cameras.
Tick… tick… tick.
Time doesn’t seem to be an obstacle for Broderick, who, at 62, sporting a neatly combed swoop of gray hair, seems impossibly youthful. There is nary a wrinkle marring his still boyish good looks. Perhaps it’s just being in the presence of a star of his stature that blinds one to it. Or perhaps there’s a portrait hidden away in an attic somewhere….
Sometime later, during an affable, hour-long conversation, I reveal to Broderick that I was genuinely starstruck in his presence.
“I’ll cure you of that,” he chuckles.
But, in fact, Broderick is game for any question lobbed at him, including a “gotcha” that actors absolutely hate. Perusing his vast cinematic career, which ranges from WarGames to The Freshman to Glory to, of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and a Broadway run that has included Tony wins for Brighton Beach Memoirs and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and a nomination for The Producers, I ask the actor if there is any film or play he wishes he’d never done.
“There’s so many,” he laughs. “So many.” He then turns serious. “Every time you do a play or a movie, you really are trying your best. And when they don’t work out, it’s like, ‘What were you thinking?’”
He continues, “But I hate to hurt anybody’s feelings. There are plays and movies that I’m disappointed didn’t work better, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. I was very disappointed in Stepford Wives, for instance, which had such a great cast and great writer, great director. Sometimes when everybody is great, it doesn’t work out. It’s seriously frustrating.
“I hate talking about that, though, but I guess I have to because I’m in an interview. But you know what I also think? I think you shouldn’t talk badly about things that you signed on to. In for a penny, in for a pound.”
Broderick is in town to star in Babbitt, which just began a month-long run at the Harman. The comedy, adapted by Joe DiPietro from the classic novel by Sinclair Lewis, and directed by theater legend Christopher Ashley, had an initial run in La Jolla. Broderick plays the title role, a man who erupts from his life of conformity with ruinous results. “Broderick is a natural,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in its review of the California production. “There’s never a dull moment onstage.”
Broderick is connected to the LGBTQ community through Torch Song Trilogy, Harvey Fierstein’s gay epic that, in 1981, set the theater world ablaze. Broderick was in the very first Off-Broadway cast as David, the adopted gay teenage son of Fierstein’s brash, brassy drag queen, Arnold.
It was the young actor’s first professional job, and while he didn’t travel with the show to Broadway — he suddenly found himself in the midst of growing his own career with Broadway stints in Neil Simon’s Brighton and on-screen in Max Dugan Returns — Broderick was part of its forging and, therefore, is forever embedded in its history. During our conversation, he plumbs his memory to recall fragments of the experience, evoking a rich sense of connection to the material and the people — Fierstein, co-star Estelle Getty — who surrounded him at the time.
When it came time for the film version of Torch Song in 1988, Broderick stepped into the role of Arnold’s husband, Alan, who is murdered in a horrific gay bashing.
“It was a chance to work with Harvey again,” says Broderick, who by that time was already a Hollywood box-office draw. “I was in a place in my life where I wanted to work with people I knew and trusted and loved. Harvey called me, and I was like, ‘Sure, I would love to be in it.’ Even if I’m not sure that part suited me. I just was glad to support that movie, and also to be working with people who I knew would be good to me.”
Broderick, who has been married to actress Sarah Jessica Parker for 27 years, herself a gay icon, doesn’t remember anyone ever specifically coming out to him in his early years.
“I can’t think of any time in my life that somebody told me, ‘I’m gay,’ and I was surprised,” says the son of the late, great actor James Broderick (Dog Day Afternoon, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three). “I grew up in the theater community with my dad in the Village. I don’t think I had any negative feelings about it, to tell you the truth. But I was of my time, and I probably used language that wasn’t right and all those things. I know it’s a cliche to say a lot of my friends [were gay], but the people at my parents’ house were lots of gay people — and lots of straight people — and I never thought about it.”
METRO WEEKLY: I’ve been trying to think where to start with you. It’s extraordinary just how many films you have done in your career and, equally, how much theater you’ve done. I want to get to a little bit of both, but I want to start with one that meant a lot to me: WarGames, from 1983. It introduced me to you as an actor. I remember being like, “Who is this guy? This guy is great.” But the reason I want to bring up WarGames is because when you look back at the film, it’s prescient to what we’re dealing with today and artificial intelligence.
MATTHEW BRODERICK: Yeah, I guess it is. It’s funny that it’s prescient. Technology changing and getting out of control is an age-old problem from the time somebody made a fire in a cave.
When we did the movie, they gave me a computer to use at home, and that was the first time I ever really had a computer. I might’ve had a video game before that, but it was all brand new. I didn’t know how to type, and so they said, “You’ve got to teach yourself to type so you can use this computer, and it will teach you how to type.” They had one program on it, and it was some game that would teach you to type. I didn’t learn to type.
Then I got to the set and they had it set up so that no matter what key I hit, the correct letter came up. So it actually didn’t matter. I could just go pretend-type very fast, and it would work. So they had just been teasing me by making me try to learn to type. That was a computer nerd joke on me. But I’m just saying how primitive computers were and my understanding of them. And if you see that movie now, just putting a landline phone into a cradle to get a modem seems so ancient.
But, it’s funny — the idea of a computer getting smarter than us was as much on people’s minds then as it is now. I’ve read that after the movie came out, Ronald Reagan — he saw the movie — called a meeting with his cabinet or the military to say, “Is this possible?” And it wasn’t really I don’t think exactly possible the way it was, but they were like, “Yeah, basically it is. We need a lot more security.” So I think it changed some things.
MW: It does show how far we’ve come so quickly and exponentially. I remember those days of 300 Baud modems. It took forever to upload a tiny article to the newspaper I was working for.
BRODERICK: Yeah, I remember putting a tape in a machine. I had to put a cassette tape in and wait for it to run itself through, and that’s how I would load my stupid little typing program. It took about ten minutes.
MW: The next film I want to talk about — very briefly, because you’re probably sick of it — is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I don’t think you can interview Matthew Broderick without bringing it up. I think if they tried to make Ferris Bueller today, it wouldn’t work. The character had a zest for life, had a zest for being out there, a zest for exploring. And these days, people Ferris Bueller’s age all have their heads stuck in their phones, avoiding real-life social interaction. The movie was like a last hurrah for a youth movement that would eventually insulate itself into a different means of engagement.
BRODERICK: Yeah, that’s a very good point. I actually hadn’t thought of that. But if you made the film today, Ferris would be filming himself the whole time and posting what a great time he was having — which is very different. It’s almost the opposite of what the idea of that day was. It was not to record anything, but to experience it and to just be a human and enjoy life. And it’s sad to think that that wouldn’t make any sense right now. I hadn’t really thought of that. You’re right.
MW: They would be putting themselves on TikTok. And what’s interesting about the film that I think that people don’t get is that it is a celebration of living in the moment.
BRODERICK: Yeah, that’s true. When we made it, I don’t know if we were thinking in any profound way about that, but maybe John Hughes was. But that is essentially what it is. Something has made it last much more than your average comedy, so I think it must be that story. It’s very relatable to want to be in the moment and to just do the thing that you normally stop yourself from doing. Ferris enables Cameron [Alan Ruck] to do things that he would never do, and we all want somebody like that to tell us, “No, grab the mic and join the parade.”
MW: Do you get tired of being associated so strongly with that character, who has become something of a cultural legend?
BRODERICK: Maybe there was a time when I did. But I am very used to it. I’m pretty flattered to be in something that lasted that long. But a lot of people who don’t know a lot about show business seem to think that’s all I have ever done. Which is a little peculiar, because I’ve done a lot of plays and a lot of movies. But I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m very honored to be in such a — I hate to call it a classic, but it seems to be getting there.
MW: I would call it a classic at this point. It’s almost forty years old.
BRODERICK: I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll have to die and come back.
MW: The other film I want to bring up is one that I rewatched again recently, and just loved it — 1999’s Election. I bring it up because you’re coming to D.C., D.C. is politics. I think Election, in its own weird little way, encompasses everything that is wrong or bad about the campaigning experience. Do you have any memories of that film you can share?
BRODERICK: Well, I loved making it. I loved the script when I read it. It got sent to me, and they said, “It’s already probably cast, and this is not an offer for you or anything, but you should read it.” And I read it, and I just remember being pissed off. I was like, “How come I can’t be in a movie like this? This is so good!” And then maybe somebody dropped out. I don’t really know what happened, but suddenly I met Alexander Payne, and he did want me to do it.
And from then on, I was just so happy to work on it. Tom Perrotta’s book and Reese [Witherspoon] and everybody in it — it is just one of my favorite experiences. It feels like a pretty accurate description of politics and elections. And it’s amusing because it’s about this sixteen-year-old girl [Tracy Flick, played by Witherspoon] who has managed to weasel her way into the top, and it’s just more than my character, [high school teacher] Jim, can take. It’s a very funny story and very, very well written, so it was just a pleasure to do it.
MW: It deals with corruption on both sides.
BRODERICK: Oh, yeah. Nobody really comes out great.
MW: I do love the scene at the end where you throw the milkshake.
BRODERICK: That was a reshoot. The original ending was a little darker, but also very touching. Jim ends up as a car salesman and [Tracy] comes to buy a car on her way to college. That’s how it used to end, which is how it ends in the book. But we reshot the ending and made it into Washington D.C. instead.
And we came here, and I remember throwing that milkshake. I managed to hit the car on the first take — it’s the one you see in the film. And then I was like, “I think I could hit it a little better.” So we did about 180 takes in which I missed the car entirely, and gave up.
I also remember — and I don’t remember if it’s in the movie — but after he throws the milkshake, he runs away. And Alexander said, “Just keep running. Maybe it’ll be funny, like a long shot of you just running way, way off into the distance, and it could be part of the credits or whatever. So after you throw the milkshake, turn around, run straight into that park over there,” which is that little park [Lafayette Park] across the street from the White House.
So I threw the milkshake, I turned around, I ran straight into that park. I’m running as fast as I can straight toward the White House, and several security people leapt up from benches and just surrounded me. They thought I was running to the White House to do something bad. So that was an amazing memory. We had no idea that they were there.
MW: Oh, my goodness.
BRODERICK: Yeah. I’m lucky to be talking to you here today.
MW: I love your work in Election. I remember thinking at the time, “Matthew Broderick has taken on a role that is unlike anything he’s done before and really, really sunk his teeth into it.” It was a pivotal moment for your career because it changed the trajectory of the movies that came after. Hollywood tries to stereotype actors and see them as only one thing.
BRODERICK: Yeah, they do. And even with that one. Immediately following Election, I was getting cast as schlubby, morally questionable people. I felt almost immediately typecast as him. It’s like as soon as you do something new, you have to try to not get stuck in that one. It is a strange phenomenon.
MW: I do want to touch briefly on working with legends. I was thinking about this. Jason Robards in Max Dugan Returns, Mel Brooks and Nathan Lane in The Producers — you’ve worked with so many legendary, even as a younger actor. What is that like when you are, especially starting out, faced with an acting legend?
BRODERICK: Well, fortunately for me, I got a very kind legend first. Max Dugan was my first movie, and Jason Robards was just extraordinarily kind to me, always. Made it a point to make me feel welcome and part of the cast. And he had known my father [actor James Broderick], and he just took care of me, I think. So that was an incredible blessing for me. A lot of people took good care of me.
Donald Sutherland and Marsha Mason — that whole cast was legends. And Neil Simon, who wrote it — just being in a room with Neil Simon, it was very hard to believe it was happening. And it was my first movie, so I’m very lucky I didn’t get started in some movie where somebody was being awful, or didn’t like me, or all these things that can happen. I got very lucky with the first one.
And really, I’ve worked with Sean Connery, Nicole Kidman, Dustin Hoffman, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman. I’m leaving out eight million of them, but I’ve seen no diva stuff, really, almost ever. And then when I have, it’s not from those big legendary types. That’s not usually who it is.
But it’s very intimidating to work with some of these people. When I met Sean Connery, for instance, it was very hard to just be like, “Oh, I’m just talking to another actor.” You’re like, “Fuck, I’m talking to fucking Sean Connery!” It is hard to get used to that.
MW: You now are what a young actor coming on to a set to work with would look up to as a legend. How does that make you feel?
BRODERICK: Well, I’m sure at some level that’s true. I am aware that I must probably be intimidating to some youngsters. And I make it a point to try, to be honest, to make newcomers feel comfortable. I really want everybody to feel comfortable on a set. I think because of working with Jason and the people who took care of me when I was starting, I want to be like him. I want to be that actor who’s good to young actors and patient and pass on stories about others I’ve worked with. Hopefully not be gossip, but I want to make new actors feel comfortable and part of the tradition.
MW: As I mentioned the other day at the photo shoot, we are an LGBTQ magazine. And we’ve had straight actors on the cover before, but the minute I heard you were coming, I said to the Shakespeare, “Whatever we can do, if we can get Matthew Broderick, I would love to have a cover with him.” Because, to me, you are part of our history — and you are part of our history because you were in the original cast of Torch Song Trilogy, which I consider one of the most pivotal LGBTQ works in the history of the theater. There was nothing like it when Harvey wrote it, and there really has been nothing like it since. So I just would love to tap your memory as to playing the role of David. It was Off-Broadway, as I recall.
BRODERICK: [Laughs.] It was very Off-Broadway. It started in a little theater called the Richard Allen Center, and it was on the fourth or sixth — I don’t know what floor it was on, but it was the top floor of a ratty building. Which, when it rained, water poured onto the set. I remember that. And I remember Harvey Fierstein noticed at the beginning of one show that there was noticeable water dripping right into the middle of the living room set, and so he just moved a houseplant to catch the water. And I thought that was brilliant.
It was my very first professional job, the first time I got paid to be in a play or a movie. It depends what you want to hear about it, there’s so much. I do remember an agent saying, “You sure you want your first job to be gay?”
But I just thought the script was so funny and — not to sound like some saint — but I wanted a job. I just really wanted to work, and I really liked Harvey. And that’s another thing. I went to audition, and I read with Harvey Fierstein at a table. So I come into this room and there’s this big guy chain-smoking cigarettes with that scratchy voice, and I just read all the scenes with him, and he laughed and laughed. And he was just immediately somebody I could relate to and laugh with. He’s from Brooklyn, I’m from Manhattan, and we were similar enough that we were able to share humor. And then I read with Estelle Getty, who was also so great.
I think now that play might look tame or something, but at the time it was quite daring, if that’s the right word. It was something that heterosexuals could deal with in the way it was told. It was like you were being led into somebody else’s life. I don’t know how to explain it.
MW: I look at all the topics it addressed at the time. And these are all topics that are under attack right now in our society. It dealt with drag queens, who are under attack. It dealt with gay marriage — way ahead of its time, with what was then thought of as a gay marriage. It dealt with gay adoption. It dealt with coming out or having a mother who’s ashamed of who you are. It dealt with every single possible issue under the sun. What an extraordinary first job for you.
BRODERICK: Yeah, absolutely. And I was a witness to all of that. My part was really just — I was the boy who gets adopted, a great part. I had a lot of scenes with Estelle and a lot with Harvey. Him defending his lifestyle to his mother, I think, was a permission to explore these issues without it just seeming like somebody making speeches at the audience, because it was a real argument between him and his mom.
And then the fact that it came out right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. AIDS is not in it, which felt strange now when I saw the revival. But it’s just that I look at that time differently. Everybody does. So many people in that play are not here anymore. It’s absolutely appalling. Everybody who played Ed, Harvey’s boyfriend, just one after another died. People in the crew. It was just absolutely like a horror show in just a few years after that play came out. I think of that, too.
MW: It’s interesting you bring that up because I think it’s not in there because when Harvey wrote it, AIDS wasn’t really happening to the extent that it was happening yet. And I think to actually introduce AIDS into it would’ve felt like wedging something in that didn’t belong in that particular work. We have other works for that.
BRODERICK: Yes, that’s right. The first two plays were written years before the third one. He wrote them over a period of time, it’s three stories. But it’s a snapshot of a time right before [the AIDS epidemic].
MW: Do you remember what the audiences were like at the time? Do you remember at all their responses to the work?
BRODERICK: Yes. You could tell it was very funny. People laughed a lot, and Harvey is a brilliant performer. But the original production was more than four hours long. When it went to Broadway, they somehow got it faster, but our version was over four hours. And as I said, it was in this rotten little theater, and it was maybe half full. You could tell audiences loved it, but they couldn’t convince their friends to come see this four-hour thing.
Then Mel Gussow from the New York Times came, and I’m sure there were others, too, but that’s the first review I remember. He gave it this glowing review, and suddenly people started to come. We were going to close early, I remember, and then suddenly, within a few weeks, I found myself in a play where people who I didn’t know very well were saying, “Is there any way you could get me two tickets? It’s our anniversary. My uncle is coming into town. Please, please.” It became this “un-gettable” seat.
And then we moved to a bigger, nice theater down in Greenwich Village, and that’s how it stayed. It just became a show that everybody wanted to see. I’ve never been in a play that was on the verge of closing that suddenly caught on like that, and it was absolutely thrilling. I thought at the time that’s how plays are. And I soon learned that they’re not always like that. But you could feel that it was something new and that audiences were extremely glad it existed. It was just absolutely thrilling to be there.
MW: What memory do you have of Estelle Getty? She’s so beloved in our community as Sophia from The Golden Girls.
BRODERICK: Oh, she was amazing. We shared a dressing room for one thing. And she was very motherly to me. She would scold me if she thought I was not living right. She was a more sophisticated version of who she was playing in the play, or at least that’s how I thought of her. She was tough, but also very soft-hearted and had incredible comic timing. She was teeny, and so when we first auditioned together in front of the producers, she started telling me how to do it. I said to her, “Just let me do it the way I want to do it first, and then tell me what to do. Can you just not give me any notes until I’ve done it one time.” And everybody we would meet after that in the dressing room, she’d say, “This is the guy who said, ‘Don’t give me any notes.’” She never let me forget that. She thought it was shocking of me.
MW: Oh, that’s wonderful. I think everybody misses her talent.
BRODERICK: There was nobody better. She was side-splittingly funny.
MW: I want to go back to something. You and I are from the same generation. Do you remember what it was like for you in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, especially because you were in New York and working in the theater world, where it was hitting especially hard.
BRODERICK: I remember the whole thing. I remember being frightened for a while. I remember asking a doctor, “Can I have lunch with Court Miller”? He was in Torch Song and he got sick, and we were going to go have lunch together. And I was like, “Is it safe for me to eat with him?” And the doctor was like, “Well, you can sit with him, but don’t share a sandwich.”
And I remember being at [a theater restaurant called] Charlie’s, and eating with him and being — I feel ashamed of it now — nervous. And I remember going to the bathroom there and using my feet to flush the toilet. We didn’t really know anything about AIDS or how far it was going to go. It was like a horror movie, is my memory.
I am not a gay man. I can’t even begin to think what — and this I feel is not for me to say — but it was particularly horrible that it seemed to be happening just when things were becoming more accepting [for the LGBTQ community]. It seemed like a very horrible timing that that disease came right when people were just starting to accept things. It suddenly seemed so scary.
MW: I want to turn to Babbitt, which just opened at The Shakespeare Theatre. This is a production that you’ve done previously. Tell us a little bit about the play.
BRODERICK: It’s a book from the 1920s by Sinclair Lewis, which was a big hit at the time, apparently. And I think Sinclair Lewis is maybe not as read as much now as he was. But the book is about a conformist — the play calls him a man of no distinction. It is a satire about American values or capitalism. That sounds quite boring potentially, but it’s not. It becomes very much a story about a family and a man and infidelity and all sorts of things. But it’s a person who eagerly tries to fit in and get along with people, and then suddenly hits a snag in that life, and he no longer gets along with people and he no longer cares if he gets along with people, and it shakes everything up and it almost ruins him. That’s a horribly overly short version of it, but that’s sort of the story.
MW: Are you enjoying the role?
BRODERICK: Yes, I am. When we first started, I was like, “Wow, we’re making a play about a really boring guy. Is that the idea? And is that a good idea?” But it is not that he’s boring, it’s not that at all. And the role that Joe [DiPietro] has written is wonderful, and I do enjoy it. That’s why I did it in La Jolla, and that’s why I wanted to do it again here. Half of the cast is new here, too — it is a very ensemble type of work, because the key to it is that the people in a library start reading a book to you a bit. So there are narrators and the narration is shared by all the actors, so everybody has to work together really well. It’s very nice to be part of it.
MW: What do you think the message of Babbitt is specifically for the audience?
BRODERICK: Oh, boy.
MW: Sorry.
BRODERICK: [Laughs.] No, I think it makes you question conformity. It’s something to do with how good should you be? Should your boss love everything you do, or should you be doing it for yourself? Which is reminding me of what you said about Ferris Bueller at the beginning. Babbitt is the opposite in some way, but he isn’t really deep down. I think he wants to get away and he wants to live a life that’s free, that’s emotional.
On the one hand, he’s this very good realtor, and he’s respected by the town and his politics are exactly in line with what they should be. Although you gradually learn he’s thoroughly dishonest in his business, too, but he’s really managed to fit in perfectly and think just like everybody else around him. But there’s some piece of him that does not want that.
And I think that’s relatable to a lot of people. I think what I want the audience to leave with is that they’ve seen an examination of that issue, and maybe that shed some light on it and that they’ll be able to relate to that story. I know I do.
MW: I was thinking about things that we can relate to Matthew Broderick that are gay. And so a big one, of course, is your wife, Sarah Jessica Parker. She’s a gay icon. Why do you think the gay community loves her so much?
BRODERICK: Boy, you would know more than I. That’s a very good question. I think Carrie — maybe the character is what she goes through. I don’t know. Because [Sex and the City creator] Michael Patrick King is gay? I have no idea. You tell me.
MW: I think it’s because your wife has shown our community such tremendous love and support. We often talk about the importance of allies, especially in this political climate. And celebrities have a voice in our society and a fan base. They’re not obligated to use it, but wouldn’t you agree that if they can, they should because they speak for so many of us who can’t?
BRODERICK: Yeah, I do. And my wife has been very good that way. I think there are things they absolutely should speak up about. I have an old-fashioned thing in me that to purely be an actor, people shouldn’t know too much about you. I want somebody to project onto me. So I try to stay out of politics. But as far as gay rights or human rights, of course, everybody should speak up as much as possible, and I do, too. She’s great about that, and she’s helped me to be better, because I sometimes tend to just stay quiet, maybe too much.
MW: What is life with her like?
BRODERICK: Well, it’s wonderful. We’ve been married since 1997 and I’ve had more than half of my life with her. She’s everything. She’s a great mom. And then she’s also this other thing, this extremely famous person — but that’s all separate. I don’t think about that all the time, except when we’re out, and people tell her how much she means to them, which is great. But as far as life with her personally? That’s my whole life. I don’t even know how to begin to explain what it’s like. I love her.
Babbitt runs through Nov. 3 at The Shakespeare’s Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW. For tickets, call 202-547-1122 or visit www.shakespearetheatre.org.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
