I'm John Hughes, I wrote and
directed "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"
This house
was in Long Beach, California
It's disappointing that the first shot in
a "Chicago" movie is in Long Beach
The opening scene and the end were
shot at the back of the schedule, -
- which was important for the film
You "met" him after he'd been
playing the part for two months
So in this first piece
he was very practised
He was practised in talking
to the camera and in the character
I wanted him to play it very broad
The broader he could play it,
the funnier it would be
The parents really wanted to believe
that he was telling them the truth
His sister,
who is one of his two nemeses, -
- knows that he's lying
And he's a little cruel
He does taunt her a little bit
I needed to motivate her sufficiently -
- to justify her obsessiveness
in catching him -
- and putting him in his place
After the film wrapped, Mr and Mrs
Bueller, in real life, got married
At the time we shot this, Jennifer
Grey and Matthew were dating
It was a strange situation, because
everyone in this scene is in love
He's wonderful in this scene
He played it as a child
Parents' most affectionate memories
of their children -
- are when they are children
Ferris knew this very well
His parents bought it completely,
which drives his sister insane, -
- because she's always
one-upped by him
Originally she was a middle child
I cut out two young characters
That put her in the middle, which
explained a lot of her aggression
I actually decorated
a lot of the room myself
It looks like my room in high school
I had every square inch covered
with pop music record sleeves -
- and photographs
from English pop magazines
I thought his room
should reflect his mind
It should be filled
with interesting and related stuff
That's an old MTV logo
I liked it because it was very noisy
I used a song by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
It was a good song, it fit well
But at the time it was a crass piece
of pop commercialism, -
- which worked well for the story
There's a squirrel outside his room
on a telephone wire, -
- which I thought I needed This
was shot on the stage at Paramount
To avoid it looking too false,
I wanted something real
So we trained two squirrels to run
along the wire The first ran away
He's probably still in that stage
The second had stage fright
He just clung to the wire
Everybody thought it was a fake
It wasn't He was just catatonic
The graphics were done
in post-production
I thought the scene was a little flat
It was just pure exposition
So I re-positioned the shot, and wrote
these instructions, which were stupid
We played this shower sequence -
- as if he were, again, a child
He does things kids do at bathtime
He plays with his hair
and he sings to the microphone
He covers the camera while washing
his privates, while talking politics
I thought it was a good context
for him to discuss his political views
This was shot after the parade
scene where he sings "Danke Schцn"
I made a lot of references to the song,
and we used it whenever we could
This is a very good moment for him
This is the essence of Ferris
He's quoting the Beatles, this very
obvious remark from John Lennon
He has the right amount of smirk You
don't know if he believes it or not
That's the key to Ferris
You'd think you'd know him after
the shower, but you don't really
Ben Stein was an easy and early
choice for the role of the teacher
He wasn't a professional actor
He had a flat voice,
he looked like a teacher
He looked dispirited A bright guy
Very interesting and funny
He was quite brilliant
at playing a dull, boring person -
- who's talking to people
who are disinterested
This is the only shot of Ferris
in school It's just his empty desk
That's the only connection
to him at school
This is a nice moment
of non-communication
She doesn't care what he says,
he doesn't care what she says
Cameron's house is a very