have the look and
the vocal tone a freshman boy has
This was a really early emulator, -
- Ferris being fairly technically
adept, for the times, anyway
This is a nice moment
which speaks to -
- youth's feelings
about life and death
Ferris is dying, but she wants to know
if he'll be around on the weekend
Matthew had a good time with this
He was able to play with the sounds
He enjoyed it very much
She was just an extra
who we gave the phone to
She did a very good job
This is just childish showing off
This is his best camera-take here
I enjoyed developing the relationship
between Rooney and his secretary
He takes himself so seriously, -
- and she's one of those sweet,
non-professional school employees -
- who knows the kids,
likes the kids, and they like her
He can't figure out
why he's not respected
He doesn't care if they like him He
wants their respect and doesn't get it
He shows here how out of touch
he is with the students
She has an understanding of how
high-school society works
A key to Grace
is that she's very practical
- She takes things at face value
- He speaks in clichйs
She interprets a lot of those clichйs
literally, which annoys him
If you consider yourself important,
having Grace around will annoy you
I've used Edie McClurg
a number of times in pictures
She's wonderful at this
A lot of this we made up on the spot
Originally, Ferris was doing this
Modigliani on his computer, -
- and he'd wired it into a JumboTron
downtown in the city
So as he's composing this picture,
it's appearing downtown
It's part of a larger theme Signs and
JumboTrons linked to his computer
I ultimately didn't use it
A lot of shots of Chicago It's my city,
and I really wanted to show it -
- at its best
This is Ferris at the office,
getting his plan together
He's starting to get dressed
in his final outfit
This is a nice moment
of a father not really knowing how -
- to deal with his son He knows he
should give him some sort of advice
We thought of the worst advice for
the flu: Put a towel on your head
Lyman Ward is a very funny guy
A really good light comedian
I like this scene very much
It really shows Cameron's madness
He's a passive-aggressive,
to the extreme
He doesn't want to do this
He knows he'll end up with Ferris,
and do whatever Ferris wants him to
The only thing he can do is get angry
He gets angry at his car here
I've done this a few times
You just let the engine suffer a bit
He's had it, he's going in the house
He puts his foot down a lot
Which is really his problem He puts
his foot down and then backs off
I like the headrest in focus, and him
having a tantrum in the background
This is Del Close from Second City
The father of improvisational comedy
in Chicago
I didn't really have anything
in the script for him
So we just sort of worked it out
while we were there
I wanted corny things
Putting bars through the word "prison"
He had an idea to come up with
a really annoying speech pattern
You put the pauses
in the wrong places, -
- which is a good way to put people
to sleep There's a few sleeping there
And this is the old
dead grandmother ruse, -
- which I used because
it is such a common thing
I wanted them to use
the worst excuse, -
- so you'd say, "There's no way
you'll get out of that old excuse"
They're getting him to say that it's an
excuse, setting him up for the next fall
That's Mia Sara She was very good
I needed someone pretty and elegant, -
- who looked as though
she could tolerate and control Ferris
Here's Grace,
with her sympathy getting in the way
She believes it 100 grandmothers die
each day, and she grieves for them all
He doesn't buy it at all,
which is exactly what Ferris wants
He's about to step into
a nice trap here
Jeffrey Jones was I can't imagine
anybody else playing this part
This is
Alan Ruck was doing an impression
of a stage director he'd worked with
It was an in-joke
between Matthew