40 Years Later, ‘Ferris Bueller’ Actress Mia Sara Finally Tells the Truth About Filming That Iconic Movie

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has spent four decades cementing itself as one of the most beloved comedies in cinema history — but for one of its central cast members, the memories of making it are far more complicated than the finished film suggests.

Shelby Oaks star Mia Sara, who played Sloane Peterson, Ferris’ girlfriend in the 1986 John Hughes classic, has opened up candidly about her experience on set, telling The Sunday Times in an interview published on June 21 that making the film was genuinely “not that good an experience” for her. The comments were made as part of a 40th anniversary retrospective that also included costars Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, and Jennifer Grey.

Sara, now 59, was just 17 years old when she was cast in the film — significantly younger than the rest of the principal cast. Broderick was 23 at the time, Ruck was 29, and Grey was 25. That age gap, Sara suggested, played a meaningful role in how the experience unfolded both on and off set.

Her relationship with director John Hughes proved to be a central source of tension. Sara described Hughes as a “strange guy” and admitted she never got along with him particularly well during production. Part of the friction stemmed from Hughes’ desire to bond the cast together through shared cultural experiences — screening French New Wave films and encouraging a sense of group camaraderie. While her costars were more receptive to that approach, Sara, a self-described “snotty New York kid” who was already familiar with the films he was introducing, didn’t respond the way Hughes had hoped.

In hindsight, Sara acknowledged she wasn’t entirely blameless in how those dynamics played out. She told The Sunday Times that she simply lacked the emotional maturity at the time to navigate the egos around her — or her own.

The personal tensions didn’t stop there. Sara also revealed that she had developed a “massive” crush on Broderick during filming, a feeling that was entirely unrequited. The reason, it turns out, was that Broderick was quietly in a relationship with Grey throughout the production — a romance the two kept deliberately hidden from the rest of the cast and crew. Grey recalled during the same retrospective that keeping it secret was genuinely difficult, admitting she once struggled so much to compose herself during a scene that she had to bite her cheek to get through it.

Beyond the personal dynamics on set, Sara reflected more broadly on her relationship with acting as a career, describing it as one that never brought her sustained happiness. She credited a lack of resilience around the audition process as something that consistently held her back, and acknowledged that while there were moments in her career she was proud of — including a Saturn Award for the 1994 film Timecop — the overall experience was not a fulfilling one.

Sara stepped away from acting for an extended period and returned to the big screen in 2024 with Mike Flanagan’s fantasy drama The Life of Chuck, playing the grandmother of the titular character. When asked about the possibility of future work, she indicated that her connection to Flanagan was the primary factor that could bring her back.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is currently available to stream on multiple platforms.