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Life moves pretty fast. Publishing deep-dive explorations of beloved feature films does not, which is perhaps why Jason Klamm’s deeply researched “Ferris Bueller…You’re My Hero,” billed as the “most comprehensive exploration” of John Hughes‘ classic comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” is only now making its way to shelves, forty years after the film first arrived in theaters.
IndieWire shares an exclusive new excerpt from the book, chronicling the earliest days of pre-production and what sounds like a truly bad screen test, below. The book, which will be published in June, is being sold as “the definitive behind-the-scenes story of the film” and “the first deep dive of its kind into a John Hughes film.”
The book features more than 120 new and exclusive interviews (including Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, James Hughes, Jon Cryer, and Andrew McCarthy, plus producers, soundtrack musicians, parade participants, museum staff, and even the unforgettable school-bus “Gummy Bear Girl”). It also offers “never-before-seen photos, rare production documents, and unforgettable on-set stories.“
Klamm’s book is billed as “funny, insightful, and meticulously researched” and “is essential reading for film lovers, pop-culture enthusiasts, and anyone who believes life is a little better when you don’t always follow the rules.”
“’Ferris Bueller…You’re My Hero’ gave me the chance to tell the story of one of my favorite films and explore it in a brand-new way,” said Klamm in an official statement. “Sifting through almost two million words of transcription and articles was challenging, but it was worth it. Some of the most fascinating conversations of my life are in this book — some with my acting heroes, others with people I’ll never forget. Finishing it feels a little like graduation … at least now we’ve got a yearbook celebrating this movie we love, created by all of these amazing people.”
‘Ferris Bueller…You’re My Hero’The hardbound first edition of “Ferris Bueller…You’re My Hero” will be published in the U.S. and Canada on June 2, with international release dates to follow. The book’s cover illustration and design (which you can see below) are by celebrated artist Darrin Shock of State of Shock Studios.
IndieWire shares an exclusive excerpt from Klamm’s book below, chronicling the earliest days of the film’s pre-production and how star Matthew Broderick might have saved the day (of course). The book will be released by 1984 Publishing on Tuesday, June 2.
As pre-production rolled closer toward production, with rehearsals underway, the team started to get a feel for each other. Some of these people Hughes had worked with and could count on, but others — namely, his cast — were unknown quantities, experienced in theater, less malleable than he was used to. That didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking for the cast. “I was scared of John,” Matthew Broderick admits. “He was a little nervous of me, too. It was not the most smooth beginning in some ways, it took a little while to find each other’s rhythms and all that, but I think we did.”
The elements of a film can all start to come together at the screen test. Here, the production gets to see how everyone looks in costume and on camera. If something isn’t exactly gelling, this is the stage to mix it up in makeup, hair, costumes, whatever needs to be fixed. “They put us in our costumes, and they had Mia [Sara] and Matthew and I walk up and down Michigan Avenue, looking in stores and talking and everything,” Alan Ruck recalls. When he and Sara returned to set the following day, Ruck recalls Hughes “furiously” chain-smoking in a corner. He was quiet but clearly about to erupt. They asked producer Michael Chinich what was happening.
Hughes yelled to the room, “We saw the wardrobe test and it stunk!”
“Mia starts to vibrate,” Ruck recalls. “I mean, she was like, physically, like, vibrating. [Hughes] was like, ‘We watched you guys. This whole movie is about you three guys. There’s no chemistry. There’s nothing going on between the three of you.’” Ruck explained that he was prepared, he’d done his homework. With perfect timing, Broderick shows up, casually scratching his ear.
“How is everybody?” Broderick then spotted Hughes, cigarette ashing furiously, and answered his own question. “Apparently, not well.” Ruck also remembers during the brief, heated exchange that Hughes seemed unhappy they’d both been to the gym — perhaps it felt like they weren’t taking their roles seriously and were off gallivanting, getting buff. Broderick explained to the room that he wanted to be in shape for the end of the shoot when he’d have his shirt off. “The truth was that the whole time we were in the gym, we were running lines.” Hughes repeated his frustrations — he’d even let Jennifer Grey take the day off because she was confidently in character for her wardrobe test; theirs had not passed muster.
‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection“Wow,” Broderick said. “I never knew that anybody was supposed to glow in a wardrobe test.”
“And it just diffused the whole situation,” Ruck says with a laugh. “John had been working with the same bunch of people, the same young people, for a bunch of movies in a row, and he had his posse … we were professionals, and we were ready to go, right?” None of them had to ask for Hughes’ approval on their performances. None of them were champing at the bit to push an idea across the table; they were ready to play. “I think he got nervous because he was like, ‘Where’s my energy, where’s my group, you know?’” That moment of diffusion from Broderick seems to have set the whole movie in motion. “I think John realized in that second, ‘Oh, I have a movie star.’”
Hughes’ fresh deal with Paramount — a new studio for him, since “Pretty in Pink” hadn’t been released yet — seemed to be affecting Hughes, and that trickled down on set. “I think whenever there was pressure from the studio, John would get pissed off, and then he would get testy on set. But for the most part, he was a pleasure to work with,” Ruck says. “It was just those days where he felt pressure, self-imposed or otherwise, that he would get a little bit testy. But, you know, we’re all human beings.”
“He went from being a really popular kid at one school to a really unpopular kid at another school,” Lindsay Doran (then Vice President of Production at Paramount) recalls Hughes telling her. “I sometimes thought he was all those people in ‘The Breakfast Club,’ and every day you had to figure out which one you were dealing with. And that sounds funny, but it wasn’t funny at the time.”
Unfortunately, he’s not here to write an essay telling us who he thinks he is. He did that piece by piece with each of his films, arguably more so with “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” his first true fairy tale. It wouldn’t be his first fairy tale to take place in Chicago, but it would be the first to feature it. To paint a full picture of it. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is John Hughes coming home.
From “Ferris Bueller…You’re My Hero: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Day Off,” by Jason Klamm. Reprinted with permission from 1984 Publishing. Copyright 2026.
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