FEATURE STORY

Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker star in Neil Simon’s Broadway play, Plaza Suite.

productions like the smash Broadway hit, It’s Only a Play, opposite his frequent co-star Nathan Lane; the award-winning Broadway run of Nice Work If You Can Get It; the Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple; and Shining City at the Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre, for which he earned an Obie Award.

“The theater is such a traditional place, that you can’t help but feel it when you’re there. It’s incredibly special to start a play on Broadway, hear the music start, see the lights go down in the house, and the audience make a sound like they’re excited to be there — particularly now.” He speaks as a fan as well, assuring me that, no matter what side of the stage he’s on, it’s the right side. [In case enquiring minds want to know, most recently, he really enjoyed Just for Us at the Off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre.]

But obviously, anyone who has ever seen the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (and shame on you if you haven’t!) is aware that Broderick doesn’t limit himself to theater alone. His film credits include Glory, You Can Count on Me, War Games, Disney’s The Lion King as the adult voice of Simba, Tower Heist, Godzilla, Then She Found Me, The Stepford Wives, Inspector Gadget, To Dust, Rules Don’t Apply, and the award-winning Manchester by the Sea. His most recent television project was 2019’s Daybreak, for Netflix; others include Fox’s live musical event A Christmas Story Live!, Modern Family, 30 Rock, and the TNT production of David Mamet’s A Life in the Theater, for which he received an Emmy nomination.

I want him to correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel that — despite his crossover ability — his heart is truly with Broadway first. But it isn’t his heart that dictates his feelings, as his very thoughtful answer conveys.

“I started out with movies and plays at the same time when I was 19, and I loved both. I always wanted to try to do both, but lately it’s been more stage the last many years. There are things about both film or TV and plays that I like. It’s not that one is better, but the stage is uniquely your own if you’re the actor — at some point, it’s just you. With a film, there’s always a director looking at you and saying, ‘Try it again and do it this way,’ which is also great and helpful, but in a play, once you step out, you’re driving. You still have to be confined by what the director has created, the designers, and of course, the writer, but you really kind of own it while you’re doing it. And you have a feeling afterward of actually playing the whole part, which in film is so spread out. Maybe a few days of the whole shoot you might feel satisfied, but many days are I went to the refrigerator and got the juice out and called the garage for the car and that was the day [of] shooting. It’s a marathon, a spread-out thing, whereas a play is energy all at once; there’s no waiting around,” he explains, adding, “Also, getting the feedback from the audience can tell you if they’re bored or laughing. You get that on a film, too, but it’s the director or a couple of other people who are hanging around the video monitor: They become your audience. Billy Wilder said, ‘Everyone in the audience is an idiot, but taken together, they’re genius.’ Audiences are very smart. They know how something should go.”

But just because he prefers being on stage, he (obviously) isn’t letting the other aspects of his career slack. Next up, he has Netflix’s opioid drama Painkiller, opposite Uzo Aduba, and the romantic comedy She Came to Me from writer-director Rebecca Miller. And possibly, in the near future, he’ll be able to merge these two mediums with Plaza Suite as he did with The Producers, reprising his 2001 Broadway role in the 2005 movie. Although there are no current plans to remake the 1971 film version of said play, he does say he’s heard rumors about shooting a live version in the future.

Speaking of Plaza Suite again, well, after the limited engagement closes (tickets are currently on sale through June 26), he’s taking a well-deserved vacation (“Now that I’ve spent the last two years lying around, it’s time to lie around again,” he jokes). And not a staycation, either — which, for the record, he says he has never done — not even at the Plaza for “research.”

I am baffled by this, but he is pragmatic. “Living in New York, I don’t stay overnight in hotels. I have a house.”

“Staycation,” I say. “It’s called a staycation.”

“Well,” he returns, “I did stay at the Carlyle once, right after Sarah Jessica and I got married.”

For the record, that was one night only — the evening of May 19, 1997, to be exact — the night of his wedding, 25 years ago this May.

To commemorate that momentous day, the couple will be together, on stage. In its own way, this is not only romantic, but also downright poetic.

So… what does one have to do to reach such a milestone? Does he bring Parker roses once a week? Tell her she’s beautiful every day? “I don’t, but I should,” he declares, before noting, “Honestly, you can’t look at the big picture. You have to take it day by day, moment to moment. On a matinee day, I have two shows coming up and if I think from the beginning, ‘Oh my God, I have to do this twice,’ I’d get worried. If I just work on each scene, it flows. Really, I don’t know what the secret is, but I wish I did.” Still, he does have a few tips. “Obviously, you have to be friends. You have to want the same things and to be able to communicate and to hopefully have a few laughs. Humor, they say, is key.”

Well, whatever he’s doing, it’s working, because these two are still laughing — on stage and off — a quarter of a century later. They’ve built a wonderful life in the Big Apple with their three, incredible kids: son James Wilkie, 19, and twin daughters Marion Loretta and Tabitha Hodge, 12. And it’s no surprise that precious time with his family is the most important thing of all, in his eyes. “[Spending] time with dear ones; to have time to spend with the people you love and who love you, that’s the greatest luxury,” he says.

I remind him that he’s got to have seen the silver lining in the past two years in that case, with his whole crew under one roof. “It was very nice to spend so much time with my kids,” he admits. “I’ve never been home this much, so there’s been some good about it. There’s something nice about slowing down and having time with your loved ones.”

“And also, not turning into vapor,” I say.

He nods. “I’m still solid. I’m still here — and I’m grateful. I just encourage everybody to get back into life now, because who knows when that next freaking variant is coming. If we’re having a nice break now, let’s enjoy it, and spend it at the theater — hopefully at our show. I’m just kidding. Spend it how you want. Go outside, see things. Don’t just sit inside watching lengthy TV shows about murder. That’s fun, too, but now that you can, why don’t you try something else?”

I couldn’t agree more. But then again, I’m planning a staycation — and my first stop is an actual Plaza suite.

“The theater is such a traditional place, that you can’t help but feel it when you’re there. It’s incredibly special to start a play on Broadway, hear the music start, see the lights go down in the house, and the audience make a sound like they’re excited to be there — particularly now.”