Matthew Broderick is a serious actor on movie sets

Matthew Broderick

A charming and engaging thespian who has proven to be both a popular performer as well as a serious actor. More boyish than handsome, Matthew Broderick established himself in the 1980s as a star of youth-oriented movies, but he was destined to emerge as a young-adult leading man in the years to come. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Matthew Broderick has worked steadily in the theater, gaining immeasurable acting experience as well as the applause of critics who have admired both his talent and his willingness to occasionally eschew Hollywood’s riches.

The son of James Broderick

The son of the late actor James Broderick (best known as the father in the TV series Family), he grew up among actors and understood the demands of his craft. He made his film debut in a modest part in NEIL SIMON’s Max Dugan Returns (1983), one of the playwright-screenwriter’s few flops. In that same year, however, Matthew Broderick had the lead role in a surprise hit, War Games, propelling the young actor into early stardom. He followed that success with Ladyhawke (1984), a successful fantasy that proved the drawing power of his name at the box office. He surprised many by choosing to star in the clearly uncommercial, low-budget Horton Foote film 1918 (1984) but was well received by the critics.

Matthew Broderick spent a great deal of his time during the 1980s acting on Broadway, playing a supporting role in Torch Song Trilogy and starring in two of Neil Simon’s autobiographical plays, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. He also trod the boards Off-Broadway, starring in Horton Foote’s The Widow Claire, among other Foote projects.

Matthew Broderick does good movies.

If Matthew Broderick didn’t star in a lot of movies, he generally made the ones he did choose to appear in count. He scored big with JOHN HUGHES’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), a movie that may have been the actor’s farewell to teen roles. In addition, after patching up a quarrel with Neil Simon, he starred in the hit film version of Simon’s Biloxi Blues (1988). He also reprised his role in the film version of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy (1988). His only major flop was Project X (1987), a rather endearing film that nonetheless failed to win either critical or audience favor.

In 1987, while he was on vacation in Ireland, his career was nearly cut short by tragedy, when he was involved in a traffic accident that caused the death of two people. The actor reportedly caused the accident by driving his vehicle on the wrong side of the road.

Matthew Broderick was later fined for being at fault but was not imprisoned. After recovering from his own injury (he broke a leg), he eventually resumed acting. By 2002 Matthew Broderick had made 26 movies, starring in 22 of them. Among these assignments, he did voice-over work in The Lion King (1994) and starred with Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy (1996). He played the commander, Robert Gould Shaw, in Edward Zwick’s Civil War drama, Glory (1989). Usually given likable roles in comedies such as The Freshman (1990), Out on a Limb (1992), and The Night We Never Met (1993), Matthew Broderick continued to develop his skills, but he chose problematic roles, which trapped him in a string of pictures that were not box-office successes, such as the poor adaptation of T. Coraghessan Boyle’s novel The Road to Wellville (1994). But also in 1994 Matthew Broderick played the writer Robert Benchley to Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a loser at the box office, but a critical success.

Playing Inspector Gadget

At the end of the 1990s, he played the world’s top detective in Inspector Gadget (1998), and in the remake of Godzilla (1998), Matthew Broderick played a wimpy biologist determined to track down a beast that threatens New York. In Election (1999) he played a nerdy high school teacher, and in You Can Count on Me (2000) he played a nerdy, officious bank manager. In 1996 Matthew Broderick directed Infinity, as well as playing the lead role of Dr. Richard Feynman, a nuclear physicist with the Manhattan Project. He also returned to the Broadway stage to costar with Nathan Lane in the hit Mel Brooks musical The Producers.

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