A baby-faced Broderick had his breakout role a few years before Ferris Beuller, in 1983’s WarGames. In the cyber-thriller, he plays a student who, while trying to hack into a video game, accidentally breaks into a military computer and nearly starts a nuclear war. The same year, he became the youngest actor to win a Tony for best featured actor in a play for Brighton Beach Memoirs. Ferris Bueller quickly became another calling card for the young actor, as he played the ultimate slacker with a heart of gold, outwitting his high school principal (Jeffery Jones) and antagonizing his sister (Jennifer Grey) in pursuit of a good time.
In ’87, personal tragedy struck when Broderick and Grey, who were dating at the time, got in a serious car accident while vacationing in Northern Ireland. Two people in the other car were killed, while Broderick and Grey were both injured. In the years since the accident, Broderick (who was driving) has spoken of it only rarely, but has expressed remorse for what happened. The couple broke up not long afterward, and Broderick went on to marry Sarah Jessica Parker in 1997. The couple, who have three children, starred together on Broadway in Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite in 2022.
Broderick continued to be an in-demand leading actor, starring opposite Helen Hunt in Project X (1987), about an Air Force project involving chimps, followed by a role as an Army recruit in Biloxi Blues (1988), a part he had previously played on Broadway. He re-upped in the military for Glory (1989), playing the commander of a Black unit in the Union Army during the Civil War, with co-stars including Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. A few years later, Broderick was Emmy-nominated for a TV movie version of A Life in the Theatre (1993), in which he starred opposite Jack Lemmon.
In the Disney classic The Lion King (1994), Broderick voiced adult Simba, and in The Cable Guy (1996), he played a poor sap who gets more than he bargained for when Jim Carrey’s titular character hooks him up with free cable. In 1999’s Election, the tables were turned on an actor best known as a slacker student when he played the high school social studies teacher in the cult comedy starring Reese Witherspoon. That year, he also played the title character in a live-action feature version of Inspector Gadget.
A regular presence on the Broadway stage, Broderick won a second Tony for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 1995. He would go on to star opposite Nathan Lane in The Producers in 2001, and reprised the part in the 2005 film version of the musical about two men trying to get rich by intentionally producing a Broadway flop. During this time, he also found time to play Walter, the husband of Nicole Kidman’s Joanna, in The Stepford Wives (2004). Broderick’s film résumé also includes The Tale of Desperaux (2008), Tower Heist (2011), Manchester by the Sea (2016) and Painkiller (2023). On television, he’s popped up on shows like Modern Family, 30 Rock, The Conners and, more recently, Only Murders in the Building and Elsbeth.