Jack Nicholson Thought ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ Meant the End of His Career

Hollywood anarchist and noted nudist Jack Nicholson saw his career flash before his eyes in the mid-1980s as the era’s most popular movies totally confounded him. In a 1986 interview with The New York Times, Nicholson was asked if he felt “like a creative person trapped in an uncreative age in the industry.”

''Well, you know,” Nicholson replied, “last night I saw — what’s that movie? Ferris something?”

Was Nicholson referring to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Anyone? Anyone?

“Well, that movie made me feel totally irrelevant to anything that any audience could want, and 119 years old,” he explained. 

To make matters worse, it felt like the audience was on John Hughes’ side of the argument. “Believe me, everyone else watching it liked it,” he said. “And you know, I literally walked out of there thinking my days are numbered. These people are trying to kill me.”

Imagine what Nicholson thinks of today’s limited diet of Fast and Furious movies and the latest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 1986, he complained about “conglomeration” narrowing the types of projects a studio would finance. He dreamed of a Napoleon biopic with Stanley Kubrick that couldn’t get off the ground. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — and the audience’s enthusiastic reaction — made him believe that the industry might be passing him by.

Nicholson needn’t have worried. After fretting about his place in contemporary Hollywood, he gave Oscar-nominated performances in Ironweed, A Few Good Men and About Schmidt, in addition to winning his third Academy Award for As Good As It Gets. And that’s not counting his roles in Batman, Anger Management and The Departed.

But in recent years, Nicholson has stepped back from movie-making, not acting in a film since 2010’s How Do You Know? He even turned down Lorne Michaels’ pleas to star in MacGruber. (Given Nicholson’s feelings about Ferris Bueller, that’s understandable.) Is his career stall because of failing health, a disconnect with modern films or something else? Record producer Lou Adler, Nicholson’s longtime pal, shared some insight with Marc Maron in a 2023 episode of the WTF podcast. “A friend of mine wanted to put him in a movie. And he had a conversation with him. But Jack says, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ He goes, ‘You know what I did today? I sat under a tree and I read a book.’ That sounds like Jack.”

Nicholson “wants to be quiet,” Adler confided. “He wants to eat what he wants. He wants to live the life he wants.”

Fellow individualist Ferris Bueller would understand.