This year marks the 40th anniversary of John Hughes’ classic “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Released in the summer of 1986, the beloved teen comedy went on to rake in more than $70 million at the box office (more than $200M in 2026 dollars) while burrowing its way into the fabric of pop culture.
Yet even the film’s biggest fans may not be aware that the title character — indelibly played by Matthew Broderick — was based on people from Hughes’ own life. Prior to his untimely death in 2009 at age 59, Hughes had always maintained that Ferris wasn’t based on a single person, but was an amalgam of a few of his classmates from Glenbrook High in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, Illinois.
Meet Ed McNally, Widely Regarded as the Real Ferris Bueller
However, the Chicago Tribune has reported that Ed McNally, a former high school friend of Hughes, is the primary source for Ferris. In fact, McNally — a Washington, D.C. attorney who served in the administrations of both President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush — laid out some pretty convincing evidence in a piece he wrote for The Washington Post shortly after Hughes’ passing.
As McNally wrote, it may have been his best friend’s last name, Buehler, that was borrowed for the character’s surname, but it was his antics that inspired some of the more memorable scenes in the film. “Ferris clocked in at nine absences his final high school semester. My own was a breathtaking 27,” McNally wrote in the Post, pointing out that he, like Ferris, “was relentlessly pursued by a remarkably humorless Glenbrook dean about attendance, pranks and off-campus excursions.”
McNally Says The Odometer Stunt in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ Actually Happened
One of the most memorable scenes in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” comes when Ferris and best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) attempt to turn back the odometer on Cameron’s dad’s beloved 1961 Ferrari 250 GT after borrowing it for a joy ride — only to have the car soar off the side of an embankment and crash in a ravine. McNally claimed that he’d pulled a similar stunt after stealing his father’s flashy purple Cadillac El Dorado.
“Put an extra 113 miles on the odometer,” he wrote. “Hoping to erase that telltale mileage, we raised the back on a pair of jacks and ran the car in reverse. The Caddy did not fly backward into a ravine, as in the film. What it did do is quickly take off a clean 10,000 miles. Oops. (Yes, you bet he noticed.)”
John Hughes’ Son Insists There’s No Single Inspiration for Ferris
McNally’s claims are indeed compelling, but is he actually the real-life Ferris Bueller? Not according to Hughes’ son. Speaking with author Jason Klamm for his 2026 book “Ferris Bueller … You’re My Hero: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Day Off,” James Hughes backed up his dad’s insistence that Ferris was based on numerous people, not just one. “There’s never been any credence to the claims … [that] Ferris was derived or inspired by one person from my dad’s past,” he said, via Entertainment Weekly.
Then again, the truth may never be entirely known. “When it comes to most fictional characters, we’re looking at an amalgam at best, which Hughes was a master at creating … basing a character or an idea entirely on someone you know or something they did is not only legally treacherous, it’s uninspired,” wrote Klamm.
Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck Will Reunite Onscreen In Upcoming Comedy
Forty years after they played pals in “Ferris’ Bueller’s Day Off,” Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck are reuniting for a new project, a comedy film “The Best is Yet to Come.”
Per Deadline, the two “play best friends who, through a colossal misunderstanding that creates a ticking clock, hop in a car to find the estranged son of one of them and also try to do all the things that life has prevented them from doing.”
Broderick and Ruck have remained friends in the years since “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and discussed working together all again during a joint appearance on NBC’s “Today.” As Broderick observed, it felt “like no time had passed” when they began acting together again, “I love working with him,” Broderick added. “He’s fun to talk to between [scenes], but you’re also good when you’re reading scripted dialogue.”
