Jack Nicholson had an undeniably impressive film career. From the outside looking in at least, he seemed to be riding high from his breakout role in 1969’s “Easy Rider” all the way to 2007’s “The Bucket List,” before gracefully retiring from Hollywood in recent years. But although Nicholson would still be landing great roles deep into the 2000s, he was already starting to feel too old in 1986. In an ’86 interview with the New York Times, Nicholson talked about how he watched “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Although this is arguably director John Hughes’ best movie, Nicholson hated every moment of it.
“That movie made me feel totally irrelevant to anything that any audience could want, and 119 years old” Nicholson explained. ”Believe me, everyone else watching it liked it. And you know, I literally walked out of there thinking my days are numbered. These people are trying to kill me.”
At first glance you’d assume he was talking about the movie’s celebration of youth; after all, the movie’s all about suave teens having fun throughout Chicago while the stuffy adults keep trying to bring them down. To a middle-aged viewer, it’s easy to see how the movie might feel like one giant 103-minute middle finger. But for Nicholson, his dislike of “Ferris Bueller” seemed more related to a troubling trend he’d noticed in Hollywood.
According to the interviewer, Nicholson had talked about how Hollywood’s “conglomeration” was limiting the overall creativity of Hollywood. When Nicholson brought up “Ferris Bueller,” it was specifically in response to the question, “Do you feel like a creative person trapped in an uncreative age in the industry?”