Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker gave this interview to Parade Magazine before coronavirus became an ugly pandemic around the world, while temporarily shuttering down everyday life as we know it.
The husband and wife team, who were set to star in the new Broadway production of Plaza Suite on April 13, discuss how they met, their 22-year marriage and why they’re more Big Apple than Hollywood.
Playing Their Parts. Playwright Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite marks Broderick and Parker’s first stage collaboration in more than two decades. And though the famous play has them portraying three different married couples, they both caution that no one should look too closely at the characters expecting glimpses into the lives of the actors. “We are telling fictional stories,” say Parker. “Doing a portrait of [ourselves] has no interest to me.”
Screen Gems. Both were fans of each other’s movies before they met. “I remember thinking she was wonderful, hilarious and beautiful,” says Broderick of Parker, whom he recalls seeing alongside Steve Martin in L.A. Story. Parker remembers exactly where she was—filming Footloose—when she saw her husband-to-be in War Games, and later in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “It’s not like I had my sights on him,” she says, “but I liked his work so much.”
All in the Family. They live in Manhattan with their three kids (teenage son James Wilkie and 10-year-old twin daughters Marion Loretta Elwell and Tabitha Hodge). In many ways, they’re a typical family; Broderick recently took James on an extensive tour of colleges, and the night before was helping the twins with homework. But “this is the last year I can help them with math,” he says, lamenting his lack of skills in that area.
Privacy, Please. They’re happy to give it all onscreen and onstage, but they like to shut the door behind them when they go home. “We don’t talk about our marriage publicly because it’s ours, and it’s the one thing we have left that’s really and truly ours,” Parker says.
For more about Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker (and what’s in their fridge!), see Sunday’s Parade or go to Parade.com.
For Broderick and Parker’s best movie roles, go to Parade.com/sarah.
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