-Our first guest tonight is
a Tony winning actor you know
from films like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off,"
"Election," and "Glory."
He stars in "Plaza Suite,"
which is running at the Hudson Theater
for a limited engagement through June 26th.
Please welcome back to the show
our friend Matthew Broderick, everybody.
[ Cheering and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back.
-Thank you.
-It is great to have you here.
It's great to have you back on Broadway.
-Yeah, I agree. I'm great.
[ Laughter ] I'm very glad to be back on Broadway.
-So this is a play you get to do with your wife,
Sarah Jessica Parker. -Exactly.
-This was planned to happen a while back
and then it got derailed.
-Yeah. Two years ago,
we started the show in Boston and then traveled to New York
and did our week of rehearsal to get ready to open in New York
and we were onstage with full-on wigs and costumes
and saw a lot of producers started coming in
and out of the theater and whispering and chatting.
And I think basketball and hockey
had just shut down and we were like,
"Why am I wearing this wig?"
[ Laughter ]
And, eventually, they were like,
"We're going to take a short break
and let's all meet in the house."
And they said, "We're going to stop the show for two weeks
because of COVID.
Might be four, honestly.
[ Laughter ] I'm not supposed
to tell you that, but it might be four.
But it's two weeks."
And then, you know, two years,
like for everybody else, I guess.
-So you were almost ready to go, then you take two years off.
Now, it should be noted you play --
you and Sarah play three different couples.
-Exactly. -So this is a lot.
You have a lot of dialogue to learn.
Did it come right back?
-No, it did not. -Okay.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
I thought it would. -Yeah.
-I was like, "I'm not going to study that stuff.
Two years? I know my -- You know.
That's fine." -Yeah.
-And I got back and I was like,
"This doesn't seem familiar to me."
[ Laughter ]
-"Someone has switched out my script."
-"None of this is what was in the script before."
[ Laughter ]
But then it gradually, you know, it came back.
-And then it's very exciting
to do an opening night on Broadway.
Did opening night go well?
-Yeah, it was thrilling, you know.
It was --
You know, we have the exact same crew and designers
and everybody backstage was there two years ago,
so the fact that we all, somehow,
were still together and made it.
You know, all the understudies came out onstage
and it was just -- it was a very lovely night.
-Someone I knew was at opening night
and said there was a set mishap.
-That's true. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, yeah.
Well, the play, the third play,
basically, the only story of it is, is that the couple,
and their daughter
is supposed to be getting married at the Plaza
and she has locked herself in the bathroom of the suite
and will not come out.
And the wedding is about to happen.
So they're banging on the door and screaming and...
...so the whole thing is that she won't come out.
She doesn't say anything and at one point I say,
"That's it, I'm going to bust down the door."
So I run to the other side of the stage
and I run full force and I'm supposed to hit the door
and it doesn't budge at all, you know.
[ Laughter ] And that's, you know.
And then I say something amusing.
[ Laughter ] And so this time,
I ran at the door and I just smashed straight through it.
[ Laughter ] So,
I was just in the bathroom, suddenly.
There was no daughter in there. -Yeah. So that's jarring.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah. -Yeah.
-And it wasn't the kind of thing
where you could improvise
and say, you know,
"Now, she's behind the shower curtain."
[ Laughter ] I guess I could've said that.
But I couldn't think of what to say.
-So what did you say? -I think I said --
and this is something to keep in mind in any improv --
-Yeah. -"Let's pretend that didn't happen."
[ Laughter ] Yeah.
-Yeah. And I would imagine, you know,
obviously, you don't want things to go wrong,
but I imagine that audience was thrilled
-They were very delighted. -to see a real moment like that.
You obviously are onstage with your wife
and it's very nice. Do you guys --
Do you talk about the show when you go home?
-Not too much, you know. -Okay.
-I think we try to -- That could lead to some --
You know, we try to avoid the, "Would you mind terribly
staying still when I deliver this line?"
[ Laughter ] You know?
Because that could lead to a very difficult home life.
[ Laughter ]
-I mean, I would imagine there's, you know,
because, again, you're communicating with the lines
that Neil Simon wrote all these years ago,
so, if you want to communicate beyond that,
it has to be nonverbal, which, you've been married
a long time. Nonverbal communication,
I feel like my wife and I crush that.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, we do a lot of that.
I'm very not great at,
if something happens onstage that I don't think is
as good as it should be or something,
I tend to do something to say, you know, that happened.
-Yeah. -Like if I'll do something
that always gets a nice laugh, you know?
And I'll do it and it's silence, I'll be like --
[ Laughter ]
And sometimes I find myself even being like --
[ Laughter ] I look at the audience.
"What was wrong with that?"
[ Laughter ] And I kind of can't help it.
Some actors have complained about it like,
"You're taking me out of it, you know.
[ Laughter ] I'm in it. I'm in it," you know?
-They're like, "It also took me out of it
when you ran through the bathroom door."
[ Laughter ]
Your Broadway debut,
how old were you when you did "Brighton Beach Memoirs"?
Which is also Neil Simon.
-Twenty. -Wow!
-Yeah. -Do you think back?
Do you reflect back on that time now, doing...?
-A little bit. I mean, it's 40 years ago
-Wow. -and here I am in a Neil Simon play.
And I have a little scene where I lie on a bed.
You know, she's in the other room
and I'm just on the bed in the other room.
And there was a scene in "Brighton Beach"
where, when other scenes would happen,
I'd be in my bedroom and the set was that you wouldn't leave,
so I was always lying on this little foreshortened bed.
And I'm back on a bed [ Laughter ]
and it's the same writer
and I'm, you know, incredibly old
[ Laughter ] and it's sort of amazing to sit there.
I mean, I don't know what to make of it,
but it does occur to me, once in a while.
-Do you remember that time as a time that you were anxious
and fearful of the weight of doing a Broadway show?
-Yeah, I definitely was nervous, but,
you know when you're 20, you're kind of like,
"I think I can," you know. I don't know.
I didn't get that worried, for some reason.
-That's good, though. -Yeah.
And, you know, this might be a false memory.
[ Laughter ] It's possible, if I went back, I was just like --
You know, I was probably like,
"Don't take me out there. Don't take me out there."
[ Laughter ] -Talking to your old costars,
it's like, "Was it weird being around my confidence?"
They're like, "No." -"What confidence?"
[ Laughter ] Yeah, "I don't remember it that way," yeah.
I was so at ease, don't you think?
"No, I don't remember it that way," yeah.
-Can you tell nights where there may be
"Sex and the City" fans in the audience
because of how how drawn they are to your wife?
-Yeah, there's always "Sex and the City" fans.
[ Laughter ]
Which is very lovely, you know.
But there's a certain like, "Whoo-hoo!"
[ Laughter ] it sounds like, you know, maybe is that.
Or, you know, if you hear a wine glass go
clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.
[ Laughter ] But that could be anybody.
-That could be anybody. Yeah. You shouldn't stereotype
and just assume, yeah. -I really shouldn't, no, no.
-If it was a Cosmo. If somebody brought
their own Cosmo glass. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Did you watch?
You know, when someone's in a show,
they might send you, you know, the whole season of a show.
Did you guys watch and just like that all together?
-No, I was not allowed to see it ahead at all.
-Why?
-I was told so that it would be more exciting for me.
[ Laughter ] -Okay. -But I also think --
I think there was a fear that I would go to, you know,
a Gillicuddy's on the corner and say, "Hey,
guess what happens?"
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, you'd have one too many at the Irish pub
-Yeah, that's what I mean. -and you'd spoil just like that.
-O'Donohue's, you know.
[ Laughter ] Yeah.
So I wasn't trusted, is what I'm trying to say.
[ Laughter ] -Gotcha. -Yeah.
-But it must be fun -- It must be fun --
I mean, I would imagine -- to --
to watch your wife in that role again.
It must've been so exciting. -It was wonderful.
And actually was fun to not know.
The big thing I had to not know was the big secret of it,
you know, so. -Maybe she was worried that,
if you saw that, you'd, you know...
-Well, she she did fool me. Like I did not know.
I went to the premiere and --
I guess it's okay to say now, but,
a large character went [ Cluck ]
[ Laughter ] And I was like, "What?
[ Laughter and applause ]
What happened?" -Does it worry you?
Like I think I'd be worried if my wife would be that good
at keeping a secret. Like I'd be like,
"How did you?" You'd be like, "What else are you?"
Yeah. -Yeah, yeah.
"There's a lot you don't know about me," yeah.
[ Laughter ]
It's possible. -Well, I'm really, really happy
to have you back here. -I'm very happy to be back here.
-It's great to have you onstage
and thank you so much for making time for us.
[ Cheering and applause ] -I love your show.
-You guys, Matthew Broderick.
"Plaza Suite," running at the Husband Theatre
for a limited engagement from June 26th.