Matthew Broderick says he may have been the “victim” of the “longest meeting ever” with Warren Beatty.
The “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” star, 64, revealed during an Oct. 22 appearance on the podcast “Nepo, Baby!” that what began as a single-day meeting stretched into a three-month residency at the veteran filmmaker’s Mulholland home. Broderick had traveled to Los Angeles to discuss “Rules Don’t Apply,” the 2016 romantic comedy that Beatty, 89, directed, co-wrote and starred in alongside him.
Broderick recalled his nervous arrival at the hilltop property. “I remember I was early, driving up the hill to Mulholland, so nervous. I had to pull over and wait at a curb for a while, just sweating,” he said. Beatty greeted him wearing a white shirt and white pants, looking, as Broderick put it, “like Warren Beaty.” The younger actor also noticed burn marks on Beatty’s face from dermatological procedures ahead of filming, which he found beneficial since the filmmaker “looked more human.”
The evening unfolded slowly. “We had a really good dinner. We didn’t talk about the movie for a long time. Then he gave me the script, … and I was put in a room to read it,” Broderick explained. By the time he finished reading, the hour had grown late. When Broderick mentioned heading back to his hotel, Beatty simply offered him a room for the night.
The following morning, Broderick attempted a discreet exit. He was “creeping” through the house hoping to slip away unnoticed when he encountered Beatty preparing oatmeal in the kitchen. Broderick then tried the gym as an excuse, only for Beatty to note that the house had its own fitness facility.
“I don’t remember when that ended, but the reason I say it might be the longest meeting ever is I did the movie and stayed there. He had a little guest house,” Broderick revealed. He added with a laugh, “That meeting, in a way, went on for, like, three months because I never left. I never really left Mulholland.”
The extended domestic arrangement came during production of “Rules Don’t Apply,” which featured a cast including Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, and Beatty’s wife Annette Bening, whom he married in 1992. The couple share four children together. Broderick, who wed Sarah Jessica Parker in a surprise ceremony at a Manhattan synagogue in May 1997, has three children with the “Sex and the City” star: son James, 23, and 17-year-old twin daughters Tabitha and Marion.
The podcast appearance offered a rare glimpse into the unconventional working methods of Beatty, the legendary Hollywood figure known for his meticulous approach to filmmaking and decades-long gaps between projects. “Rules Don’t Apply” marked his first directorial effort since 1998’s “Bulworth” and his first onscreen role since 2001’s “Town & Country.”
Broderick’s anecdote highlights the particular intensity of creative collaborations in an industry where personal and professional boundaries frequently blur, especially when established stars take on multiple roles within a production. The guest house arrangement, however involuntary it became, apparently posed no obstacle to the working relationship, as Broderick completed the film without apparent complaint about his prolonged hospitality.
The “Lion King” voice actor’s story joins a long tradition of Hollywood tales about extended creative encounters, though few have involved actual change-of-address forms.
