Mia Sara didn’t have too long to wait before fame came calling with a star casting in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She was just 18 years old when the film hit the big screen, immortalising Mia as the eternal ‘80s cool girl.
But the actress wasn’t as enamoured with a life in the spotlight as fans might have assumed, eventually deciding to step back from the screen altogether. Read on to find out how the star is spending her days, what role brought her back to our screens for the first time in a decade and which iconic characters she’s still remembered for today…
© CBS via Getty ImagesMia Sara only had a couple of small roles before she landed her breakout hit ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’
Mia Sara's start on screen
Mia got her start on screen in a 1983 episode of All My Children, a long-running soap opera following the lives of fictional suburb Pine Valley’s residents, in which she played a girl called Francesca.
Just two years later, the actress starred in Ridley Scott’s Legend as Princess Lili, a curious royal who touches a unicorn. She joined a stacked cast of famous faces, including Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness and Tom Cruise as forest dwelling Jack.
© Getty Images‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ brought the actress mainstream fame as Sloane Peterson
Ferris Bueller fame
Mia’s best-loved role is surely that of ‘80s cool-girl Sloane Peterson, the girlfriend of Matthew Broderick’s Ferris Bueller, who joins Ferris and Cameron on their coming-of-age adventure in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
The film has remained a comedy classic to this day, thanks to the timeless appeal of bunking off school and Ferris’ iconic lines, including his immortal words: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it".
© Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty ImagesMia Sara also starred on Disney mini-series ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’
Later roles
Ferris Bueller might be Mia’s best remembered hit, but it didn’t spell the end of her career. The actress went on to appear in 1994 classic Timecop as Melissa Walker, the wife of leading man Jean-Claude van Damme’s Max, and in 13 episodes of sci-fi hit Birds of Prey as Harley Quinn.
She also worked on several further hits, including 1987’s Queenie and Disney series 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, starring as Mara alongside Michael Caine’s Captain Nemo and Patrick Demsey’s Pierre Aronnax.
© FilmMagic for Lisa Sorensen Public Relations via Getty ImagesMia made the decision to step back from acting
Why she stepped back
After a role in short film Pretty Pretty, Sara took a decade-long break from Hollywood. She explained that acting never made her truly “happy”: “I never really had the resilience to deal with the audition process.”
The actress added: “There are some things in my career that I’m really proud of, but overall it was not a happy career for me.” Instead, Mia decided to dedicate her energy to an eventual career in poetry writing.
© Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesThe actress was previously wed to Sean Connery’s son, Jason
Romantic life
Mia has had a star-studded romantic life. The actress met Jason Connery, son of Sean, in 1995 while filming Bullet to Beijing and tied the knot in 1996. The couple welcomed a son, Dashiell, in 1997 and divorced five years later in 2002.
After their split, Mia met and fell for Jim Henson’s son Brian, now Chairperson of The Jim Henson Company, welcoming daughter Amelia in 2005. The pair said ‘I do’ in 2010 and have been married ever since.
© Neon via Getty ImagesMia is happily married to Jim Henson Company head, Brian Henson
Where is she now?
The Ferris Bueller star has since made a return to the big screen, starring alongside Tom Hiddleston and Chiwetel Ejiofor in The Life of Chuck (2024). She stars as Sarah, the grandmother of Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz, played by Tom Hiddleston.
Otherwise, she’s enjoying a peaceful pace of life, reading lots of crime fiction and cooking regularly. “I started when I was really young,” she told People, “and I met my husband, and I just felt like, ‘I kind of need to get a life.’ And I got a really, really good one.”
