Mia Sara was widely regarded as one of the most iconic actresses of the ’80s after her role in the classic comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off shot her stardom.
She was a teenager when she starred as the titular character’s girlfriend Sloane Peterson, but her captivating performance paired with the movie’s success quickly turned her into a household name.
Then, not long after, she disappeared from Hollywood with no intention to return. That was, until she was coaxed out of retirement for the recently released film Life of Chuck.
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Sara, who made her film debut as Princess Lili in the 1985 cult-classic film Legend alongside Tom Cruise, quickly landed among some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and landed several film roles following the success of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
She starred in the Apprentice to Murder (1988), Shadows in the Storm (1988), Big Time (1989), Caroline at Midnight (1994) and Timecop (1994), among others as her career went from strength to strength.
It was expected Sara’s stardom would continue to grow, but it wasn’t to be.
The actress instead began to slowly step away from acting, taking on only a handful of roles throughout the late ’90s and the ’00s.
In 1996 she married her first husband Jason Connery with whom she starred in Bullet To Beijing.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Then and today
The pair welcomed their son Dashielle Quinn Connery in 1997 before they separated in 2002.
Sara then welcomed her second child, daughter Amelia Jane Henson, with American puppeteer and filmmaker Brian Henson. They married in 2010.
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That same year, Sara declare herself as “mostly retired” from the big and little screen revealing her main priorities were motherhood and writing.
“today I’m a mother with a really noisy, difficult house to maintain,” she explained in an interview with Total Film at the time.
“I’m a poet, so for the last couple of years that’s what I’ve been focusing on.”
“Mia Sara used to be an actress, but recovered her senses and today she writes,” the biography on Sara’s website reads.
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Sara also reflected that, while her breakout role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off may have been a success, she did not enjoy the job.
“I was the only actual adolescent, so unfortunately for me it was like having your most awkward adolescent year forever memorialised,” she told Total Film in 2010.
“The cast were all lovely but mostly my experience was feeling very out of my depth and, you know, flailing. That’s just the honest truth.
“I wish I could say it was a lot of fun but it wasn’t for me.”
After the birth of her daughter in 2005, Sara only took on five roles.
Her last was a short film called Pretty Pretty in 2013 after which she completely stepped away from Hollywood completely.
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Her hiatus lasted over a decade until she was encouraged to return to the big screen at least one more time by the widely-celebrated director Mike Flanagan.
Flanagan offered her the role of Sarah Krantz in his feature film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Life of Chuck – an opportunity she says she couldn’t turn down.
“It’s really all about Mike Flanagan,” she told Collider Interviews in June of her decision to step out of retirement.
Sara, who says she and her family are huge fans of the director, says she met Flanagan at a social event when he asked her, “Why aren’t you working?”.
When he asked her if she would consider a role in his film to which she said, “For you, I’d do anything,” and the rest is history.
The highly-anticipated film has just launched in cinemas across Australia.
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