Sometimes the most beautiful stories happen when the cameras stop rolling. Nearly four decades after Mia Sara captivated us as the effortlessly cool Sloane Peterson in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the actress is finally ready to spill the tea on her intentionally quiet life.
For those of us who grew up in Chicago, Sloane wasn’t just a character – she was the girl we all wanted to be. Smart, confident, and completely unimpressed by authority, she represented a new kind of female empowerment that felt revolutionary in 1986. Every teenage girl in the Windy City saw herself in that white leather jacket, dancing on floats and living life fearlessly.
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But here’s what makes Sara’s story even more fascinating: she actually achieved the fairy tale most of us only dreamed about. According to People, after stepping away from Hollywood nearly 15 years ago, the 57-year-old actress has been living her best life in a 17th-century English farmhouse with filmmaker husband, Brian Henson (yes, son of Muppets creator Jim Henson) and their two children.
Sara’s recent return to acting in The Life of Chuck happened purely by chance – and fangirl love. When director, Mike Flanagan, casually asked if she ever wanted to work again, her response was perfectly Sara: “Well, okay, if you offer me something, I’ll do it.” The Stephen King adaptation pairs her with Mark Hamill as grandparents, leading to her delightfully starstruck confession: “I get to be married to Luke Skywalker!”
What strikes me most about Sara’s journey is her intentionality. She didn’t burn out or fade away – she consciously chose a different path. “I started when I was really young, and I met my husband, and I just felt like, ‘I kind of need to get a life,'” she explains. “And I got a really, really good one.”
Today, Sara fills her days reading crime fiction, cooking, and writing poetry from her Suffolk countryside home. While she hasn’t rewatched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in years and doesn’t regularly keep in touch with the cast, the virtual reunion during COVID reminded her of the magic they created together.
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For a generation raised on John Hughes films, Sara’s story feels like the perfect epilogue.
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