The article contains spoilers for the latest episode of “Succession”.
One of the most impressive tricks HBO’s “Succession” has played on viewers over the course of its four seasons is to inspire sympathy for reprehensible people. Sunday’s episode, in which democracy is discarded, apparently because Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) had to eat too much chicken as a child, undoes much of that sympathy.
It also ended the ridiculous presidential campaign of Connor Roy (Alan Ruck), the eldest and clumsiest of Roy’s sons, who launched his attempt to confront what he saw as America’s biggest problems: “usury and masturbation.” But even as he admits, Connor insults voters and threatens a veiled threat to let go of the “conheads,” his followers, after declaring that he would not indulge in petty behavior. It may have been the darkest moment for a character largely relegated to dope status, but Ruck sees Connor’s ignorance as his primary political tool.
“He’ll believe whatever sounds good to him that day,” Ruck said in a recent video call filled with lively anecdotes and laughter. “He’ll read something online or hear something on TV, then that becomes central to his platform for that day. And then tomorrow could be something completely different because he’s just not a focused person.”
In the role of Connor, Ruck, 66, has woven decades of character acting into some of the show’s most spectacular moments: “over-decanting” a bottle of wine in a Vitamix blender; the anger at the butter texture while overseeing his father’s gala ceremony; proposing to his call girl fiancée Willa (Justine Lupe) that they throw “barbed wire and bum fights” at their wedding to stoke fanfare for his presidential campaign.
“Hands down the best writing I’ve ever seen, week after week,” he said. “But I think it would be fun to move on to something else after essentially playing the family [expletive]you know, for about six years.”
Ruck considers the series “a gift” in a career often marked by festivals or famines, and having occasional jobs to pay the bills. In 1986 he played Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – a quintessential Gen X character in a quintessential Gen X teen comedy. But the role didn’t become an instant star, and Ruck felt Cameron’s shadow was quite long.
“There were a lot of difficult years where I was basically making just enough money to stay alive,” he said. “During that time, when people would come up and say something about ‘Ferris Bueller,’ it would really irritate me because I felt like that was it. That was my chance.”
Of “Succession,” he said, “I’ve dreamed of a show like this for years.”
Ruck grew up in suburban Cleveland and found solace in acting by the time he reached high school. As a student at the University of Illinois, he spent most of his time on stage, he said. The college’s performing arts complex was designed by Max Abramovitz, the architect behind David Geffen Hall, but “there was another type of student theater that was just a small theater space in an armory,” Ruck said. “They gave you a budget of $25 and you could do whatever play you wanted. So it’s just a lot of experience over a short period of time.”
He moved to Chicago in 1979 at a time when the theater scene, dominated by companies like Steppenwolf and Wisdom Bridge, was just beginning to boom. And after the box office success of The Blues Brothers (1980), he said, Hollywood took a greater interest in the city, which made it an ideal place for aspiring actors.
“You could walk into any talent agency on a Wednesday and just say, ‘Hi, I’m new,’ and they would sit down and talk to you,” he said. “Talk about this to people who started out in New York or Los Angeles, and they’re like, ‘What are you talking about?’ “You can’t just visit someone.” So it was like the top of the minors.”
When Broadway casting directors came to Chicago to audition for actors for Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues,” Ruck eventually got a part. He moved to New York and shared the stage with Matthew Broderick, his future Ferris Bueller co-star, who recalled Ruck having “the aura of the ‘Chicago good actor’.”
“He looked like someone like a James Dean,” Broderick said, laughing. “Everyone in this piece had a very different personality. But we really all kind of became a unit and Alan was a hugely important part of that.”
During this episode of “Biloxi Blues,” casting began for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Ruck met director John Hughes in Chicago while auditioning for an early version of The Breakfast Club, and his agent signed on to play Cameron. But the casting directors thought the then 28-year-old Ruck was too old.
“But then he came in and read and just blew John Hughes away,” Broderick said. “Everyone just thought he was perfect.”
Ferris Bueller was a hit and is still hugely popular almost four decades later. But three years after his starring role, Ruck was working in the sorting room of a Sears mail order warehouse in East Los Angeles. He’d moved to the city after landing a pilot at Nell Carter for NBC, but that fell through, leaving him with a wife and young daughter to support.
His colleagues didn’t know about his acting career, he said. One day, while Ruck was smoking in the break room, a co-worker pointed him out to another. “He said, ‘Have you ever seen the movie Ferret Buford’s Day Off?'” Ruck recalled with a laugh. “,It looks like this [expletive] in the dad car!’”
Ruck eventually found numerous roles in sitcoms and drama television series, most notably ABC’s “Spin City,” and landed supporting roles in films such as “Young Guns II,” “Speed,” and “Twister.” It’s the kind of career that can drain an actor’s ego and paycheck, but give them room to sharpen. For Ruck, it showed exactly what he was looking for.
“I worked on a sitcom for 18 episodes and then there was nothing for a year,” he said. “It’s pretty discouraging because you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”
By the time the casting for “Succession” began in 2016, Ruck, who is now married to actress Mireille Enos, had found a broader rhythm and was taking on any role that came his way. He was filming the Fox series The Exorcist in Chicago and flying to Los Angeles on the weekends while Enos was shooting The Catch 16 hours a day taking care of their two young children. One weekend she asked him to take her and their two-year-old son to a music class before he flew back to Chicago. Then he got a call from his agent: There was an audition for an HBO show, but he had to miss class.
“I turned to Mireille and said, ‘Honey, I have an audition for an HBO show,’ and she burst into tears,” he said. So he kept his promise: “We went to music class and we banged tambourines for about an hour.” Then he stopped by the home of “Succession” executive producer Adam McKay on his way to the airport and called in his living room.
Not having time to read the script in advance, he was told to improvise, which came in handy when he got the job and filming began. Succession director and executive producer Mark Mylod said Ruck’s understanding of Connor’s delusional worldview “brought that beautiful soul to the character.” This was particularly evident in what Mylod called “freebies,” where actors try out alternative lines or improvise their own.
“Alan is brilliant at it,” said Mylod. “You give him a free gift and basically he could do a 10-minute film and never break character.”
Most of Ruck’s scenes play with a magnifying glass, many of which are extremely awkward. But as the relationship between her characters grew into more than just a transaction, her off-screen momentum solidified, according to Lupe. They regularly texted each other about how they could illustrate this development in their scenes.
“That was really helpful,” she said. “We felt like we could do it together, rather than me having to create an entire narrative on my own, or he having to create an entire narrative himself.”
Lupe pointed out their wedding scene from earlier this season. It was just a few seconds of screen time in an episode that viewers will remember for the death of family man Logan Roy (Brian Cox). What Lupe remembers, however, is the emotional intensity of filming Willa and Connor’s wedding.
“We had vows that we exchanged with each other, and that helped us get to the point where it felt like an authentic presentation,” she said. “In between takes, Alan would say things like how great it was working together and how the run had gone together. And I was just like, ‘No, don’t!’ I’m going to cry!'”
Ruck is up next for roles in two movies: The Burial, a legal drama starring Jamie Foxx, and a sequel to Wind River. And while he’ll miss the camaraderie of the “Succession” cast and crew, he feels he got everything he could from Connor Roy — and some things he could do without.
“It’s weird playing a character that’s so easy to dismiss,” he said, laughing. “People call you ‘idiot’ all the time.” You know, it gets under your skin a little — I’m happy to let that go.”