Ruck, Alan (1956- )

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    Alan Ruck on His First Emmy Nomination and Saving Connor Roy

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    As HBO’s media-dynasty drama “Succession” was wrapping up its final season, Alan Ruck, the actor who plays the oblivious and often ignored eldest son, Connor Roy, admitted that he had once felt so unsatisfied with his depth of material that he suggested to the show’s top brass that his character be killed off.He is certainly glad now that he was told no.While driving to the gym on Wednesday morning, Ruck got the news that he had earned his first Emmy nomination. The role, which gained significant bulk in Season 4, with a long-shot presidential campaign and a wedding on a boat that was eventful, to say the least, landed him in the best supporting actor in a drama category.In a phone interview after his nomination was announced, Ruck, who before “Succession” was best known for playing Cameron Frye in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” said he was “buzzing” over the news. The conversation has been edited for clarity.How different was Season 4 for Connor from the early seasons in terms of screen time and material?Way back when I auditioned for [the “Succession” executive producer] Adam McKay to do this thing in 2016, the email from my agency said: “Connor Roy. Only child by the first marriage. Not in line to be C.E.O. of the company. This part will grow over time.” In the first seasons I had a few things to do, and then in the second season I had some inane Connor-isms, some interjections, but I didn’t actually have a one-on-one scene with anybody. Everyone was like, “This is the best show on TV,” and people didn’t even know I was on it. So I asked to be killed off, and they said, “No, no, no, we need you.” Mark Mylod [a “Succession” executive producer and director who was also nominated for an Emmy on Wednesday] wrote something funny about how Jeremy Piven’s character on “Entourage” was not supposed to be much at all and then it grew over time. And Connor did grow over time; it just kind of took until the end of the third season.How did you feel when you saw more substantial scenes for Connor in the Season 4 scripts? For example, there’s one in the karaoke room, where he betrays his siblings in support of his father. (He accuses them of being “needy love sponges” seeking Logan Roy’s approval.)These are the best writers I’ve ever worked with, and when I finally was given these chunks of beautiful stuff, I was just thrilled. I salivated.What was your experience shooting that karaoke room scene?I was just really satisfied as an actor that I got to stand up for myself. Because if someone tells you you’re a moron over and over, even if it’s just make believe, it gets under your skin.What are your predictions for Connor’s future, in terms of his career and his relationship? When the series ends — minor spoilers ahead — Connor is potentially up for the job of U.S. ambassador to Slovenia if Jeryd Mencken, the Republican nominee played by Justin Kirk, succeeds at becoming president.If Mencken is elected president and Connor goes over as ambassador, he will delegate all responsibility. He will show up for the handshaking and the state dinners and the events. He won’t last long in that job. And then since Willa was obviously hoping that he would be away for a stretch of time, I don’t have high hopes for that relationship.What are you looking at in terms of future roles?I’m looking forward to getting hired for roles that pay money. I’m an independent contractor. I think I’ll get a chance at some different things now, but I do want to continue to play people that are damaged. Because it’s pretty satisfying. When you play horrible people, you get to get all of that nasty [expletive] out at work. More

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      Alan Ruck Is Ready to Leave the Roy Family

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      The article includes spoilers for the most recent episode of “Succession.”One of the most impressive tricks HBO’s “Succession” has played on viewers over the course of four seasons is generating 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, puts most of that sympathy to rest.It also ended the ludicrous presidential campaign of Connor Roy (Alan Ruck), the eldest and most bumbling Roy son, who launched his bid to confront what he saw as America’s biggest problems: “usury and onanism.” But even in conceding, Connor insults voters and issues a veiled threat to unleash the “Conheads,” his followers, after saying that he wouldn’t stoop to petty behavior. It was perhaps the darkest moment for a character who has largely been relegated to buffoon status, but Ruck sees Connor’s ignorance as his main political tool.“He’ll believe whatever sounds good to him that day,” Ruck said in a recent video call full of vivid anecdotes and laughter. “He’ll read something online or he’ll hear something on television, then that’ll become, like, the central plank of his platform for that day. And then tomorrow could be something completely different because he’s just not a focused person.”As Connor, Ruck, 66, has spun decades of character-actor chops into some of the series’s most scene-stealing moments: the “hyperdecanting” of a bottle of wine in a Vitamix blender; the rage over butter texture while overseeing his father’s gala ceremony; the suggestion to his call-girl-turned-fiancée, Willa (Justine Lupe), that they have “razor wire and bum fights” at their wedding to gin up fanfare for his presidential campaign.“Hands down the best writing I’ve ever encountered, week after week,” he said. “But I do think that it’d be fun to move on to something else after playing basically the family [expletive], you know, for what amounted to six years.”Ruck sees the series as “a gift” in a career that has often been feast or famine, with occasional day 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 immediately translate into stardom, and Ruck found Cameron’s shadow to be quite long.Ruck was considered too old for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” But once he auditioned, “everybody just thought he was perfect,” said his co-star Matthew Broderick. (With Mia Sara.)Paramount Pictures, via Getty ImagesAs the relationship between Connor and Willa turned into something more real than transactional, the actors discussed how to make that evolution work, Justine Lupe said.David M. Russell/HBO“There were a lot of spotty years where I was just, like, basically making just enough money to stay alive,” he said. “When people would come up during that period and say something about ‘Ferris Bueller’ it would kind of really irritate me because I felt, well, that was it. That was my shot.”Of “Succession,” he said, “I dreamed about a show like this for years.”Growing up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ruck found solace in acting once he reached high school. As a student at the University of Illinois, he said, he spent most of his time on a stage. The college’s performing arts complex was designed by Max Abramovitz, the architect behind David Geffen Hall, but “there was another sort of student theater that was just a small theatrical space in an armory,” Ruck said. “They’d give you a budget of 25 bucks, and you could put on any play you wanted. So it’s just a lot of experience over a short period of time.”He moved to Chicago in 1979, a time when the theater scene, anchored by companies like Steppenwolf and the Wisdom Bridge, was beginning to take off. And after the box office success of “The Blues Brothers” (1980), he said, Hollywood became more interested in the city, making it an ideal place to be a budding actor.“You could walk into any talent agency on a Wednesday, and just say, ‘Hi, I’m new,’ and they’d sit down and talk with you,” he said. “Talk about this with people who started in New York or Los Angeles, and they’re like, ‘What are you talking about? You can’t just go see somebody.’ So it was like the top of the minors.”When Broadway casting directors came to Chicago to audition actors for Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues,” Ruck eventually landed a role. He moved to New York and shared the stage with Matthew Broderick, his future “Ferris Bueller” co-star, who remembered Ruck as having that “aura of the ‘Chicago good actor’ thing.”Mark Mylod, a “Succession” director and executive producer, said Ruck’s understanding of Connor’s delusional worldview brought “this beautiful soul to the character.”Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times“He had the look of somebody like a James Dean,” Broderick said, laughing. “Everybody in that play, we all had, like, very different personalities. But we all really did turn into kind of a unit, and Alan was a hugely important part of that.”It was during that run of “Biloxi Blues” that casting began for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Ruck had met the director, John Hughes, in Chicago when he auditioned for an early version of “The Breakfast Club,” and his agent put his name in for the role of Cameron. But the casting directors thought Ruck, then 28, was too old.“But then he came in and read and just sort of knocked John Hughes out,” Broderick said. “Everybody just thought he was perfect.”“Ferris Bueller” was a hit and remains widely beloved nearly four decades later. But three years after starring in it, Ruck was working in the sorting room of a Sears shipping warehouse in East Los Angeles. He had moved to the city after landing a pilot with Nell Carter for NBC, but it failed, and he had a wife and young daughter to support.His co-workers had no knowledge of his acting career, he said. One day as Ruck was smoking in the break room, one co-worker pointed him out to another. “He said, ‘You ever see that movie ‘Ferret Buford’s Day Off’?” Ruck recalled, laughing. “‘That looks like the [expletive] with the dad car!’”Ruck eventually found plenty of sitcom and dramatic TV roles, most prominently in ABC’s “Spin City,” and landed bit parts in films like “Young Guns II,” “Speed” and “Twister.” It’s the type of trajectory that can be hard on an actor’s ego and paycheck but gives them space to sharpen. For Ruck, it showed him exactly what he was looking for.“I worked on a sitcom for, you know, 18 episodes, and then there was nothing for a year,” he said. “So that gets pretty discouraging, because you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do.”By the time “Succession” was casting in 2016, Ruck, who is now married to the actress Mireille Enos, had settled into more of a rhythm, taking whatever parts came to him. He was filming the Fox series “The Exorcist” in Chicago and flying home to Los Angeles on the weekends, while Enos was pulling 16-hour days filming “The Catch” and caring for their two young children. One weekend she asked him to join her and their 2-year-old son at 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’d have to miss the class.“I turned to Mireille and I 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 like an hour.” Then he stopped by the “Succession” executive producer Adam McKay’s house on his way to the airport and auditioned in his living room.With no time to read the script in advance, he was told to improvise, which proved handy once he got the job and filming started. Mark Mylod, a “Succession” director and executive producer, said Ruck’s understanding of Connor’s delusional worldview brought “this beautiful soul to the character.” This was especially apparent during what Mylod called “freebies,” or extra takes in which the actors try alternate lines or improvise their own.“Alan is brilliant at that,” Mylod said. “You give him a freebie and basically he could run a 10-minute roll of film without ever breaking character.”Ruck sees Connor’s stupidity as his main political tool. “He’ll read something online or he’ll hear something on television, then that’ll become, like, the central plank of his platform for that day,” he said.Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesMost of Ruck’s scenes are with Lupe, many of them excruciatingly awkward. But as their characters’ relationship grew into something more than merely transactional, Lupe said, their offscreen dynamic solidified. They texted each other regularly about how to make their scenes illustrate that evolution.“That was really helpful” she said. “We felt like we could do it together, instead of having to create a whole narrative on my own, or him having to create a whole narrative on his own.”Lupe pointed out their wedding scene from earlier this season. It amounted to only a few seconds of screen time in an episode destined to be remembered by viewers for the death of the paterfamilias, Logan Roy (Brian Cox). But what Lupe recalls is the emotional intensity of the filming of Willa and Connor’s nuptials.“We had vows that we exchanged with each other that kind of helped us get to the place where that felt like an authentic presentation,” she said. “In between takes, Alan would say these things like about how great it was to work together and about how the run had been with each other. And I was just like, ‘No, don’t! I’m gonna cry!’”Next up for Ruck are roles in two films: “The Burial,” a legal drama with Jamie Foxx, and a sequel to “Wind River.”. And while he will miss the camaraderie of the cast and crew of “Succession,” he feels he’s gotten everything he could out of Connor Roy — and some things he could do without.“It’s weird when you play a character that’s so easily dismissible,” he said, laughing. “People continually call you ‘moron.’ You know, it gets under your skin a little bit — I’ll be happy to let that go.” More

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      Unpacking the Roy Family in That Pivotal ‘Succession’ Episode

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      The Roy family has never felt more human than it has in this season’s third episode — or more alien.In her 1969 book “On Death and Dying,” the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described the five emotional stages of people at the end of life: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Kübler-Ross’s model has since been popularly applied to the grief process. The implication is that all of us who live, love and die are in this way the same.“Succession” appears to have done its psych homework. In the tour-de-force episode “Connor’s Wedding” — spoilers begin here — the Roy siblings learn by phone of their father Logan’s fatal collapse, while he is on a jet crossing the Atlantic, and begin racing through Kübler-Ross’s stages.One part of the show’s genius has always been its portrayal of the superwealthy Roys as both deeply human and alien. As it is in life, so it is in death. The Roys’ reactions are, broadly, familiar to anyone who’s ever gotten similar news. It’s in the particulars that this family is very different.Let’s start with denial. In one sense, Logan’s death may be the least surprising big surprise in HBO drama history. His health has always been shaky, and the show’s very title asks what or who will come after him. But when the inevitable suddenly happens, instinct still kicks in: This can’t be real.“Real,” as any viewer of “Succession” knows, is a key word for the Roy family. It’s a measure of worth, separating people who are “real” — important, worthy of concern — from those who are merely numbers on a ledger.It’s also a fraught term for characters who grew up in a, shall we say, low-trust environment. “Is this real?” Shiv (Sarah Snook) asks, with good reason, when Logan (Brian Cox) offers in Season 2 to let her take over his media empire. It’s the series’s refrain: This deal, this promise, this expression of love — can I take it to the bank?So when Roman (Kieran Culkin) manically refuses to accept the news — “What if it’s a big [expletive] test?” — yes, he is being irrational. But he is also operating by the logic of the only reality he has ever known. What isn’t a test with Logan? His last words to Roman were to order him to fire his lieutenant Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron), with whom Roman had a bond (and occasional rounds of masochistic sex chat). When Roman hesitates, Logan asks, “You are with me?”About Logan’s death, Roman keeps repeating, “We don’t know.” And the episode, written by the creator, Jesse Armstrong, and directed by Mark Mylod, cleverly puts the viewers in his position. We can see inside the plane, but we can’t see much of Logan, only the crew performing compressions on a body. Only when Shiv spills her frenzied last words into his cold ear do we finally see his face. I will admit to having wondered if Roman was right. Yes, it would be insane for Logan to fake his death. But a side effect of growing up Roy is learning to read your most intimate family moments as potential plot twists and fake-outs.Anger and bargaining, in Roy World, tend to operate as a team. There’s anger at Logan, of course. Each Roy child sputters a word salad of love and hurt and fury into the phone. But anger is also a reaction to helplessness. Kendall (Jeremy Strong) demands to have “the best airplane medicine expert in the world” brought onto the call, growing frustrated and incensed, as if he could cheat Death by demanding to speak to its manager.From the beginning of the phone call to when we cut to the corporate-response discussion aboard the plane is less than 20 minutes, and Armstrong packs a lifetime into it.Every line, every image, speaks to the moment and to decades of family trauma and relationships: Roman’s forcing himself to say that Logan was a good dad, then handing off the phone like it’s radioactive; Shiv’s becoming at once a terrified girl and a furious grown daughter; Kendall and Shiv’s holding hands as they go to break the news to their half brother, Connor (Alan Ruck), on his wedding day. (Ruck has done spectacular emotional work with comparatively little screen time, and he does it again here: “He never even liked me.”)By the time we return from the plane to the wedding yacht in New York, depression is creeping in. And acceptance — well, that too has a different meaning in this family.Logan (Brian Cox, left) as seen with Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) moments before Logan’s plane ride flies him into the Great Beyond.David Russell/HBOThe Roys live in an environment where everything is personal and nothing is entirely private. Your family is your family, but it’s also a business. Your father’s death is your father’s death — bound up with a lifetime of resentment and thwarted love — but it is also a “material event” that requires disclosure. (“Succession” is known for its clever, filthy dialogue, but it also has an ear for the bland brutality of business-speak.) Your emotions may be complicated and genuine, but their expression is inevitably tactical. As Kendall says, “What we do today will always be what we did the day our father died.”Your father is the man who loved you or hit you or molded you or disappointed you, but he is also an expensive corporate asset, an asset that has now failed. And its failure must be announced and adjusted to, even as you adjust to the fundamental reordering of the universe.The dialogue shifts seamlessly from shock to grieving to maneuvering. The firmament has shattered. God — or the devil, or both — is dead. That vacuum must be filled, and the deluge prepared for, whether you are family, staff or, like Shiv’s estranged husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), an unhappy bit of both. “I have lost my protector,” he says, like a “Game of Thrones” bannerman realizing that his head may soon part company with his neck.It’s a bold and potent move for Armstrong, who has one of TV’s greatest actors in Cox, to give us none of this from Logan’s point of view. We don’t know what he was thinking at the end. We, like his children, don’t know what he felt or if he heard their last words. There is no closure, no satisfaction. He will forever be a question mark at the center of the universe.Instead, a scene from the season’s first episode amounts to his last testament. Restless and unsettled at a birthday celebration that Kendall, Roman and Shiv have chosen not to attend, Logan ends up at a diner with his body man, Colin (Scott Nicholson), whom — is it possible to pity Logan Roy? — he calls his “best pal.”To his wary companion, Logan launches into what now sounds like a deathbed monologue. “What are people?” he asks Colin, and then answers his own question: “What is a person? It has values and aims, but it operates in a market. Marriage market, job market, money market, market for ideas, et cetera.” And while he is a winner in the judgment of the market — “a hundred feet tall” where most people are “pygmies” — he doesn’t seem to feel like one.At last, he asks Colin whether he believes in the afterlife, and again, Logan supplies his own answer. “We don’t know,” he says. “We can’t know. But I’ve got my suspicions.”Those suspicions were confirmed or denied on an airplane floor thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, a most appropriate choice for “Succession.” The series is about people untethered to place, who move from vehicle to vehicle, from one antiseptic luxury space to another.So this is a most fitting end for Logan Roy — to die in no country, in the expensive no-space of a corporate jet, his last moments relayed to a yacht docked off the financial district, where the market will weigh and digest his death as it does all human effort and sorrow. As Roman says, a plunging chart line on his phone indicating Waystar Royco’s share price: “There he is. That is Dad.”There is one vehicular transfer left for Logan Roy. We end the episode at Teterboro Airport, where his shrouded body is deplaned and loaded into an ambulance. Kendall looks on, taking a private, pensive moment before what comes next: The period when his father’s passing becomes a news event, and most likely, a contest.Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance belong to us all. But for a Roy, there is a sixth stage of grief: ambition. More

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      Succession Season 3: What You Need to Know From Season 2

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      Two years have passed since Season 2 ended, and the alliances and schemes were as layered as an insult from Roman Roy. Here’s a quick catch-up guide.Because of the pandemic, the HBO drama “Succession” has been on hiatus for two years. People who had never seen “Succession” when it racked up seven Emmys last year had plenty of time to catch up ahead of Season 3, which premieres on Sunday. But fans who haven’t seen an episode since the Season 2 finale aired — back in October 2019! — could maybe use a refresher.In that finale, the emotionally unstable corporate stooge Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) detonated a bomb under his family’s media empire, delivering damning evidence of a criminal cover-up at a news conference where he was supposed take the blame. It was an unforgettable cliffhanger, capping an eventful Season 2.Here’s a quick overview of what this show’s major characters and companies were up to before Kendall knocked everything askew.From left, Sarah Snook, Strong and Brian Cox in the Season 2 finale. Who will be the sacrificial lamb?Graeme Hunter/HBOWaystar RoycoThe show’s primary setting — and its main plot driver — is the media conglomerate Waystar Royco, a powerful corporation known primarily for its Fox-style conservative cable news channel, ATN. (The similarities to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation are, to put it mildly, intentional.) The company is also active in online media, publishing, entertainment, theme parks and cruise ships. Through the first two seasons, Waystar has been under attack from politicians and business rivals, and has been the target of multiple attempts at both negotiated mergers and hostile takeovers.In Season 2, news leaked that top Waystar executives had buried internal reports about a longtime associate in the company cruise line: Lester McClintock, nicknamed “Uncle Moe” (as in “moe-lester”). McClintock, now dead, had a history of sexual harassment and assault — and possibly murder. The scandal has led to embarrassing media investigations and congressional hearings. It’s what ultimately prompted Kendall to betray his father, Logan.Brian Cox as Logan Roy, in one of his quieter moments.Graeme Hunter/HBOLogan RoyIn the series’s first episode, Waystar’s irascible, monolithic, octogenarian founder, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), was felled by a stroke. The timing wasn’t great: He had just been about to announce a plan of succession, which would have seen him stick around as his company’s chief executive while his third wife, Marcia (Hiam Abbass), would have the power to name his eventual successor. The medical crisis set off a scramble, dividing the Roy children and Waystar’s inner circle of advisers.Logan recovered … sort of. (He has had multiple public moments of unprovoked fury and foggy memories since the stroke.) By the start of Season 2, he had called in enough favors and played enough on his family’s sympathies to bring most of his loved ones and his associates back together — although Kendall’s power-play in the Season 2 finale proved how tenuous that truce actually was.A complicated and volatile man, Logan had a childhood in Scotland marred by want and abuse. His relationship with his children and his underlings has been pretty raw at times, with Logan defaulting almost by habit to psychological manipulation and fits of rage. His capriciousness has tested his marriage to Marcia, who toward the end of last season grew frustrated by her husband’s rumored affair with Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter), a rival media magnate he tried — and failed — to sway into running Waystar.Strong with Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg, in a scene from the coming season.David M. Russell/HBOKendall and GregOne of the few members of the Roy family who seem genuinely excited by corporate jargon and robber baron blindsides, the longtime Logan loyalist Kendall rebelled in Season 1 after realizing that his father had no intention of naming him as next in line. He then orchestrated a plan to steal the company from his father before a relapse into substance abuse — culminating in a tragic car accident at his sister’s wedding — led a newly contrite Kendall back into the fold.In Season 2, Kendall settled into a role as Logan’s shameless hatchet-man, willing to humiliate himself and to eviscerate the undeserving to promote Waystar’s interests. But his dad’s demand that Kendall take the fall for the cruise ship scandal went a step too far, prompting him to pull the big switcheroo in the season finale’s climactic news conference.Kendall’s unlikely accomplice in that ambush is his cousin Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun), the grandson of Logan’s disapproving brother Ewan (James Cromwell). The gawky, bumbling Greg is a frequent target of the Roy family’s jokes and bullying — a fate that he accepts as a trade-off for access to their money, power and drugs. In Season 1, he smartly held onto some damning documents about Brightstar’s troubles, anticipating the moment when he could use them as leverage.That moment arrives after the family openly considers adding some “Greg sprinkles” to whomever they serve up on a platter to take the fall for the cruise fiasco. And after Kendall finds himself in need of a plan.Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook as Tom and Shiv, whose marriage is … very complicated.Zach Dilgard/HBOSiobhan and TomIt’s hard to say who in the Roy family has been most hurt by Kendall and Greg’s betrayal, but the situation is pretty dire for Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), the husband to Logan’s daughter, Siobhan (usually called Shiv, played by Sarah Snook). A former executive in Waystar’s parks and cruises division — and Greg’s immediate superior — Tom not only knew about Uncle Moe’s crimes but also helped in the cover-up.At the end of Season 1, Tom learned — on the day of his wedding, no less — that his then-fiancée, Shiv, wanted to have an open relationship. He suffered through that arrangement for most of Season 2 before finally admitting his unhappiness in the finale. A major part of Tom’s frustration has to do with his taking a thankless position at ATN in hopes of setting himself up for more responsibility down the line … only to find that Logan had secretly named Shiv as the big Waystar successor.As for Shiv, she quickly learned last season that her dad’s promise to let her take over was a ploy to keep his left-leaning feminist daughter under his control rather than allow her to cozy up to political enemies. As soon as Logan saw the potential advantage in setting up Rhea as the next in line, he let Shiv dangle. Ever since, his daughter has been staying publicly faithful while working behind the scenes to sabotage her rivals and get back onto Logan’s radar as a future Waystar boss.Roman and Gerri (Kieran Culkin and J. Smith-Cameron): also complicated.Peter Kramer/HBORoman and GerriThe Roy family’s unexpected Season 2 all-star was Logan’s youngest son, Roman (Kieran Culkin), a notorious cynic and an unapologetic slacker, who suddenly set out to prove to his father that he could make smart deals on Waystar’s behalf. While Kendall has wanted to lead the company into a new era and to protect his dad’s legacy, and while Shiv has wanted to distance Waystar from its toxic reputation, the incorrigible troll Roman relishes the idea of running a powerful organization that annoys a lot of people.Roman surprises even Logan by securing enough foreign money to take Waystar private — before advising his father to reject the deal and to try working with someone closer to the family’s political interests. For his industriousness, Roman is named Waystar’s sole chief operating officer (a position he previously shared with Kendall) in the Season 2 finale.Throughout this shift toward ambition and guile, Roman has been quietly assisted by Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron), a longtime Waystar lawyer who has worried often that her boss might throw her to the wolves to save himself. As she has whispered ideas in Roman’s ear, the two have developed a freaky quasi-sexual relationship, in which Gerri turns him on by playing the demanding mommy figure.Justine Lupe and Alan Ruck as the aspiring playwright Willa and the Roy brother from another mother, Connor.Zach Dilgard/HBOConnor (and company)Kendall, Shiv and Roman are Logan’s children from his second wife; but the siblings also have an older half brother, Connor (Alan Ruck). Connor has never been that active in the family business, opting instead to spend money and promote himself as a libertarian firebrand.In Season 2, these hobbies create headaches for Logan. Connor announces a run for president of the United States, arguing for free market reforms that wouldn’t serve Waystar’s interests. At the same time, he pours much of his fortune into the Broadway dreams of his ex-sex-worker girlfriend, Willa (Justine Lupe), who has written a flop play. Logan handles both of these problems at once, agreeing to cover his son’s showbiz losses in return for his dropping the presidential campaign.Connor is a minor “Succession” character compared to some; but while this show’s cast is huge, the creator Jesse Armstrong has had a long-term narrative use for nearly everyone. A case in point is Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed), who was introduced in Season 1 as an old friend of Kendall’s with enough money to help get Waystar out a financial jam; he has since become a pesky enemy, determined to hold onto his stake in the company and to outlast the Roys on the board.Anyone could end up being a power-player in “Succession” Season 3. This is a show where loyalties shift overnight, and no grudge is forgotten. More

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      Ben Platt Isn’t the Oldest Adult to Play a Teenager Onscreen

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      Here are our picks for the most memorable performances with the biggest age gaps between star and character. Did they pull it off?Can a mop of curly hair, a backpack and an outfit that looks like a mother’s choice for school picture day send a 27-year-old actor back to his senior year of high school?That will be the question facing filmgoers when Ben Platt reprises his performance as the titular awkward teenager in the film adaptation of the heartbreaking Broadway musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” due Sept. 24 in theaters.When the first trailer was released in May, initial reactions to Platt’s attempt to shave off a decade were, well, less than rosy.“Raise your hand if you felt personally victimized by Ben Platt’s wig this morning,” the writer Jorge Molina tweeted, prompting comparisons to the scene-stealing wig Sarah Paulson wore in “The People v. O.J. Simpson.”But that part of his look, at least, was the real thing. Platt set the record straight in a now-deleted Twitter post. “I’m v flattered that ppl think my locks are a wig and I hate to burst bubbles,” he wrote. “But sadly those are my own.”Platt is hardly the first full-grown adult to return to his locker and letterman jacket days for a film, and nowhere near the oldest, though some of them — *cough* Tobey Maguire — look like they should be carrying briefcases instead of backpacks. (Child labor laws make it easier to cast actors over 18 as high school students than to work around regulations for younger actors.)Here are some of the most memorable attempts by 20- and 30- somethings to pass as teenagers. Who makes the grade, and who should have dropped out?John Travolta as Danny Zuko in ‘Grease’John Travolta with, from left, fellow adults Michael Tucci, Barry Pearl and Kelly Ward.Paramount Pictures, via Getty ImagesDanny’s age: 18John Travolta’s age: 23Travolta’s not-so-malevolent gang leader might look a few years older than the “he was sweet, just turned 18” Sandy pegs him for, but it works because he’s a youngster compared with the fellow “high schoolers” around him. Olivia Newton-John was 29; the show-stealing Stockard Channing, at 33, was old enough to play Rizzo’s mother. “Grease” (1978) became the highest-grossing musical film up to that point, so audiences clearly weren’t too concerned — and Travolta’s schoolboy rhapsodizing over Newton-John in that skintight black bodysuit seemed all too real.Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in ‘Sense and Sensibility’Emma Thompson, left, with her (much) younger screen sister, Kate Winslet, and Gemma Jones.Clive Coote/Columbia PicturesElinor’s age: 19Emma Thompson’s age: 36If you remember that Thompson’s character is supposed to be 19 in the Jane Austen novel on which the 1995 film is based, her matriarchal, self-possessed Elinor won’t fool you for a second. Kate Winslet, who was 20 when she played Elinor’s 16-year-old sister, Marianne, emphasizes the gulf. But if it’s been a while since you’ve read the novel and just assume that Elinor is in her late 20s or early 30s, you might give Thompson a passing grade. After all, her intellect and frequent apologies on behalf of the impassioned, though imprudent, Marianne make her closer to a mother than a sister.Alan Ruck as Cameron Frye in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’Alan Ruck, left, and Matthew Broderick are high school seniors. We’ll buy it.Paramount Pictures, via Getty ImagesCameron’s age: 17Alan Ruck’s age: 29Actors pushing 30 don’t have a great track record of pulling off 17-year-olds, and Ruck, despite imbuing Cameron with pitch-perfect humor and sensitivity as Ferris’s wingman, is no exception. Matthew Broderick, who plays Ferris, helped distract from the true discrepancy — he was 24 when the 1986 film was released — but not enough to sell the subterfuge. Luckily, this was one case where the movie was so good that nobody seemed to care.Shirley Henderson as Moaning Myrtle in ‘Harry Potter’Shirley Henderson as a ghost isn’t as spooky as the 23-year difference between her and her character.Warner Bros.Myrtle’s age: 14Shirley Henderson’s age: 37All hail the power of pigtails! (And a 5-foot stature.) Is it creepy, in retrospect, for a fully grown woman to play a giggly 14-year-old ghost flirting with a prepubescent Daniel Radcliffe in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (2002)? Sure. (It would be weird enough to have an actual 14-year-old playing Myrtle, who would have been in her 60s had she not had a fateful encounter with a basilisk.) But honestly, watching the film when I was growing up, I’d never have guessed she was old enough to be Harry’s mother.Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in ‘Spider-Man’An adult Tobey Maguire climbing the walls as a teenage Peter Parker.Zade Rosenthal/Columbia PicturesPeter’s age: 17Tobey Maguire’s age: 27Maguire, unfortunately, is about as successful at passing for a teenager as Peter Parker is at concealing his identity as the title character in “Spider-Man” (2002). When his character is bitten by a radioactive spider during a class field trip to Columbia University, the actor looks more like he should be a teaching assistant in the lab than a high school student. But he’s far from the only (relatively) over-the-hill Peter Parker, though things turned around in 2015 when a 19-year-old Tom Holland was cast as Marvel’s new Spider-Man.Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’Audrey Hepburn, opposite George Peppard and Patricia Neal, doesn’t look like a recent high schooler, but who cares?Paramount PicturesHolly’s age: 19Audrey Hepburn’s age: 31Sure, Hepburn’s doe eyes and elflike features shaved years off her appearance, but she was clearly a woman in the 1961 film based on the Truman Capote novel. (Though Capote’s first choice for Holly, Marilyn Monroe, then 35, was even older.) Yet Hepburn embodies the novel’s striking, self-sufficient young bohemian, and Holly’s free spirit is as alive in her as in a recent high school grad — even if she never looks like one in her sleek, sophisticated black gown.Jennifer Grey as Baby in ‘Dirty Dancing’Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze are both years apart from their characters.LionsgateBaby’s age: 17Jennifer Grey’s age: 27No one puts Baby in a corner, and no one was about to tell Grey she was a decade too old to play the doctor’s daughter who gets tangled up with Patrick Swayze’s bad-boy dance instructor in “Dirty Dancing” (1987). It helped that Swayze, who played 25-year-old Johnny Castle, was 34 at the time, but Grey’s small stature (she’s 5-foot-3), wild curls and big brown eyes made it entirely believable that she was 17.Rachel McAdams as Regina George in ‘Mean Girls’Rachel McAdams, left, Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried as the title trio with more pressing concerns than age.Michael Gibson/Paramount PicturesRegina’s age: 16 or 17Rachel McAdams’s age: 26Do you want to call McAdams’s Regina George an impostor to her face? Mark Waters, the director of “Mean Girls” (2004), initially passed over McAdams for the part because he didn’t think she could pull off a teenager, but then he decided it would make sense if Regina grew up a little too fast. Our take: Even if Regina looks more like she should be gatekeeping for a sorority than a school-lunch table, it works for a conniving character who’s always a few steps ahead of her classmates. More