Succession's Alan Ruck reveals his paltry Ferris Bueller salary on Jimmy Kimmel Live
35 years later, the actor also reassures fans that that Ferrari was a piece of junk
With his Succession character, the perpetually overlooked failson Connor Roy, planning a run for the fictional presidency on the HBO series, Alan Ruck explained why a Roy in the White House isn’t so ridiculous after all. Yes, even the singularly unexceptional Connor. Describing Connor as “an obscenely wealthy person with no leadership ability and no experience,” Ruck told Jimmy Kimmel on Monday, “Its America, we can do anything.”
And while Kimmel prodded Ruck to compare the uniformly despicable Roys to the Trumps (what with the obscene wealth, and the shadiness, and the ready supply of scheming, worthless progeny), it’s another wretchedly plutocratic dynasty the actor said more closely resembles the media mogul Roys. Noting how costar and terrifyingly imperious Roy family patriarch Brian Cox ran into one of the News Corp-owning Murdochs at Starbucks recently (only for the real-life right-wing Fox News purveyor to quietly nod and smile), Ruck stated that word around the Succession set is that the Murdochs are well aware of the parallels. (To be fair to whichever Murdoch that was, it’s hard to imagine anybody stepping to Brian Cox.)
Saying of the widely acclaimed Succession, “I’ve been waiting for this for 30 years,” Ruck happily also fielded Kimmel’s inevitable questions about a different particular role from 35 years ago. Relating an anecdote about getting to drive a press van in a presidential motorcade recently (which is something actors get to do, apparently), Ruck told Kimmel about his usual method for dealing with people who sort-of but not-quite recognize him, especially when he’s responsibly wearing a face mask in public. Told he sounds like that guy from Ferris Bueller, Ruck’s cagey response is to ask, “Oh, is he any good?” and then go from there, which sounds about right, considering the actor’s long career of playing overlooked but scene-stealing second bananas.
Along those lines, Ruck revealed that he was only paid 40 grand for his indelible turn as endearingly tortured teen Cameron Frye in 1986's Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a sum of which the now 65-year-old actor says ruefully, “They’re gonna find any excuse not to pay you.” Presumably flush with HBO cash and long-overdue recognition for his role as the least-likely Roy to ascend to POTUS on Succession, Ruck also explained how Bueller fans are always much more concerned about that doomed vehicle than about how Cameron is going to cope with his coming, explosive confrontation with his neglectful father.
“They’re really worried about the car,” Ruck noted of his interactions with the legions of Ferris Bueller viewers in his life, with the actor revealing the cold-comfort fact that that legendary onscreen Ferrari GT California was, in fact, “crap.” Telling Kimmel that the kit car Cameron infamously sent hurtling through a glass wall and into a ravine was actually a Mustang body with a shiny outer replica Ferrari shell, Ruck remembered the crew cheering when the balky and unreliable machine finally met its end. “We couldn’t afford a real Ferrari,” said Ruck of the modestly budgeted John Hughes film. No word on whether the car cost more than Ruck’s salary as Cameron, but it’s probably pretty close.