Ruck phoned Movieline last week to discuss the curious production of Persons Unknown, his disappointment with current TV, and the legacy of John Hughes.
Did seeing Christopher McQuarrie's name on the script for Persons Unknown influence you before you read it? Are you a Usual Suspects fan?
Well, as soon as I saw his name on the script, I got very, very excited, because that's one of my favorite movies of all time. So before I opened it up I knew it was going to be good. He wrote the original pilot and they changed some things as it expanded into a series -- in the original pilot, there were flashbacks about most of the characters as soon as you meet them. Like, as soon as you met Charlie [Ruck's character] in the town -- as soon as Charlie opened that door and says, "My name is Charlie. Tell me you're a cop, Joe, tell me this is over" -- then you flash back to a key scene with Charlie and his wife. The structure was a little different. The way we wound up showing it, I still think it's really, really good. It's just that there were certain secrets that couldn't be given away too early.
You've said that the cast only got wind of the story with each script. While it was probably fun to learn more about the show's mystery in real time, did it hinder you from understanding your character?
Not really. I mean, there was a sense of discovering this thing as we went along, I think maybe on the part of the writers as well. Obviously if you're going to do a standalone episode of a comedy or drama or anything, you need to know everything up front since you shoot it all out of order anyway. You need to know pretty much everything and then go. In this, since it's serialized, it's a little more like life. You never know what's going to happen tomorrow. You might get the promotion of a lifetime, or you might get hit by a bus, none of us know.
As an actor, it's very satisfying when you tell a story with a beginning, a middle, an end -- at least on stage. But this situation, it was a little more like life, for better or for worse. There were certain things that [executive producer] Remi Aubuchon would keep back from us. He would give us information we needed to know for that week or the next week, and he would give us some information that was for us alone and not to be shared with any other characters. He tried to keep a sense of urgency and mystery about the whole thing. It was kind of like a game: "This is what I think, but I don't know." It's like what you see on the blogs now. "I think it's the mother!" In our own way, we were doing that.
There's a definite throwback quality to Persons Unknown, a Twilight Zone air. Can you talk about how that sets it apart from other shows with paranormal influences like Lost?
I felt Twilight Zone from the beginning, so I think great minds work in a similar fashion. I have to be honest and tell you I've not seen one episode of Lost. I know there are some comparisons between this [and that], and I think there's other comparisons between Harper's Island and Happy Town and a few other things. Between those two, I think, they were short-order series -- 12 or 13 episodes, and they told the story and were done. With Happy Town, they had some scheduling issues. They pulled it off the air, they put it back on. I don't know anything about that show, but I do know that if take it off for a couple weeks and then put it back on in a different time slot, you're not helping build a following. The thing I know about Lost is there's people stranded on an island, and they don't really know each other. And they need to form alliances and figure out how to survive on this island. Am I leaving something out?
That sounds about right.
Just basically. Obviously we're not isolated on an island. We're being held captive by technology -- and all of this technology, by the way, exists. This is not some voodoo kind of prison. They're not held captive by a magic spell. This thing called a "pain wall," it's existing microwave technology used in places like Iraq for crowd containment. It's only supernatural in that people with power can do what they want. There's some organization behind this thing, and the more you look at it, it seems like a laboratory. When Janet shoots one of the cameras, it's immediately replaced by another camera. The town is a laboratory of some kind. We are being watched for some reason. It'll be episode four on Monday. As far as our original seven go in the town, we're figuring, "Escaping is an impossibility. What else do we do? How do we work this town out of what we have?" And this is how alliances are starting to come together. I believe it's in this episode -- or definitely by [episode] five -- you start to find out some big stuff about more people. We found out a little about Charlie, but we'll start to find out more.
This filmed quite awhile ago, right?
I don't know how well I remember it, but by the time the series finishes in September, it will have been two years since I got the job.
Wow. I applaud you for remembering the specifics of the episodes so well. Is it unusual to wait this long to see your work air?
It is unusual. It's more common with movies where you make a movie, and you work on it for three or four months. It takes nine months for it to sort of gestate, and it's at least a year until from the time you get the job to when it hits the theater. In television, you audition for a pilot, hopefully you get it. Then you make a pilot, the brass get together and decide what they need to plug their schedule with, and they pick your show or they don't.
I've been doing this since the early '80s. Hard to believe. Things have changed so much, because it's kind of like there's 57 channels and nothing's on. It's amazing that there's so many different cable channels, and to my way of thinking, so little good television on. But it's expensive to produce. In the old days, you'd be given a shot. I mean, If they ordered thirteen episodes -- first of all you make the pilot, they say, "OK, we like it," and they order thirteen plus the pilot. They don't do that anymore. They usually order six and with the pilot, a total of seven. If you're not popping some kind of numbers -- what they want within the first few airings -- you could easily be gone. It's become so competitive and so strange.
You filmed in Mexico. What was interesting about filming there?
We were right at about 10,000 feet when we were in that town. It was hard in the beginning when we were all supposed to be running around. There was some altitude sickness and a lot of light-headedness. We all adjusted fairly quickly.
You're known for self-deprecating comic characters, but you've played plenty of serious types in dramatic serials over the years. Do you prefer one style to the other?
No, I always get it wrong. When I'm doing a drama, I wish I was doing something funny. When I'm doing something funny, I wish I was doing something more serious. I think it's just human nature. I did comedy for a long time. I really enjoyed multicamera comedy. You film in front of a live audience and it's kind of the best of both worlds. It's like doing a one-act play every week, but if you screw your lines up, you get to do it over. Spin City was a really wonderful time for me. I made friends for life on that show. I made friends with Richard Kind, Michael Boatman, Barry Bostwick, Sandy Chaplin. We're all close. It was a really wonderful time.
I think multicamera comedy is a much-maligned American artform. Right now, they aren't popular. A pilot was shot [recently] with a very good cast: Laurie Metcalf and Jere Burns. It was written by the guys who did Will & Grace, Kohan and Mutchnick. It started out as a multicamera comedy, and then something happened in the middle of it, and the studio or somebody decided to make it into a single-camera comedy. And then it didn't get picked up. It's strange.
I think the networks have just decided that a new generation of television watchers doesn't care for that format anymore. A decision has been made at an executive level that that type of comedy doesn't work anymore. My feeling is if it's funny, it'll work. Maybe it needs characters and situations that younger people relate to. They've gone to the single-camera comedy, and some of them are wonderful. When we made Spin City, there were so many multicamera comedies. It seemed like that was all there was. The American model of, there's a gas station on these two corners so let's build a third on another corner. Now they're doing a lot of these single-camera comedies and I just don't feel that all of them are that funny. For that to really work, and there are brilliant writers in this town, but in order for it to work, they all have to be This is Spinal Tap. You know?
A lot of them have this mockumentary feel, the "We're breaking the fourth wall a little bit." We have characters looking at the camera like it's another person. In order to do that well, it has to be great. You can't just do that "pretty well." I'm trying to remember what they call it. "Post-modern cynicism"? Something like that. Everybody's like, "Uh, yeah, seen it, done it, bought the t-shirt." Everything is completely flat and dry. When it's done well, it's great. But there's just a lot of it.
On to our Ferris Bueller segment: Can you even visit Chicago landmarks anymore? I'm not a starstruck person, but if I saw you at a Ferris Bueller locale like the Art Institute, I might have to approach you and say something.
That's funny. I haven't been back to the Art Institute since we made that movie. It's not called the Sears Tower anymore, what do they call it? I mean, there would be really no reason for me to really go to the Sears Tower except to look out at that same place and be like, "Oh, yeah, I was here 25 years ago. OK. Let's go now." But the Art Institute! That's a place I might go. I was in Chicago briefly two weeks ago. I've not been to Wrigley Field since they put the fence in -- wait, I take that back! I was there in June of 2001, I got to throw out a first pitch. But that was the last time.
When I watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I still can't believe how much it feels like you can live inside that movie. It's so funny, familiar and warm -- does it feel like we've veered far away from that kind of teen movie?
Well, I think a lot of that was John Hughes. I mean, and God bless all these movies, but since John's movies -- I'm just trying to think of some teen movies, like American Pie -- they're filled with talented people, but what they lost was an element of dignity. Teen comedies were always about kids being preoccupied with sex and the comedy of self-involvement. They were so hung up on themselves, and it led to, you know, hilarious results. John's point of view about young people was they were fully realized human beings. They have hopes and dreams and frivolous problems and very serious problems. He treated them just like you would treat like any other person, like any adult. John said, "Let's treat them with dignity." That's what I think is missing.
You might laugh now at the wacky sex comedies, the teen comedies, or they might gross you out -- whatever they might be -- but you don't latch onto the characters. They don't let you get under the skin of who these people are. They don't investigate any of that. They don't look at a kid like Judd Nelson and try to explain why he is what he is. People who are watching, it doesn't resonate with them. I guarantee there are people who watched -- I think his name was Bender [from The Breakfast Club]? -- and felt exactly like him. There were a lot of people that felt like Molly Ringwald's characters, and a lot of people who felt like Cameron. They were people who felt like Jennifer Grey, who felt like Jeanie. There was a resonance that happened because he allowed these characters to be real instead of just comic cardboard cutouts. I think it was all John. Since then, there's not really been anything else.