Succession: Alan Ruck on Connor’s Presidential Bid, Trump

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched the sixth episode of “Succession” Season 3, titled “What It Takes.”

Could a Connor Roy presidency be in the future of “Succession”? What started out as a throwaway gag in Season 2 now seems like a legitimate possibility as a heated presidential election looms with several aspiring candidates.

In “What It Takes,” the sixth episode of Season 3, the Roy family attends a private, high-profile gathering of politicians and donors to choose the next presidential hopeful to support. With their all-powerful news network ATN, which ran a smear campaign against the current president and caused him to not seek reelection, the Roys hold immense power. Logan (Brian Cox), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) debate backing different would-be candidates, but one dark horse emerges who they briefly discuss: Connor Roy (Alan Ruck).

The eldest sibling already has a base of fanatic supporters (called Conheads), the power of the Roy family name and a political outsider persona that rouses some of the donors, including one Panhandle Pete. There’s a general sense of “Seriously?” as Logan floats the idea by his children, but Roman later prevails with his inflammatory candidate, Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), and Greg (Nicholas Braun) admits, “I think I owe it to my country to say, I don’t think you should crown Connor president.”

Here, Ruck tells Variety about Connor’s true political ambitions, the Trump-like parallels and how he might spoil the race as a third-party candidate.

What are Connor’s political stances?

Connor’s platform basically is composed of whatever he’s interested in on that particular day. He’s very much like Logan, any other member of the Roy family or member of the 1%, which is, “I have my money, leave me alone.” He’s very interested in protecting his fortune, and he’s really not interested in paying any taxes. He’s got a seat-of-his-pants, sketchy ideology. I once described Connor’s brain as a mixed-up box of Trivial Pursuit cards. He’s not a dummy, but he is really scattered and delusional. The political thing so far, he’s trying to figure out something to make his father sit down and say, “My god, Connor, that was really amazing,” which has never happened in Connor’s life; he never got praise from his dad. He’s trying to find something that will impress his father and potentially make his father need him. At this point, he’s viewing the presidential race as a popularity contest.

Did you draw any parallels from Trump’s election to Connor’s plan to run?

We all lived through that, so I don’t think we should every take anything for granted. The country is so big and so fractured — there are millions of people, who you and I will probably never rub elbows with, living life on a different wavelength. There are a lot of people who get swept under the carpet, and they’ve been ignored for a long time. People think…