Page "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Paragraph 28

Alan Ruck had previously auditioned for the Bender role in The Breakfast Club which went to Judd Nelson, but Hughes remembered Ruck and cast him as the 17-year-old Cameron Frye.

According to Hughes, the character of Cameron was based, in large part, on a friend of his in high school.

" He was sort of a lost person.

His family neglected him, so he took that as license to really pamper himself.

When he was legitimately sick, he actually felt good, because it was difficult and tiring to have to invent diseases but when he actually had something, he was relaxed.

" Ruck said the role of Cameron had originally been offered to Emilio Estevez who turned it down.

" Every time I see Emilio, I want to kiss him ", said Ruck.

" Thank you!

" Ruck, then 29, worried about the age difference.

" I was worried that I'd be 10 years out of step, and I wouldn't know anything about what was cool, what was hip, all that junk.

But when I was going to high school, I didn't know any of that stuff then, either.

So I just thought, well, hell — I'll just be me.

The character, he's such a loner that he really wouldn't give a damn about that stuff anyway.

He'd feel guilty that he didn't know it, but that's it.

" Ruck wasn't surprised to find himself cast young.

" No, because, really, when I was 18, I sort of looked 12 ", he said.

" Maybe it's a genetic imbalance.