‘The Girl From Plainville’ Star Colton Ryan Recalls Feeling the Late Conrad Roy on Set: ‘He Was Definitely Around’
variety.comEmily Longeretta For Elle Fanning to prepare to play Michelle Clark, there were hours of tape to watch. That was not the case for Colton Ryan, who was cast as Conrad “Coco” Roy III in Hulu’s upcoming drama “The Girl From Plainville.” With limited content of the late teen, who died by suicide in 2014, Ryan took a different approach.First, he read the scripts for the show and instantly connected to Roy — so much that he tells Variety he didn’t merely “want” to do the role, he had a “profound need” to take it.“I didn’t realize until after we wrapped how essentially important it would be to me, not just as an artist, but as Colton.
When I first started researching, they sent us a whole Dropbox, the research and the court documents and timelines,” he says. “But I immediately went to the pictures, and the first picture I saw was one from Coco’s graduation day.
That’s when I put two and two together that we graduated high school the same year. Something about that photo, I just started bawling my eyes out because I have that same photo.
It’s the same quality iPhone camera. It’s the same, sort of, Facebook filter, and he’s flanked by both his sisters. I have the same photo of me.
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