Let's face it, we're all Al Ruddy (or at least in our wildest dreams we are!)

Who doesn’t love the story of an underdog who ends up winning big? If you’re into movies, or maybe long to make them yourself, you probably discovered the perfect underdog hero when you watched the Paramount+ series The Offer, about legendary film producer Al Ruddy.

Ruddy’s righteous fight (and it definitely was a fight!) to get the pivotal film The Godfather made stirred up ambition and motivation in countless viewers.

Many went back to rewatch the 10-episode, 2022 series again and again. Through Ruddy's slow climb of the Hollywood mountain, we ended up standing at the pinnacle with him and savoring a vicarious feeling of victory.

We all know Hollywood’s a rough place to have a dream. The competition’s ridiculously fierce, especially today, when independent filmmakers feel shut out of the system more than ever.

So for many of us, Al Ruddy (played by the excellent Miles Teller) was our guy!

“I'd rather deal with a mob guy shaking hands on a deal than a Hollywood lawyer, who, the minute you get the contract signed, is trying to figure out how to screw you,” the real Ruddy has said.

Watching this bulldog of a producer, his secretary Bettye McCartt, director Francis Ford Coppola, producer Robert Evans and author Mario Puzo struggle to convince Paramount Studios and the mafia that the world needed The Godfather touched something deep inside us.

We're all out there trying to produce what we see as amazing, creative projects, but the world's stubbornly blind to our vision.

In a strange way, Ruddy’s life story presents a perfect canvas on which we can paint our hope that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Though we don’t have the mob coming after us, or an intimidating guy like Robert Evans upset about our casting decisions, we bravely face the malfunctioning computer, the huge PG&E bill, the tax deadline or family members mad at us over some issue or another.

Just as we've only accomplished rather mundane goals in life so far, Ruddy's jump from producing the

Nazi prison camp-based sitcom Hogan's Heroes to championing the timeless juggernaut film The Godfather feeds our belief that we have something more substantial to contribute.

There are several reasons Ruddy’s story resonates with us:

1. Like ours, his path was winding. Born far from Hollywood, in Montreal, Ruddy studied chemical engineering at City College of New York before going on to graduate from the University of Southern California with a degree in architectural design. Not exactly a perfect path to film producer.

2. Ruddy’s exceptional life benefitted from a few nudges from fate and circumstance. Ruddy was actually designing homes for a construction company in Hackensack, New Jersey when a chance meeting with Warner Bros.’ President Jack Warner changed his trajectory. After co-creating the unusual sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971) and producing a couple of light-hearted comedies, Ruddy took on a project that many doubted he could pull off - 1972's The Godfather.

3. Ruddy took big chances, and that seems to be a defining aspect of his success. After the fight to get The Godfather made, and the feeling of victory as it went on to earn so many accolades and awards, it seemed as if Ruddy would definitely stay on to produce the sequel, The Godfather II. As a bit of a renegade, Ruddy made the surprising decision to instead produce a story of his own, The Longest Yard, starring Burt Reynolds. That decision, too, earned public praise in the end.

Ruddy’s inspirational story, as told in The Offer, followed in the footsteps of other tales of underdogs who wildly succeeded despite all odds.

Sylvester Stallone’s character Rocky Balboa had the whole audience rooting for him to win the fight in the 1976 film Rocky. But Stallone himself also had to believe in his own abilities despite other people’s doubts.

When Stallone was offered $360,000 for the Rocky script, on the condition that he would get someone else to star as the main character, Stallone insisted he’d only make the movie if he played the leading role. He held his ground, reportedly with only $106 in the bank at the time, and won big as his career skyrocketed.

We also cheered for Ralph Macchio’s likable character Daniel LaRusso in the 1984 film The Karate Kid, as he battled the bullies who beat him up both emotionally and physically.

And we rooted for Luke Skywalker, a simple farm boy who for some reason drank blue milk, to defeat the ultra-evil Darth Vader and the contemptuous Empire.

With the story of Al Ruddy, we have the joy of knowing that this fantastic story really happened (although obviously some details were exaggerated). That means that with enough persistence, confidence and ingenuity, we could also possibly live out our dreams and show the world what we're made of.

To add to Ruddy’s legendary story, he’s 94 years old and still going! In 2021, at the age of 91, he was credited as a producer on Cry Macho, a film that starred fellow 91-year-old Clint Eastwood!

Go Al Ruddy! We're all rooting for you!