If you’re one of the many viewers who’ve found themselves Googling who plays the pharmacist in American Rust after a tense episode, you’re not alone. The gritty small-town drama is full of larger-than-life characters and explosive plot twists, but it’s the quiet, understated background roles that often stick with fans long after the credits roll. The Buell pharmacist is one of those roles: a steady, sympathetic presence who holds more town secrets than almost any other character, and whose small gestures carry huge narrative weight. We’re breaking down everything you need to know about the actor behind the part, the character’s role in the show, and little-known behind-the-scenes facts you won’t find anywhere else.
Who Plays the Pharmacist in American Rust, and What Else Have They Been In?
If you’ve been wondering who plays the pharmacist in American Rust, the answer is Susan Pourfar, a veteran character actor with a long resume of thoughtful, understated roles across stage and screen. Pourfar got her start in off-Broadway theater in the early 2000s, winning multiple regional theater awards for her work in productions by award-winning playwrights like Tony Kushner and Annie Baker. She made the jump to TV in 2008 with a guest spot on Law & Order, and has been working steadily ever since, often taking small, memorable parts that let her showcase her range without being tied to a long-term series contract.
She landed the American Rust role after submitting a self-tape audition where she leaned into the world-weary, no-nonsense energy the showrunners wanted for the character. To prepare for the part, she spent a week shadowing a pharmacist in a small town outside Pittsburgh, where the show is filmed. She learned the casual shorthand pharmacists use with regulars, how they navigate confidential conversations with customers who don’t want their business spread around town, and the quiet tiredness that comes with working a public-facing job in a community struggling with poverty and opioid addiction. Those small, specific details make her performance feel so real, most viewers don’t even realize she’s acting.
Pourfar has also had guest spots on hit shows like Succession, Ozark, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and she does voice work for animated series and audio books when she’s not filming. She also teaches acting classes at a community college in Brooklyn, New York, and has said she prefers smaller character roles over lead parts because they let her dive into specific, lived-in experiences without the pressure of carrying an entire series.
The Pharmacist's Pivotal Role in American Rust's Narrative
The pharmacist isn’t just a throwaway background character—she’s a quiet narrative anchor for the entire show. Set in the fictional former steel town of Buell, Pennsylvania, American Rust explores the consequences of deindustrialization, poverty, and the opioid crisis on working-class communities. The pharmacist is one of the only remaining long-term residents who sees every side of the town’s struggles, from injured former mill workers looking for pain meds to teens asking for emergency contraception to people struggling with addiction looking for clean needles or treatment resources.
If you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice that who plays the pharmacist in American Rust makes a deliberate choice to never raise her voice, even when characters are confrontational or demanding with her. She’s bound by patient confidentiality, so she holds more secrets than almost anyone else in town, and she never judges people for the hard choices they make to survive. For example, when Billy Poe comes in to get patched up after a fight with the former high school football coach, she cleans his cuts and gives him antibiotics without asking any questions, even though she knows he’s hiding something that could get him in serious legal trouble.
This role serves as a quiet narrative anchor for the show's exploration of small-town decay and moral ambiguity. She’s not a hero, and she’s not a villain—she’s just a regular person doing her job to help her neighbors get by, even when the world around her is falling apart. She’s also one of the only characters who remembers Buell before the steel mills closed, so her small, throwaway lines about the town’s past add important context for viewers who didn’t grow up in that type of community.
What Makes the Pharmacist Performance Stand Out to Fans
It’s rare for a minor recurring character to get as much fan attention as the American Rust pharmacist, but Pourfar’s performance has struck a chord with viewers across the country. A 2023 fan poll of American Rust viewers found that the pharmacist was ranked the 7th most popular character in the show, beating out several main cast members who have far more screen time. Part of that popularity comes from how relatable the character is—most people who grew up in small towns have had a local pharmacist who was a trusted, non-judgmental confidant, and the character feels like a love letter to those unsung community members.
There are three core reasons fans are so obsessed with the character:
- She feels like a real person you'd meet at your local pharmacy, not a scripted TV character, thanks to the actor's understated, natural performance and small, specific details like the jar of peppermints she keeps on the counter for regulars
- She's one of the only morally consistent characters in the show, who doesn't pick sides or betray people's trust for personal gain, even when other characters pressure her to share confidential information
- Her small, throwaway lines often hint at larger plot points that get revealed later in the season, so attentive viewers pay close attention to every scene she's in to pick up on hidden clues
Many fans have taken to social media to praise the performance, saying they wish the character had more screen time, or even a standalone spin-off episode that explores her backstory and the experiences that led her to stay in Buell even as most of her friends and family left for better opportunities. Showrunners have even teased that the pharmacist will have a much larger role in the upcoming third season of the show, which has only made fans more eager to learn more about the actor behind the part. Pourfar has said she’s received dozens of messages from viewers sharing stories about their own local pharmacists, and that the feedback has made the role even more meaningful for her.
Behind-the-Scenes Facts About the Pharmacist Role
There are a lot of fun, little-known facts about the pharmacist role that even diehard American Rust fans don’t know. For starters, the role was originally supposed to only appear in one episode of the first season, but the showrunners were so impressed with Pourfar’s audition and her first day of filming that they wrote her into six more episodes across seasons 1 and 2. They even adjusted several season 2 plot lines to give her more screen time, because they felt her character added an important layer of context to the show’s exploration of the local opioid crisis.
All of the pharmacy scenes are filmed in a real, working small-town pharmacy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and many of the background extras in those scenes are actual pharmacy staff who work at the location in real life. The pharmacy is only open four days a week, so the cast and crew film all pharmacy scenes on Mondays and Tuesdays, when the store is closed to the public. The owner of the pharmacy even has a small cameo in one season 2 scene, where he’s seen restocking shelves in the background while the pharmacist talks to Grace Poe about pain meds for her injured son.
Many casual viewers don't even realize the same actor who plays the pharmacist in American Rust has had guest spots on some of the most popular TV shows of the last decade. Pourfar improvised a lot of her character’s small, memorable quirks, like the way she always writes little encouraging notes on prescription bags for customers going through a hard time, or the way she rolls her eyes when customers lie to her about why they need certain medications. The showrunners liked those small touches so much that they wrote them into the character’s official canon. Pourfar has said that this is one of her favorite roles she's ever played, because it lets her represent the unsung heroes of small-town communities who rarely get the spotlight in prestige TV. She still keeps the name tag she wore for the role on her fridge at home as a memento.
Next time you rewatch your favorite episodes of American Rust, you’ll know exactly who plays the pharmacist in American Rust, and all the work that went into bringing that quiet, beloved character to life. It’s always the smaller, understated performances that make gritty dramas like this feel so real, and Susan Pourfar’s turn as the Buell pharmacist is a perfect example of that. Even if you don’t recognize her from other roles, you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of her on your screen in the coming years, as she takes on bigger parts following the success of her work on American Rust. If you’re a fan of the show, keep an eye out for her expanded role in the next season—it’s sure to be worth watching.