Alan Ritchson Almost Made The Reacher Stunt Coordinator Quit (For A Good Reason)

"Reacher" has become a big hit for Prime Video with its blend of pulpy action, atypical humor, and a large man with good punching skills. The show finally got Jack Reacher right after many fans were dismayed with the Tom Cruise-led movies of the 2010s, and while the 6-foot-3-inch, 235-pound Alan Ritchson is a big part of why fans are so happy with this latest iteration, there's no doubt the action sequences are also top-notch. After all, having a physically accurate Jack Reacher wouldn't be much good if you didn't show him beating his adversaries to a pulp in stylish fashion, and thus far, "Reacher" has done just that.

In season 1, we got what remains one of the best fight scenes in the series with the prison brawl, in which Ritchson's ex-military man beats up an entire prison gang in the bathroom. Months of preparation went into this one fight alone, and Ritchson has spoken to /Film about the sheer level of commitment it takes to pull off such a scene, revealing that he'd be learning fight choreography in the parking lot before shooting certain scenes merely due to the fact that his schedule was so full. 

It seems somewhere along the way during that hectic first season, Ritchson also managed to make the show's stunt coordinator quit. In an interview with Men's Health, the actor revealed that his stubbornness and refusal to back down when performing his own stunts caused the coordinator to walk away from production. It seems the stunt coordinator felt Ritchson was being too reckless and refused to listen to his advice before leaving the production. As Ritchson recalled, he was so set on doing his own stunts that he would refuse to leave the set when somebody else was performing in his stead. "I was like, 'I'm doing the f*****g stunt.' It was manic behavior." Thankfully, the stunt coordinator ultimately agreed to return to the series.

Alan Ritchson was 39 when he started on "Reacher" and, as the actor explained in his Men's Health interview, had only recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 36. He spoke about learning to handle the disorder and seeing a psychiatrist every week, before explaining how it manifests at home. "It's this thing, like, 'I gotta find a perfectly white pair of shoes that look like a tennis shoe but aren't.' Three days later, eight pairs of shoes show up that are all identical, and I'm like, 'Oh, s***, I'm manic right now.'" He went on to explain that during his manic periods, he expresses himself in a "this has to be better" way. "Like a very, almost obsessive 'this has to be better,'" he added.

The now 42-year-old actor has also spoken about what went wrong with "Reacher" season 2, revealing that he was disappointed with the fight scenes in the sophomore season. In an interview with The Movie Podcast, he said, "I wasn't really thrilled with a lot of the action at all. I was really upset with the way some of those fights were executed." Whether this was an example of his manic behavior remains unclear, but it certainly sounds like the "this has to be better" mentality he spoke about in his Men's Health interview. While there are clearly times when this perfectionist attitude can benefit a show like "Reacher," making the stunt performer quit clearly isn't the way things should go. Thankfully, everything has worked out ok since season 2, with Ritchson making a bold prediction about the upcoming "Reacher" season 4 by saying that it will be "the most intensely physical season yet" and sharing a picture of him and supervising stunt coordinator Buster Reeves on his Instagram.