Reacher Star Alan Ritchson Stole Jason Momoa's Secret Weapon Filming Fast X

"Fast X" is one of the worst "Fast & Furious" movies. It commits the cardinal sin of forgetting this is a franchise about family, splitting the crew for most of the runtime and treating most of the characters as sidekicks. It simultaneously brings back enough characters that death becomes meaningless, while attempting to build emotional tension by leaving most of the team on the verge of death. It's also convoluted and overly long.

And yet, it does have something that adds a net positive to the franchise: Jason Momoa's Dante, one of the best villains in the entire "Fast & Furious" franchise. He's a stylish, unhinged, and very dangerous villain that feels like the franchise's answer to Joker. Dante feels like nothing we'd seen before, yet something inevitable. His action scenes are only matched by the moments of gleeful mayhem — like giving mani-pedis to the corpses of dead henchmen. He is the secret weapon of "Fast X," so it makes sense that co-star Alan Ritchson would target Momoa for his own heist in a franchise that's featured some truly ludicrous heists.

During an interview with Wired, Ritchson (who plays Agent Aimes) said he stole something crucial to Momoa's performance: his stunt double, Ryan Tarran. 

"I stole him from Momoa on 'Fast.' I did ask if I could, if he wouldn't mind if I'd used him, and then he never got him back. He's been my stunt double for a very long time. We were working on a movie together recently and he just got pretty injured, not good, demonstrating a stunt for me. And so now I'm working with a guy named Luke Davis, who's also amazingly talented. And Ryan has moved to stunt coordinate. So now we design fights together."

Ryan Tarran has been a secret weapon for "Reacher," especially in season 3, which is by far the best the show has been yet –full of intrigue, memorable characters, interesting villains, and some badass action.

Unfortunately, it was also a season where, due to Ritchson's insistence on doing his own stunts, the actor got seriously injured several times. The worst happened during Reacher's big fight with Paulie (Olivier Richters), aka Bigger Reacher. In the climactic fight, we see Paulie smash Reacher through a table on a barn floor. Ritchson decided to do the stunt himself to allow the camera to stay on his face the whole time. Tarran and the stunt team urged him not to do it, worried that he was going to get injured. Ritchson did it anyway, and sure enough, he got injured.

"I got picked up and we worked out the camera thing a few times and he slammed me through the table so hard, I went through it into the seventh circle of hell. And I woke up a day and a half later. When I came to, I had to tell my kids that I felt great, because they were on set, and I didn't want them to think that like, dad died and was going to not be okay. It was the worst few minutes of my life."

So Ritchson not only stole Momoa's biggest asset during "Fast X," but did so only to then contradict his safety suggestions and do dangerous stunts for our entertainment. Now that is a very Reacher move.