Jack Reacher season 2: Alan Ritchson on becoming Lee Child’s iconic character

“A six-pack like a cobbled city street, a chest like a suit of NFL armour, biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue.”

These are the words author Lee Child uses to describe his iconic fictional character Jack Reacher.

When you deep dive into the pages of the iconic series, you might find yourself creating a mental picture of actor Alan Ritchson, his light icy eyes, dirty blond hair and nearly 2m-tall frame, based on Child’s description alone.

And once you’ve seen the Hunger Games actor as Reacher, despite the fact he’s played a variety of hunk-heavy roles in the years leading to it, it’s hard to picture him as anything else.

Ritchson is Reacher - well, physically at least. Mentally the two are miles apart. Ritchson credits his faith, family and strict routine for keeping him grounded - a far cry from Reacher’s wandering nature.

Now, he’s about to bring the stoic, restless ex-military investigator back to our screens in the second season of Reacher, streaming on Prime Video in New Zealand from December 15.

Speaking with NZ Herald’s Jenni Mortimer, Ritchson explains how he became Reacher, why his preparation might look nothing like you imagine and what he wants Kiwi fans to take away from the show.

What is it about Reacher that made you say yes to season 2?

[Laughs] Them saying yes to me made me say yes to them. I started reading the books during the process of auditioning for Reacher and it scared me a little bit because I don’t like to come into a process like really wanting something, like wanting a job. Anything that smacks of desperation is not a good thing in our business, and the more I read, the more I was like, “I’ll die if I don’t play this part”.

So by the time we got down to multiple screen tests, they all went well, I was finally notified, I got the job and it was an easy “yes”. I mean, this is one of the most iconic characters of our age and just a really cool protagonist. It’s an opportunity for me to do things I haven’t done in my career and it’s good practise in being still and that’s very different for me, and very different from myself. There’s just a lot to love about the work.

Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher in Reacher season 2. Photo / Supplied

What does the process of preparing to become Jack Reacher look like for you?

I ask myself that coming out of every break. I’m like: “What exactly do I do again to qualify this as a Reacher performance?” I think for me it’s about emptying the body and filling the mind. He’s got a hyperactive, very cerebral mind - it’s always computing, so the thoughts that I fill my head with are hopefully what his thoughts would be, just processing everything as some aggregate of some potential thing that can help the case he’s on.

And then there’s a sort of stoicism externally attached to that, and I think finding a way to marry the two is a challenge. I just hope that it’s interesting to watch. I guess it’s worked so far.

How hard is it to prepare to play a character who is so physical?

Yeah, a character that doesn’t even work out in the books. It’s so unfair [laughs]. He eats whatever he wants, he drinks beer, he works out zilch. It’s a very different look for me in real life. I try to work out five times a week, not anything super aggressive. I try to be in the gym for like an hour at a time.

Last night, for example, I wrapped work at six or seven o’clock and I had my driver take me to the gym and I got a session in on the way home because I knew if I made it all the way home, I wouldn’t. And it just takes that kind of discipline - making sure that you get it done and it becomes a lifestyle.

I think a lot of people look at their bodies or their goals and they think, it’s time for me to get the summer body, like now I’m in a phase of acquiring something that I want. And for me, it’s more about if this is just my lifestyle and it’s my standard, then it’s easier to maintain.

What does a day off look like for you?

Pretty lazy, ‘cause my days are pretty packed and I’m mentally exhausted at the end of a workday and physically exhausted. My day will be full of action, stunts, fights, 15 pages of dialogue - by the end of the week, I’m done.

I’ve got a family, I’ve got three kids, they’re 11, 9 and 8 now, so they’re at an age where I just bought them their first PlayStation and we’re playing Call of Duty as a family now, which is kind of crazy to me.

It’ll be like, let’s just be together as a family and kind of veg out and relax and really just relax the mind.

Alan Ritchson's tall frame perfectly fits Lee Child's descriptions of Jack Reacher. Photo / Supplied

What inspires and drives you in life?

My faith, probably. My faith is something that is rooted in eternal values, so I’m chasing - not necessarily through anything I can do in particular - but chasing something that is bigger than even this life, you know? And by doing so it makes me want to outperform every opportunity that I have because it’s like I’m rooting for credit in a different way.

I had an existential crisis years ago and I had gone from using language on the phone with my team like “I’m building an empire here” to really rethinking what life is about. Which to me is really born out of community, others, and other-centredness. Working in a way that supports other people, working in a way that is beneficial to a community, suddenly everything changes. Your “why” changes. The outcomes change.

Reacher reunites with his former teammates in ‘Reacher 2′ - what reunion would you love to see?

Oh, gosh, maybe like an NSYNC reunion? With Hulk Hogan. Like early ‘90s, early 2000s. Yeah, that’d be great. It’d be like a wrestle performance, like NSYNC wrestling [laughs]. I think it would sell tickets.

Do you have a message for your Kiwi fans who are excited to see ‘Reacher’?

That we’re doing this for those Kiwis [laughs]. When I wake up in the morning, I’m like, “I want New Zealand to love this show the most”.

And hopefully, they will, and we succeed in our goal. I’m supposed to be coming [to New Zealand] to do a movie there. I’ve never been more excited.

The first three episodes of Reacher: Season 2 are available to stream on Prime Video now, with new episodes released weekly.