Alan Ritchson Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions

Hi, I am Alan Ritchson

and this is the Wired Auto Complete Interview.

[energetic music]

My pec isn't large enough to,

this Dolce jacket's slippery.

Okay.

Hi.

Where did Alan Ritchson grow up?

That's a difficult question to answer

because I was in the military, so we moved around a lot.

I started in Illinois, born in Grand Forks, North Dakota,

but we didn't really live there.

I was there for like two months, we went to Guam.

It was Guam for two years, but who remembers that?

I remember feeding some kind of turtle on the beach once,

but that was like probably a dream.

And then I spent from fifth grade on in Florida.

My dad retired there, so that's kind of where I grew up.

But I left there, I started running away when I was 17.

Don't really claim Florida as home.

Moved back there, had a house on the beach

for like the first 12 years of my kids' life,

'cause my wife wanted help with the kids.

But I didn't really go back,

'cause I was like, I'm outta here.

And I was in LA, so it was like mostly LA,

so I don't really, you know, I claim Florida, probably.

Why

did they-

What the F?

Why did they cast Alan Ritchson as Reacher?

Like millions of people are searching that question?

Like Who the F is this guy, Reacher? He sucks?

That is, I don't know.

I asked myself the same question and so did the studio,

because they went back like multiple times,

like I'm not sure this is the right guy.

We want somebody bigger and stronger and faster.

But yeah, I don't know.

I ask myself the same thing

and every day I fight for my job, you know,

'cause there's like an asterisk by this thing for me.

It wasn't an easy get,

it was an eight month audition process, okay?

You think I felt wanted at the end of the

eight month process when they're like, Fine.

And then I find out after the fact,

they promised the job to another dude

and I was just like, I just happened

to be like crushing the audition.

And they were like,

I guess we have to like strongly consider this guy

who was just supposed to be like somebody

we threw in the mix.

And I ended up winning the role.

So I too ask myself the same question. Thanks for that.

Why does Alan Ritchson-

This is a long one.

Look so tall in 'Reacher?'

I don't know, probably because I'm 6'3

and not the tiniest dude you've ever seen in your life.

And we cast people that are 5'5

to play my friends on the show.

Do people think I'm cheating?

Do you think it's like cool camera work,

that I'm taller than everybody?

'Cause I'm taller than everybody in real life.

What do you want?

Alan Ritchson, it's a real long one.

Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's my actual birth name.

Alan Ritchson Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We're doing a movie together.

Man With A Bag, Christmas movie

where Arnold Schwarzenegger's playing Santa.

He's gotta hire the kid from his naughty list

to get his bag back, 'cause he lost it

and he needs somebody who thinks naughty to get it back.

That's me.

That stupid board outta here with those questions.

Okay, board number two.

This is gonna give me PTSD.

How did Alan Ritchson get his start?

God. I was a model and I'm not proud of that.

And when Abercrombie calls, you know,

you show up and you start roping the calf.

I was a semifinalist on American Idol.

I really liked my time in LA

and I was like, I wanna go back out there

and be around these like artists that are super hungry.

I had a modeling buddy who I was like,

Let's go play basketball.

And he's like, I can't go, I got an audition.

And I was like, Audition?

Well, how did you get an audition and what is that?

And he was like, It's an audition for like a commercial

or something or TV show.

He goes, Talk to the booker at the agency at night,

if you wanna do auditions,

he'll send you stuff from the breakdowns

and you can like try to book something.

I was like, Great.

So I told him, I was like, Gimme some auditions, dude.

I wanna make some extra money.

And the first three things I went out on, I booked.

Beowulf for Zemeckis.

So I'm on set with these like legends,

eating lobster every day,

thinking like this is definitely for me.

I want to do this, playing Beowulf

and doing the motion capture for Beowulf.

And then I was in a horror movie called The Butcher,

'cause I died real good in that audition.

And then Smallville was was my third thing.

And I played Aquaman on Smallville

and really kicked the shit outta that door,

just opened it right up for myself.

And the rest was history.

And then thousands of fails, thousands until Reacher.

Which was almost a fail too,

because they had somebody else in mind.

How did Alan Ritchson meet his wife?

We met in ballet in high school,

because we were both dual enrolling

in a college music theater program.

And I had to take a certain amount of prerequisites

that included ballet

and I thought she was a college student,

so for the first semester up until almost the last day,

I didn't talk to her until my buddy was like,

She's actually younger than you.

She's doing the same thing you're doing.

So I had the guts to talk to her and we hit it off.

Why do people want to know about my wife?

You know, like what is so special about my-

Alan Ritchson exercise routine?

I kind of just do whatever I feel like doing for the day.

Like that's really gonna lead a lot of people astray,

'cause most people are like,

I feel like eating potato chips and not doing anything.

I workout four or five days a week.

It's mostly full body stuff,

so I don't really go like,

I'm gonna blast my biceps until I can't lift a milkshake.

You know, like I wanna be able to lift the milkshake.

I just like do a little legs every day, little arms,

little chest, little abs, little cardio.

And then I just work out 'til I almost pass out.

People like, they try to go for like the summer body

mentality where they're like,

I really let myself go for the winter.

It's time to get back in shape.

If you just never get to the point where you're like,

It's time to get back in shape,

you just do a little bit every day, you're good.

Does Alan Ritchson know how to fight?

Oh, hell yeah.

Somebody wanna fight me? You wanna fight me?

No, that's a no, he doesn't wanna fight.

Yeah, I could fight.

I mean, the same way that people spend time

like pursuing a black belt or something,

like I spend the same amount of time training,

but it's mostly choreographed, you know,

I do a lot of training to get ready for a season

or to get ready for a new character or something.

And then we get in and yeah, I love to fight.

I fought Tito Ortiz one time.

I did a, I played a UFC fighter

and so I spent months training.

I got myself ready to work with Tito

and Tito came in and he's a really good teacher

and we trained together for a couple months

and then we shot this movie together.

He was like, You for sure could have been a fighter

if you wanted a different career, UFC's for you.

And I felt real good about that.

I punched him in the forehead one time on accident.

Next board.

Okay, Who was Alan Ritchson in 'Hunger Games?'

I was the guy that slit that little old lady's throat.

Actually, I took an arrow to the face,

so I played it like it was to the face.

And then I think they decided in post

that was a little too gruesome

to take an arrow to the face by Katniss,

so they changed it to my chest,

but I didn't shoot it that way!

I didn't shoot it like I was taking a shot to the chest.

My head snapped back like an idiot

and the thing went in my chest

and I'm like this, who does that?

I wouldn't have died like that.

Who does Alan Ritchson look like?

You know what people say I look like all the time?

John Cena.

People are at Nordstrom would be like, John.

Oh my god, John. Wait you look, you ain't John.

I don't think we look that much alike.

I know John, I'm happy to be confused with John Cena,

'cause hands down the nicest human being I've ever met.

Disarmingly Kind, it's actually annoying.

I'm like, he genuinely,

'cause I'm like you're not faking it.

You are seriously the nicest person I've ever met.

And it makes me feel bad about myself,

'cause I feel like a monster after I talk to him.

Who is Alan Ritchson's stunt double?

Ryan Taryn, one of the top stunt doubles in the world.

He's worked for guys like Hemsworth, boo!

Momoa, boo!

Me, yay!

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.

Who is Alan Ritchson in 'Titans?'

The hell do people Google this stuff for?

Just watch the show.

Like if you wanna know that bad,

shouldn't you just watch the show?

There he is in his tights, it's Hawk.

What episode of New Girl is Alan Ritchson in?

Oh my god, I got such a good story about this.

The episode is called Micro Penis.

No acting involved, bitches.

Okay, so I was writing a movie at the time.

I ended up making that movie, by the way.

Thank you very much.

It was midnight and I was falling asleep

and I really wanted to like reach a certain point

in my outline where I had like, you know, scripted this.

I went to this diner that was open 24/7.

I park in the parking lot

and I'm walking through the diner at midnight,

so there's nobody there.

And I was just gonna go eat and write around people

so I wouldn't fall asleep.

And a blacked out Audi pulls up in front of me

[imitates car] and I was like,

Oh God, oh I'm gonna get mugged, but I can fight.

So I wasn't worried.

The window goes down [imitates window rolling down]

and it's Jay Chandrasekhar

from Super Troopers in the car, right?

Who I've worked with on Blue Mountain State.

Hey, buddy.

And I was like, What are you doing?

I was like, Dude, you can't just roll up on somebody

in the parking lot at midnight like that.

What are you doing?

He's like, I was talking about you down at Fox today.

Had a little conversation about you.

I'm directing an episode of 'New Girl,'

and I thought of you.

I was like, Cool. Cool, what's the episode?

He's like, Well, you're a really cool dude.

Everybody likes you and you know, you've got a micro penis.

I was like, What, I'm sorry?

So you have this episode called 'Micro Penis'

and you think of me?

I'm the guy that you think of, Jay?

And he's like, I thought you'd be great for it.

Do you want to do it?

And I was like, Yeah, I want to do it, Jay.

Yeah, I'll do the episode, and that was it.

My audition was in a Trader Joe's parking lot at midnight.

What does Alan Ritchson eat?

What doesn't he eat is the question.

Where's this cookie?

Look at, wait, hold on.

Cookies the size of scones, baby.

Whose are these? This guy's.

We've been munching on these all day.

The problem is I eat whatever I want,

'cause genetically I can handle it.

Know some people got those genes, so you know.

[Interviewer] How many calories [indistinct].

3800. You know how I know?

I got a DEXA scan, found out my maintenance calories

are 3800 and when I gain weight, 4,000.

And when I cut, 3,600.

What new movie is Alan Ritchson in?

What new movie isn't Alan Ritchson in?

Got like nine coming out, dude, it's crazy.

War Machine for Netflix.

I think, and you heard it here first,

probably gonna be the, no,

not probably, gonna be the biggest movie

that Netflix has ever had.

This movie is gonna be a monster.

This is the coolest thing they've ever made, guaranteed.

There's a comedy called Play Date,

which I love, Kevin James.

And then we've got a movie called Motor City,

which is an action movie with no dialogue

that is an absolute work of art, a '70s period piece.

It was on the blacklist for like 15 years

and every dude in town was attached.

A very hard movie to get made, and we finally got it made.

I'm really proud of that one.

We got Runner with Owen Wilson, an action movie

with a ton of heart.

We got Painter coming up, which is

one of the coolest action films,

written by Derek Kolstad, who made John Wick.

It's like a new John Wick.

And we got Man With A Bag, which is a Christmas movie.

Gotta have some fun for the whole family.

What does Lee Child think of Alan Ritchson?

Well, I hope he holds me in such high esteem.

As high esteem as I do Lee Child,

because I have a great respect for that man.

I mean, unless he's a really good actor

or a great liar, I think he likes me.

I think he probably wants to be my best friend

and I am hoping that he'll fulfill my request

to adopt me and to put me in his will.

Oh, God.

I'm scared to see what's on the other side of this one.

Can Alan Ritchson really sing?

Yeah, my first love was music.

I had like 38 scholarships to universities

and conservatories for music,

and that's what I started to go to school for.

And then I was like,

What the hell am I doing getting a degree?

What, are you gonna teach somebody how to sing?

You're gonna teach me how to sing?

If you sing, you sing.

Like I'm not gonna learn anything from you.

And I did like nine plays and I was like,

What am I gonna like get a degree in like music theater

and then go to Broadway and be like,

'Here's my bachelor's degree in music theater

and that's gonna get me something on Broadway?

I don't even want to be on Broadway!

You get paid like $11 and they live in shoebox apartments

in New York and they like barely eke by in life.

And they're like the best entertainers in the world

and this is how they're rewarded?

No, I'm gonna quit school.

And that's what I says to myself, and then I became a model.

[laughs] What a loser.

But it worked out, 'cause you know

that was a little stepping stone to Reacher,

which is exactly how I drew it up.

Is Alan Ritchson playing Batman?

This is a, what's amazing to me about this rumor

of the Batman or the Batman desire and the zeitgeist

is the fact that James Gunn

has personally announced publicly on his Twitter

or X or whatever, LOL, he's not playing Batman.

He is not playing Batman! And this thing will not die.

I get asked every day if I'm playing Batman.

Yeah, would I play Batman? Yes.

Would I pay handsomely to be Batman?

You wouldn't even have to pay me to be Batman.

I would, yeah, I would don the suit. Gotham is mine.

Look at that. I don't even have to practice.

It just comes out naturally.

How-

Oh, shit. Oh sorry dude, I broke your board.

[laughs] How perfect is that?

How strong is Alan Ritchson?

That strong. I did it on accident.

I didn't even mean to, I just break stuff.

It's like, how funny is that? I'm super strong.

I don't even have to prove it now.

Does Alan Ritchson have tattoos?

That's right. I think I have like, hey, how many do I have?

Where's Kat? 13.

[laughs] She knows.

She knows and with with great spite,

she said the number 13,

because she's the one that has to cover 'em for my roles.

It's one of my favorite things to do is to get a tattoo

and come in the trailer, bust open the door.

She's like, Oh, he is looking salty today.

Like I got a new tattoo.

She goes, Oh, God.

I'm about to get 13 in the next five minutes,

'cause like now is the perfect time

to be getting tattoos too, by the way.

'cause I'm playing this dude in a Christmas movie

who's got sleeves down to here every day.

And I can't, I don't have time though.

Every day, I gotta shoot every day.

And then on my off days, which is today,

right now I have a day off, 'cause it's a national holiday.

Where am I?

I'm here talking to you about my tattoos

when I should be getting more!

I'm a little weirded out.

I gotta be honest that people ask these questions.

But I'm happy to set the record straight

and give a little context to my life, you know.

[energetic music]