'Reacher' finale: Alan Ritchson beefs up for Season 2 of a 'life-changing' TV dream role

In the new season of the Amazon Prime action show “Reacher,” Alan Ritchson’s mountainous and muscular title character shovels food onto an already full plate at an Atlantic City restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet sign.

When a cashier quips that someone took it as "a personal challenge," he responds, "I'm just warming up."

That, according to the actor, is an instance where Ritchson and his butt-kicking counterpart share the same mindset.  “Sadly, that is actually my real life,” he says. “I usually order three or four entrees. I eat for so many people. People usually go, ’Is somebody else joining you?’ ‘No, just bring the food. I’m going to eat it all. Don't you worry about it.’”

Hulking military investigator/professional drifter Jack Reacher kills meals and is back fighting the good fight in Season 2 (all episodes streaming Friday). “Reacher” was a breakout hit when it premiered in February 2022: The first season ranked among Prime Video’s five most-watched series within days of its premiere, and has already been picked up for Season 3 (now filming).

Where to find it: When is 'Reacher' Season 2 finale? Release date, cast, how to watch last episode of season

From “action to the extreme” to drama and comedy, the show “scratches every itch as far as the kind of stuff that I like to get into as a performer,” Ritchson says.

His character brought justice to small-town Georgia – and finally dug into a slice of peach pie when the job was done – in Season 1 of the anthology series based on the Lee Child novels. The new episodes take him to New York City, where Reacher meets up with private eye Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) to investigate the murders of soldiers in their old Army unit.

Yes, he’s still as stoic as ever, but the man whose only constant is his travel toothbrush begins to show a little more emotion, given the higher personal stakes.

“There's a razor-thin line to walk with Reacher between being too empathetic or showing too much pain or vulnerability and showing somebody who's just a robot,” Ritchson says. “The reason we enjoy watching Reacher so much is because I think a lot of us wish that we could be more like that (and) almost appear less affected by the great trauma that we were surrounded by. But it's not to say that he doesn't love in his own way and feel deeply and carry a lot of these memories with him about the people that he loves.”

One big change for the new season: Ritchson, 41, put more size on his brawny 6-foot-2 frame and sleeve-stretching biceps. The massive Reacher in Child’s books – played by Tom Cruise in 2012 and 2016 “Jack Reacher” movies – is described as having “rippling abs and a chest that's bulletproof,” Ritchson says. So to fit the part, he had to “rush” to get ready for Season 1, packing on 30 pounds of muscle in eight months. “I built a gym in my house and all I did was eat and work out.” And for Season 2, he added more weight to “solidify what was there and to shape it.”

Ritchson looks at pictures of himself when he started out playing Aquaman in 2000s episodes of WB's “Smallville,” and “I’m like a skinny marathon runner compared to where I'm at now.”

Because “my body wants to be big,” he says, he says he ran 13 miles a day to stay lean for potential roles. Still, most of what came his way were comic-book parts like a motion-capture Raphael in a big-screen “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie and Hawk in TV's “Titans.” “I was big enough to look like a superhero, but I could play a stepdad, and that awkward dance was felt by the industry,” Ritchson says.

Then “Reacher” came along, and he found his “dream role”: A larger-than-life character that Ritchson actually needed to work to measure up to for a change. “It was the first time in my career that anybody ever told me what I had to do with my body. It was affirmation that you can just settle into who you were meant to be.”

Now he’s “the action guy,” with a high-profile villain role in “Fast X” (and assumably in the upcoming “Fast X: Part 2"), plus “25 films on my desk right now (where) I just get to be me. I get to look the way that I look, carry myself the way I carry myself,” he adds. “It’s been life-changing.”

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In Child’s books, Reacher “becomes sort of mythologically large – he gets bigger as his adventures continue,” Ritchson says. “There's a part of me that really wants to honor that.”

How big can he get? Well, it might be time to shut down the buffet line.

How about “320 pounds of pure fat, because I'm just going to get lazy and I'm eating whatever I want,” Ritchson jokes. “All those peach pies are going to make their way in. It's going to be a whole different ‘Reacher’ Season 3.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Reacher' finale: Alan Ritchson beefs up for Season 2 of dream role