After watching the show, fans realize taking down several foes at once with nothing but his bare hands is Jack Reacher’s specialty, and even though the actor makes it look so easy on screen, there was a point when Alan Ritchson didn’t think he could handle Reacher’s unique fighting style. “I was like ‘I can never fight like that like.’ I’ve been doing fights and stunts my whole career and I’ve done a lot of the martial arts,” the actor said to SlashFilm. “[Jack Reacher] moves in such a way that elbows and knees become a tool that we’re just not used to seeing — elbows used like knives.”
Despite doubting his abilities, he remained dedicated to the role. Eventually, he pulled off Reacher’s moves in a manner that has earned him and the people responsible for the show’s exhilarating action sequences some much-deserved acclaim from showrunner Nick Santora. “All the credit goes to the stunt team, the choreographers, and Alan,” Santora said in an interview with SlashFilm. He went on to praise the star’s devotion to the role, saying, “Alan’s the one who has to actually do this crazy stuff. And he takes it very seriously, and you can see it comes out great because he puts the work in. Alan Ritchson is the least lazy person I’ve ever met in my life.” From overcoming his “Reacher” combat nerves to the point of gaining next-level head-punching abilities to reading the source material a number of times to perfect the persona, there is more than enough evidence to come to the conclusion that Ritchson went above and beyond to bring Reacher to the small screen.