Reacher’s Season 3 finale has dropped on Prime Video, and there was one moment where star Alan Ritchson was knocked unconscious while filming it.
Ritchson has gone through the wringer on all three seasons of the Amazon action drama as the titular Jack Reacher. However, he tells Entertainment Weekly that things went a little far while filming a particular scene for the finale episode.
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In the Season 3 finale, “Unfinished Business,” Reacher and Olivier Richters’ Paulie really got into it, and it felt like the fight went on for hours. Reacher was getting hung, punched, thrown around, drowned, and much more until Reacher eventually outsmarted him killed him. Although the scene wound up being a success for Reacher, it wasn’t so much so for Ritchson, who really went through a lot while filming. The actor explained to the outlet that he was insistent on doing his own stunts despite pushback from the crew, and he ended up learning his lesson.
“The whole point is you just watch Reacher get rag-dolled for five minutes straight,” Ritchson said. “And I was like, ‘This is fun. I like that this is the idea for everybody right now.’ And I get the bright idea to shoot a stunt in a way, because I was like, ‘I want the audience to know that I’m doing this for us. I’m taking one for Reacher and we’re all in this together,’ and so I wanted the camera to come up and just stay on my face the whole time while I get smashed through a table on the barn floor.”
Ritchson explained how everyone advised against him doing his own stunts, not wanting him to get hurt or worse, and that they should use a stuntman. He got into a “huge fight” with the team, and they reluctantly gave in. However, it didn’t take long for Ritchson to regret that decision.
“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,” Ritchson shared. “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.”
Once he got back on his feet, the scene ended up taking almost a month to film since it’s such a long fight. “That was three weeks we spent doing that fight,” Ritchson said. “That was one, three-second beat in 28 minutes of content, just to give you an example of what my life was like for those three weeks. It was a hoot.”
Since Reacher has already been renewed for Season 4, perhaps this will be a good time for Ritchson to actually use a stuntman, at least when the scene definitely requires it. Luckily, he turned out okay, but it could have turned out a lot worse. At least he knows now to listen to the crew when it comes to stunts because they certainly know better. The Season 3 finale of Reacher is streaming now on Prime Video.
