Prime Video
Prime Video’s Reacher recently premiered its second season and has been a hit with both critics and fans alike, as the new batch of episodes has a 100% critics score and an 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
One of the reasons Reacher has been so successful is the casting of Alan Ritchson, who has turned into a bit of a star thanks to the part, with a recent role in Fast X and some growing calls for him to play Batman in James Gunn’s DCU.
Staying true to the Lee Child character that the series is based on, and unlike the (underrated) Tom Cruise version, Ritchson’s Jack Reacher is preposterously JACKED, which adds to the draw of the series: there’s nothing quite like a cartoonishly largely hero constantly beating the hell out of idiot bad guys.
Ritchson is so yolked for the series, in fact, that the poster for it makes a meta-reference to the hilarious breadth of his back.
As for how he got himself into superhero shape, the 41-year-old former Blue Mountain State standout recently admitted to taking testosterone, saying he’s a “big advocate of it.”
“Getting on testosterone was huge for me. I had none by the time I was done with season one, due to the stress and the fatigue and what I had done to my body. For me, it’s a long game. I want to do Reacher for 15 years… I don’t want to have to have surgery after every season, and testosterone helps,” Ritchson recently told Men’s Health in an interview.
“I’m a big advocate of it, especially for people in their forties or above. [Men aren’t] aware that it’s out there, but it could be really life changing. It could be a mood stabilizer for people… It can do a lot more than just help you be buff, but it certainly helped in my journey.”
While it obviously isn’t the same profession, the use of testosterone is controversial given that it’s largely banned from the sports industry.