Alan Ritchson Had ‘Flashbacks’ of His Smallville Days Filming ‘Crazy’ Water Sequence in Reacher Season 3

Alan Ritchson didn’t enjoy his latest Reacher water scene as much as viewers did.

Episode three of the action series’ third season showed the titular actor, 42, stripping down and swimming through tough waters to make a midnight escape from his undercover mission. While fans were awestruck by his chiseled abs and soaked body, Ritchson told Entertainment Weekly that his memories from filming the sequence were not as fond.

“It was tough,” he laughed. “That water work was pretty tricky, and stripping down and crawling across those cold, wet rocks naked was not the funnest for me and for just about anybody watching — but we did it because we love the show.”

This season of Reacher is based on the book Persuader, written by Lee Child, and Ritchson said that he was tasked with reading it before production began.

“Having read the book and enjoying it, that was the one [part] that I was like, ‘I hope we skip over that,'” he shared. “Maybe [Reacher] just crawls across the lawn, maybe he stays on the grass. But no, we actually built most of that world in a gigantic indoor pool.”

“We had a wave-maker!” he revealed, noting that he still thinks about the elaborate set. “I had some guys visit that have been on $400 million sets, like Aquaman, and sets that are just huge water world sets, and they’re like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this for a water stunt.’ So yeah, it was crazy.”

While shooting, Ritchson said the scene reminded him of the role that catapulted him to fame — Aquaman on Smallville. Feeling like he was back on the 2000’s drama was “jarring,” he added.

“Yeah, it was pretty similar,” he said. “Because the water was cold, and when I was a child on Smallville, we were in a glacial lake. It was just above freezing, and it felt a little bit like that up in Toronto shooting again. So I was having flashbacks — it’s like my ‘Nam.’”

Ritchson recently spoke with GQ Magazine about how his own experiences on Reacher differ from those of the audience. Particularly in Reacher, he explained that his Christian followers didn’t always agree with his onscreen depiction of his character.

“People have this weird relationship with fictional characters and sort of equate that to the real human being,” Ritchson, who is a self-proclaimed devout Christian, told the outlet. “I don’t have that problem, making that distinction. I get criticized a lot by Christians who are like, ‘How dare you have an unmarried sex scene on TV and then talk about Jesus?’”

“I’m sorry — I doubt that’s going to be part of the conversation when I’m standing at the pearly gates!” he continued.

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The first three episodes of Reacher season 3 are now streaming on Prime Video. New episodes drop every Thursday at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT.