Alan Ritchson Calls Reacher “American James Bond”

For many actors, the opportunity to play iconic spy James Bond would be a dream come true, but don’t count Reacher star Alan Ritchson among them. According to Ritchson, he’s already playing the “American James Bond” in his starring role in the Prime Video series, and in his opinion, he has the better role. Ritchson told Entertainment Weekly that while he loves Bond, he finds the character “predictable” and that playing Reacher is the. most fun he’s had with a character.

“It’s funny, I kind of feel like Reacher is the American James Bond,” Ritchson said. “And I’ve never had more fun playing a character. I love those larger than life, over the top action thrillers and spy movies, and the heists that are smart and ahead of the audience. That’s really great, but I feel like Bond, to me personally — people are going to hate me for saying this — I love Bond, but I feel like it’s all a little misogynistic and predictable at this point.”

He added, “Reacher, to me, is like the American Bond, and I think it’s a cool way to go about doing it where it’s a little less purposefully cool. He’s not in on how slick he is. I don’t feel like we can have characters these days that are in on the joke. Either they know that they’re funny, they know that they’re smart, they know that they’re very cool or capable or invincible — I feel like it reduces the stakes of stories, and we’ve seen too many movies, we’re too savvy as an audience to be entertained by that.”

Ritchson Would Like to Play Batman, However

While Ritchson is fine with not playing James Bond, there is one iconic character he’d be interested in playing: Batman.

“I would love to play Batman. There, I said it, okay? I’ll shout it from the rooftops: ‘I wanna be Bruce Wayne!,’” Ritchson said in a previous interview. “Here’s the thing about Batman. You know what his superpower is? Intelligence. Dude is the smartest superhero there is. He’s inventive, and he’s got all the gadgets, but he’s super smart. I want to be that guy. And, also, to have a cave with, like hypercars, sports cars, and awesome motorcycles.”

“The fact that people are interested in me playing Batman is a real honor and privilege. It’s one of the first characters I fell in love with as a child: I still remember the big, long pistol coming out of Joker’s pants as he goes to shoot down the Batplane,” Ritchson previously told BroBible’s Post Credit Podcast. “Those iconic moments really resonated with me as a child. For there to even be a conversation or a rumor mill surrounding this role, for me… all I can do is laugh. I just think it’s wild that’s where we are,”

Reacher Has Already Been Renewed for Season 3

When it comes to Reacher, however, Ritchson will be playing the character for a while. Before the second season of Reacher premiered on Prime Video, the streamer announced the series had been renewed for a third season. Ritchson returned to production this fall and shared news of the renewal with a video from the set. During an interview with ComicBook.com, Ritchson teased what fans can expect from the titular character when the show returns.

“I can’t say too much about Season 3, but I will say there’s a lot of classic Reacher stories which are just adventures that he gets sucked into in a big way,” Ritchson told us. “And we get to enjoy Reacher in a new world. It may not have anything to do with family, with his past, he’s just living that adventure out and that’s kind of the direction that we’ve gone and it seems to really be working.”