Reacher’s Richard Beck Actor Told Me What It Was Like To Punch Alan Ritchson Hard In The Chest, And There’s A Reason It Only Happened In One Take

TV audiences will no doubt have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of on-screen fight sequences by the time the 2025 TV schedule wraps up, but few tend to be as one-sided as the brawls on display during any given season of Reacher. (Not that Season 3 has yet given us Alan Ritchson’s big fight with the hulking behemoth antagonist played by Olivier Richters.) So it was quite amusing to watch Reacher’s attempt to teach Johnny Berchtold’s Richard Beck how to fight.

Truth be told, that sequence in “Dominique” was far more of Reacher’s verbal instructions than anything resembling a hyper-physical training montage from Rocky, but in talking to CinemaBlend about his character’s journey in Season 3, Berchtold explained that he did get to take a legitimate swing at his muscle-covered co-star, even if it went the opposite way from what he expected. When I asked if sparring with Alan Ritchson ever made him feel confident enough to take the actor down, Berchtold told me:

I can 100% understand why the younger Reacher star would have been initially hesitant to heed Ritchson's advice to actually throw a real punch, even knowing that it was just aiming for the Titans vet's chest and not his face or anything. It's not the most natural instinct to get even imaginatively violent with a friendly co-worker.

Johnny Berchtold went on to explain why he only took one crack at a legitimate punch, saying:

Speaking apocryphally, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. But if one of those shots is a punch right to Alan Ritchson's chest, maybe it's better to miss 100% of those shots. Probably makes it easier to keep one's wrist in working order.

Amusingly enough, Alan Ritchson also talked about sparring with a larger actor, which I can't imagine is the most normal turn of events for him on any given project. His massive size, in comparison to Tom Cruise, was a big part of what made him such a great casting choice.

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Will we get to see Johnny Berchtold's Richard Beck punching, kicking, DDT-ing or swanton bombing any of the remaining antagonists? We'll have to tune into the finale with our Amazon Prime subscriptions to find out, all while the already renewed Season 4 is coming together behind the scenes.