Like The Rock, John Cena, and Dave Bautista, Alan Ritchson comes from a long line of wrestlers turned actor — Wait, no? Sorry. Like Dick Butkus, Jim Brown, and Terry Crews, Alan Ritchson comes from a long line of football stars turned — Still no? Hang on. Got it. Like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Hugh Jackman, Alan Ritchson comes from a long line of song and dance men, practicing art forms that apparently “no one cares about,” who ended up making a big mark on Hollywood. “Early on, I wasn’t physically built the way I am now,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2023. “I loved expressing myself through music, singing and in-line skating. Not ideal for a guy in an area where all the dudes wore mullets and pulled up to school in four wheelers. “In school, I was in musicals. I went on to attend Northwest Florida State on a full scholarship and majored in theater arts.” Also, while he was in High School, he met his wife, Cat, at ballet class. This isn’t the origin story you expected for Reacher, is it? Especially not after watching him serve a steaming hot plate of “eff around and find out” to his beer-brazen belligerent bully of a neighbor. American Idol was Ritchson’s big break, his chance to move out of the world of male modeling, which had not been kind to him. In a fantastic interview with The Hollywood Reporter, well worth a full read, he called it “legalized sex trafficking.” So, yeah, he jumped at the chance to audition. But Paula wasn’t there. Just Randy and Simon. So, it was a no from them, dawg. But he came back next year, Paula WAS there, and, well, THIS happened. This little comedy bit was his first experience acting on television, and he definitely was up for more. It seemed they, too, were up for more. As soon as he got to the hotel, they told him to throw on some board shorts and meet them at the pool. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing — screen time,'” Ritchson told Jimmy Kimmel. “So within 10 minutes of being at the hotel in Los Angeles, I’m down at the pool in my board shorts and they’re like, ‘Why don’t you sit in the hot tub, we’ll ask you a couple questions.'” So, he did the interview, and then they told him to frolic with another contestant, push her in the pool, “show everybody how much fun it is to be at American Idol.” So, he did. Things seemed to be going great and he was having fun. He didn’t make it far, but he was excited to see his run when it aired. And then he saw that he’d been edited to look like an idiot — a frivolous partyboy. For example, on the third night, their assignment was to write a song. Songwriting was one of his real passions. He wrote his, he told Kimmel, in “two seconds,” and then went around helping other contestants polish theirs. But when he watched the episode, they had cut the pool frolicking footage into the scene, making it look like while everyone else was working hard, he was goofing off in the pool. “Like, what the hell? I was helping people!” he exclaimed. But he couldn’t have hard feelings, because it put him on a path. "Even though I was cut, I was enamored of the passion people had there for their art," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I decided to stay” in Hollywood. He told iHollywood even though it didn’t go the way he had he’d thank Paula for the experience, if he ever got the chance. “She brought me to LA for the first time, and I realized, once out here, I had a really great energy." That energy got him work, just enough to get by. “I’d be running out of cash and then some episode I’d filmed nine months earlier would air,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “Every time I thought I should get a different career, something would come. The universe always had a way of timing it out just right.” “I had buddies that were going out on stuff, and they would slip me auditions. I went in for things not knowing what I was doing.” (continues in comments…) #popculturehistorian #alanritchson #americanidol #paulaabdul #reacher - @popculture_historian