Across its first three seasons, with a Neagley spinoff currently filming on top of an already locked-in fourth season on the way, Prime Video’s Reacher has won over millions of fans around the world who just can’t get enough of Alan Ritchson‘s titular badass. Which is a good thing, since the actor puts a lot of work into maintaining his mountainous physique, even if the on-screen character never exercises or lifts weights.
While speaking with Reacher‘s Season 3 star Johnny Berchtold about bringing the Beck family’s story to the 2025 TV schedule, I only somewhat jokingly asked if Alan Ritchson was constantly doing push-ups in between takes and set-ups in order to keep his arms as bulging as could be. And while that does seem to have been the case at times, Berchtold revealed a different element to his co-star’s diet regime that he not only witnessed, but tried out for himself: the Reacher smoothie. Here’s how he put it:
No, you know what I’ll say, though… I mean, yes, he is like, disappearing and then he goes to a gym that’s nearby, but he’s gotta maintain that build. So he’s just constantly being fed, like, beef stroganoff. And at one point they delivered him the Reacher smoothie. And I was like, ‘What the hell is in that?’ And he’s like, ‘What, you want some?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Give me a cup.’ So they gave me a red solo cup of the Reacher sludge.
Oh man, I’m pretty sure if someone would go back in time and tell my pre-teen self that TV actors not only get paid well, but they also get to have beef stroganoff shoved in their faces daily, I might have moved out to Hollywood. But that’s neither here nor there.
The fact that Johnny Berchtold’s description went from “smoothie” to “sludge” is a good indicator of how this little experiment went for him. He continued:
I got two sips in, and I looked over and he’s just downing the entire thing in one swig. I could barely get through it. I was like, ‘I don’t…I don’t think I have what it takes to become Reacher.’ But it’s pretty impressive. It was hilarious. We’d be in between takes, and they just feed him food. It’s so funny to watch.
In case there’s anyone out there who thinks Berchtold was telling me this story with a look on his face that made the Reacher smoothie seem appetizing, let me put those thoughts to rest. He looked none too enthused about remembering the mysterious concoction. Whatever it takes to make sure Reacher Season 4 happens without its central star showing up to set as a 98-lb. weakling, I suppose.
When he and Alan Ritchson were filming Richard and Reacher’s sparring scene outsidethe Becks’ house, Johnny Berchtold got a quick lesson in how well he might do in a real fight against his screen partner. In that he threw a real punch into Ritchson’s chest that didn’t cause the Titans vet to flinch, but made Berchtold recoil. Ritchson’s chest is probably like 75% smoothie-coated steel at this point.
With one episode left to go in Reacher Season 3, fans have yet to see who will survive, and how many times will Reacher snack on something. Be sure to tune in with an Amazon Prime subscription when it hits streaming on Thursday, March 27.
