As we continue to wait for Reacher Season 4, Alan Ritchson is throwing it back to that epic Paulie vs. Reacher fight from Season 3. In it, the titular character and his massive adversary got into a big fight, and it included them brawling in the water. Well, it turns out Ritchson had to deal with a pretty severe injury as they worked on this sequecne all because he decided to get a tattoo right before he filmed it.
We already knew that this fight in Reacher was “the most physically demanding thing” for both Ritchson and Olivier Richters, who played Paulie. (Just watch the show with an Amazon Prime subscription and you’ll see what I mean.) However, it turns out there was another painful challenge involved with creating it, too, because the Jack Reacher actor got a tattoo right before they filmed the underwater portion of the flight. Explaining all this to GQ, Alan Ritchson said:
I was shooting Season 3 of Reacher. There was a scene in Season 3 where I go in the water and fight this giant. And so we were shooting that sequence, not a good time to get a tattoo. Great time for me, because I had like one day off before we got in the pool.
No, it’s not a good time to get a tattoo, because you are supposed to wait until it's healed to go swimming. Dr. Blair Murphy-Rose, MD, FAAD, a board-certified cosmetic and medical dermatologist, told Allure that people should expect to wait “at least three weeks” before going swimming after getting new ink to let their skin heal.
People shouldn’t submerge their tattoos in water, like a pool, lake or ocean, because when you get a tattoo, it “creates intentional injury to the skin,” which means it can get infected easily, the actcile noted. Dr. Murphy-Rose specifically noted that “water can be contaminated and increases risks to a healing tattoo.” And that can lead to “scarring, ruining a tattoo,” and a slower healing process.
It sounds like what this doctor warned about is what Ritchson had to deal with, as he explained:
I went and got a tattoo while we were shooting that sequence. And Kat Crisp, who told me I was an idiot for doing it and tried to stop me. And it got so infected, it was raised like a half inch off my arm and pussing, and it was oozing, and it was peeling. Anyway, she thought I, for sure, was gonna lose my arm on this one.
Well, it would seem the reward was greater than the risk for Ritchson. He alluded to that point too, by explaining he had to get the tattoo when he did because of how little time he has off. So, he had to do what he had to do, and that meant getting inked literally one day before he had to film a gnarly water fight. Speaking about his choice, he said:
But I really wanted to do the lighthouse, and there was just no other time to do it, because it would’ve meant – I didn’t have another day off for like a year. I actually almost lost my arm doing that.
I mean, in the end, he didn’t lose his arm, and his lighthouse tattoo is gorgeous. However, he did go down a wild and injury-inducing road to get there.
Hopefully, there wasn’t an experience like this while he filmed Reacher Season 4 (which just wrapped). However, I’m sure if it did, Ritchson will share the tale. He’s never been afraid to tell them before, and we know he’ll always commit to whatever he’s making – even if it means injuring himself in the process.
