As somebody who is a big fan of Reacher, I’m very excited that the new season is currently in production. Star Alan Ritchson has already teased some Reacher fight scenes that may be the best the series has ever done, making it worth holding on to my Prime Video subscription to watch both it and the upcoming Neagley spinoff. There’s clearly a lot of work being done behind the scenes to make the new season of Reacher the best yet, and that goes for the people in the makeup trailer as well.
You might not think Alan Ritchson needs to spend a great deal of time in makeup before filming Reacher, but there is some important work that needs to be done. Alan Ritchson has some pretty significant tattoos, but Jack Reacher doesn’t, meaning the actor’s tats need to be covered up every morning. As it turns out, based on this Instagram video, doing that isn’t nearly as hard as I would have guessed. Check it out.
Even though the actual covering is done in time-lapse, it’s still pretty clear that actually covering the tattoos is a fairly fast process. Ritchson essentially gets makeup airbrushed onto his arms, which makes the tattoos disappear. One imagines that finding the right formulation of makeup to match the actor’s skin tone might have taken some time, but now that it’s done, the covering up is quite easy.
The performer says the total makeup time, which also includes adding some injury makeup to his face, takes less than an hour, which may not seem like a short period, but considering that some actors have to spend hours in a makeup chair to get prepared for a role, 50 minutes is almost nothing.
The same is true at the end of the day when it comes time to clean up all the makeup. In a follow-up video, Alan Ritchson shows that the removal process is even faster than the covering process. It takes only a few minutes to completely uncover tattoos.
This tattoo removal comes thanks to a bottle of something that is simply labeled as “Alan’s magic remover.” Ritchson makes a big deal about this magical product. It’s unclear if it is anything special or not. It might be a special mixture of different solvents that does the best job of removing the makeup. It might just be a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Who knows?
Considering the number of actors who have tattoos, the ability to cover them up quickly is likely a key part of any makeup person's skill set. I just had no idea it could be done quite that fast. Ultimately, it means more time on set for Alan Ritchson, which means Season 4 of Reacher will get here that much faster.
