Alan Ritchson Pushed Himself to the Limit on War Machine (And Needed Oxygen on His Next Film)

If his breakout success on Prime Video’s global smash Reacher proved anything, it’s that Alan Ritchson always rises to the challenge. (Case in point: On the last season, he faced off with and ultimately defeated a towering foe in the form of Olivier Richters, a 7’2’’, 350-lb. brute who played security guard Paul Masserella aka Paulie.)

But his newest project, Netflix’s War Machine from filmmaker Patrick Hughes, demanded new feats of physicality that nearly broke him. “It was hard. I’m not going to lie, this was the most I’ve ever been pushed physically, and it was the most I’ve ever doubted my own ability to finish,” Ritchson revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. Spoiler alert: He finished and the results are currently on streaming, so it’s easy to find evidence to back up his bold statement.

War Machine, not to be confused with the Brad Pitt-starrer of the same name on Netflix (more on that below), stars Ritchson as a combat engineer known only as “81.” After witnessing the tragic death of his brother while in battle, 81 enlists in Army Ranger training to find a new purpose. But during a last grueling mission across a treacherous landscape, 81 steps up to lead his unit in a fight against a giant and otherworldly killing machine. Cue awe-inspiring action sequences, gory battles and mental anguish that pushes Ritchson, er, 81, to his physical limits.

He joined Hughes for a joint Zoom interview during which he opens up on how he gets past the hard days, why their trauma bond works so well and what happened on the set of their new film —a Navy SEAL movie inspired by the life of Mike Thornton co-written by Ritchson, Hughes and Oscar nominated scribe Jason Hall — that required him to call for a medic while gasping for air.

I love a joint interview when the people who are paired already have plans to work together again because it means you really do like each other.

HUGHES We really do. We really do.

RITCHSON It’s a match made in heaven. We’re working on another action movie right now, because we’ve got this perfect combination with someone who is driven to do as much action as they possibly can — I want to suffer for the part —and someone who wants to make somebody suffer for the part. He wants to torture me. (Laughs.) No, Patrick is like a giant teddy bear. He’s got this amazing, vulnerable, emotional core to him where he turns what could be sort of a trope-y action story into something with a lot of poetry. I’m lucky to be riding along his coattails as he creates these stories for us. It’s been a real gift to partner with somebody like him.

You guys really pulled it off with War Machine. Patrick, this is the first time you’ve directed something that you wrote since Red Hill. Is that right?

Yeah. I sold the pitch for this film many years ago, in 2018, but got swept up with other things so I couldn’t find the time to write. Then, while being stuck overseas when the COVID-19 lockdown happened, something inside me just snapped, and I knew that I wanted to change the way I made these movies. I went home to Australia and sat down to write War Machine, and we finally got it up and running. It’s been a beautiful process to go back to my roots and shoot in Australia as well.

The movie starts like a typical military action thriller until a sci-fi element presents itself in an almost Trojan horse kind of way. Tell me about that concept and how you worked through it.

HUGHES On my first film, Red Hill, which you mentioned, we were shooting a shootout scene on the main street of a tiny town with a population of 200. It was a random Tuesday night at around 2 a.m. and the temperature was -7 degrees. Suddenly, someone made us clear the road for 15 minutes even though we had all the location permits. I said, “What are you talking about?” The person replied, “It’s the military and we must clear the road.” We did and what emerged was literally the most cinematic image I’ve ever seen —we actually replicated it in War Machine —as 200 soldiers jogged in formation with the packs, kits, weapons, the whole thing, and they all had red flashlights on their heads as they jogged in dead silence while dripping wet.

“What is that?” I asked. As it turned out, it was the selection process for [Special Air Service]. That led me down a rabbit hole, and I started researching all the selection programs around the world, Navy SEALs and, ultimately, the Rangers. I discovered that Rangers have a clearly defined finish line with a simulated mission during the last 24 hours. That lingered in my head for a long time, and I really wanted to figure out a way to tell a story in that world during the final 24 hours. Then I had a horrific dream, a real nightmare, where I was being stalked by a mechanical beast. The dream lasted all of three seconds until I woke up. I realized that it could be the hook for what this character could confront. I wanted him to almost be stalked by this shadow, like an embodiment of the shame he was feeling, so he ultimately had to face what he didn’t want to face.

You sold the pitch in 2018. When did you discover that guy sitting next to you and realize he should be your hero?

HUGHES I’d written it and then we got the wheels off the tarmac. Once we were up and running and things started to get real in terms of production, I had already discovered Reacher and knew that I was staring at my 81. He didn’t know it yet. I was looking at him longingly from afar like a lover. I will also say this: Alan and I are like best mates now. We’ve got fucking matching tattoos. Let’s show him. [Hughes and Ritchson get up from their seats and move closer to the camera to show off their identical ink on their forearms.] There you go. War Machine!

RITCHSON War Machine, baby.

Alan, I caught the scene in the movie where you show your tattoos. I figured that must finally be nice to take them out for a change?

RITCHSON That wasn’t a creative choice. That was a production choice. They said, “If we have to cover his tats, he’ll lose two hours every day in the makeup chair.” I said, “Fuck it. I don’t care if the guy’s got face tats. Let’s just show them all.”

The Reacher makeup department must be like, “Come on, man!”

(Laughs.) She’s right here, actually, giving me a death stare! No, but really, the military has relaxed some of their standards around aesthetics or other standards that kept some qualified people out, like tattoos. Now you can have tattoos and serve in the military. I thought this was a really good opportunity to represent that on screen. It’s a bit of a billboard for people who may want to serve but feel like they are not qualified because of their tattoos.

I love that. You’re also representing just full-on action again. I know you’ve said this film was a tough one to shoot and I have to admit because I’m emotionally invested in your career now, there were some moments watching this when I thought, damn, I hope he’s OK.

RITCHSON This movie’s a cry for help.

How tough was it? What was the most challenging scene?

RITCHSON It was hard. I’m not going to lie, this was the most I’ve ever been pushed physically and it was the most I’ve ever doubted my own ability to finish. It’s so funny, the parallels between the art and my own life are eerie at times. There seems to be some mirror that the universe holds up when I want to pick a project. But there were many times when I said, ”I don’t know if I’ll be able to get across the finish line.” It’s weird how much that mirrors the journey that 81 takes, but it was like the cumulative effect of everything. It was the relentless pace of filming and how the story itself coalesced into something that was really tough on the body. There was no way around it.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but it was hard. It was hard to get through. At the mid-point of our production cycle, we started shooting the Ranger training obstacle course. That was the day that sort of pushed me over the edge because I was already so broken down, and having to film that over and over and over again took its toll. I said, “Man, I don’t know how I’m going to do the rest of this film.”

HUGHES Alan’s character, 81, is in every shot of the film. When I sat down to write it, I was telling this story about a guy from his point of view. It’s laser-focused on one guy with one mission to cross this one finish line that ultimately would become his salvation. It’s incredibly difficult to do in terms of production, made even more complicated by the fact that we shot in real world environments in the wilderness. That meant we had a lot of locations where we had to [helicopter] up all the crew, equipment and safety teams. We had Alan crossing grade five rapids in New Zealand. It’s insanity when you think about it, but we pulled it off.

Alan, when you have a day like that when you’re wondering how you’re going to make it through, what do you do to get over the hump or doubt?

RITCHSON I remind myself that you forget the pain of it all relatively quickly. Maybe there’s a life lesson in there because I think a lot of times we become so hyper fixated on the pain that we’re experiencing in the moment. We get lost in it. We feel like it will last forever. And it never does. For years, I shoot projects consecutively back-to-back. I take very few breaks. I love what I do, and I’m told all the time, “You should rest. You should take a couple of movies off and rest.” I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to be in pain all the time. What gets me through is when a movie comes out and it’s a project I am proud of and I remember how I poured my whole soul into it. When I watch it, I never remember the pain, only that I am proud of what we made. You put rose-colored glasses on sometimes in hindsight. I know that I can do that. I often do. The pain won’t last forever but film is forever. I put my energy into that.

You’ve long been good about that. The last time we talked, you mentioned how the Paulie fight in Reacher was the hardest thing you’ve ever done but was so rewarding in the end.

RITCHSON And the thing I went into right after that was [War Machine]. I swear to you, I was like, “That will probably be forever the hardest thing I’ve ever filmed.”

HUGHES And then you met me.

RITCHSON And then I met him and I was like, “Oh shit, we upped the ante a little bit.” We’re working on another movie now, and it was the first time I ever had to ask for oxygen on set. The first day of filming, I was like, (gasping) “A medic! I’m going to die.”

Is this the Mike Thornton movie?

RITCHSON Yes, yes.

Alan, I noticed that you have a writing credit on that with Patrick and the great Jason Hall, who got an Oscar nomination for his work on American Sniper.

RITCHSON Yeah, it was a privilege. I sort of helped get it over the finish line and get it sold. Patrick poured his heart and soul into the script as well. Jason Hall really brought a lot of the architecture to it. It was a team effort, but yeah, I was really there to just help sort of get it done, get it sold.

So you have to blame yourself for needing the oxygen on set?

RITCHSON I definitely asked for this.

What is it about Mike Horton’s story that you both sparked to?

RITCHSON There are a lot of echoes and reverberations from 81’s journey. While [War Machine] is pure fiction, there’s a call to brotherly love that is something sacred and eternal, whether you’re male or female. It’s about sacrificing yourself for a brother. The new film is based on Thornton’s true story near the end of his time in Vietnam as some of the first Navy SEALs. It features characters who wrestle with the prospect of total and utter annihilation but hold onto the flicker of hope. In a world gone terribly wrong and sideways, humanity survives. I am in awe of that.

We’re living through a period of cinema, especially with the Marvelization of a lot of theatrical tentpole movies in which the protagonists are almost invincible, we’ve reduced the stakes to something wholly unwatchable. There’s no secret that people are sort of over watching Marvel-type movies. Our goal is to create a protagonist who is hanging on by a thread. Can we drag somebody to the brink of death and shoot it in a way that feels real and visceral so that people can actually relate to it on a human level? People are suffering out there. Life is hard, man. By crossing the finish line at the end of the movie, we remind ourselves that we can get through another day. As fun as this movie is, there’s something deeply human that we can connect to. “If 81 can get through that and get across the finish line, maybe I can too in my own life.”

Forgive me for the obvious question but there’s also a movie on Netflix called War Machine starring Brad Pitt. Did you consider changing the title?

HUGHES I never did. I always had the title in mind and when it was floating around in my head. I knew that was the title. I remember the day that movie came out and I thought, “Oh, well, maybe that title’s gone now.” I just sort of stuck with it and expected Netflix to tell me that, “Oh no, we can’t do that title.” But they felt that enough time had passed and it was a completely different film in a completely different genre. I was surprised but I said, “Look, this is the ultimate title for this story.” It literally has to be called this for the fact that it’s an origin story. Viewers will understand the ramifications of that title when the watch it.

War Machine is now streaming on Netflix.