Allllllrighty Then! Fact: if you were a kid in the nineties, you grew up idolizing Jim Carrey, and probably had the two Ace Ventura movies memorized. Recently, actor Kurt Russell fondly reminisced about taking his son Wyatt to see Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and it looks like another Hollywood tough guy was also a huge fan as a kid. In a surprisingly deep THR profile, Reacher star Alan Ritchson fondly remembers seeing the film as a kid and found Carrey’s performance loosened him up, as he had a deeply devout, religious home life that tended to be austere.
Calling Carrey his hero, Ritchson remembers, “When Ace Ventura came out [in 1994], I was in sixth grade, and I was enamored. He was so physical, goofy and unafraid. I’d never seen anything like it. I dressed up as Ace Ventura for three Halloweens in a row. I showed up to school and wouldn’t break character the entire time. I had the hair, the business card and I would walk up to people at their lunch tables and say, ‘Excuse me, I’d like to ass you a few questions.”
To Ritchson, Carrey’s gift as far as making people laugh was something that inspired him. He said the only time he ever came close to meeting Carrey was when the latter was shooting The Truman Show, which was filmed close to where he grew up. He remembers staking out Carrey’s trailer during the shoot, but a pesky security guard kept him from meeting his hero. “My mom spotted him and went, ‘There he is!’ I unveiled my poster and said, ‘Hey, Jim!’ He looked over and did this big belly laugh by arching his spine backwards. My brother and I ran over to him, but a security guard was there. He put his hand on a gun and said, ‘Don’t go any closer.’ Jim was caught in this place where he wanted to sign it but had to go to work, so he just wandered off. That’s as close as I’ve gotten.”
The THR profile is well worth reading, with Ritchson showing himself to be an open book. In it, he opens up about a few near sexual assaults he survived as a model and his long, slow road to stardom. Throughout it all, Ritchson emerges as totally authentic and willing to confront a lot of things most macho actors keep hidden, such as his battles with ADHD, depression, and his devout faith. Ritchson has a stacked 2024, with him starring in a holiday comedy with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Netflix action flick, season thee of Reacher, and this month’s Guy Ritchie movie, The League of Ungentlemanly Warfare.