'Super awkward': 'Reacher' star Alan Ritchson recalls meeting his high school sweetheart wife Catherine

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Alan Ritchson of ‘Reacher’ recently shared an ‘awkward’ story about how he met his future wife Catherine in high school.

Talking with Men’s Health, the actor shared that the two were in the same ballet class and it took him months to finally talk to her.

Alan shared, “After the millionth time of us sitting next to each other, inches away, tying our shoes — so now it’s super awkward — I was like, ‘So, I heard you ice-skate.’” 

“She was like the sweetest thing in the world,” he added.

Meanwhile, Catherine on her appearance on ‘The Road to Wisdom’ podcast, said, “I’ll never forget seeing him for the first time in the studio. I turned to my friend Miriam and I said, ‘Who is that?’ He, at some point, came up to me and we just got chatting.”

The two ended their relationship briefly, with Ritchson making the call.

“I’ve made him pay for it ever since,” Catherine joked. “He still justifies it. He’s like, ‘You lived 30 minutes away, I couldn’t afford gas.’”

Alan Ritchson long struggle before making it big in the industry

On getting into acting professionally in 2005, Alan Ritchson recalled, “The town was like, ‘You’re riding a rocket right now. This is going to be a real wild ride. Your life is about to change.’”

On a tough start, the actor said, “I just sort of expected that there would be a cornucopia of comedies for me to choose from, and nobody really wanted to see me for anything.”

Talking about auditioning for ‘Thor’ in 2011, the actor added, “I didn’t take it seriously. I was like, ‘They’ll throw me the part if I look like the guy; nobody really cares about acting.'”

After missing out, he joined Deborah Aquila's class. “All I had to go on when he came in was—bless his heart, this man, I love him—he was so earnest and he really, really wanted to take the next step,” Aquila said, before adding, “He had done Blue Mountain State, and I watched episodes of it. And I was scratching my head going, ‘How am I going to help this man?’”

“I remember that face. He kept looking at me, like saying, ‘Yeah? We’re good?’ With those twinkly eyes,” she laughs.