These days, Alan Ritchson is undoubtedly best known as Jack Reacher. The Prime Video series Reacher has helped propel him into stardom, and he’s become a staple action star, especially on TV. Now, as the critically acclaimed fourth season of Reacher airs on the 2026 TV schedule, I’ve been thinking about the projects from the pre-Reacher years of Ritchson’s career. That’s because, while I already know about his American Idol audition, I didn’t realize he also played a part in a Hunger Games movie until very recently.
We Talk A Lot About Alan Ritchson’s American Idol Audition
At this point, it’s well-known lore that Alan Ritchson auditioned for American Idol during Season 3 in 2004. While he didn’t make it too far, he made a good impression, and Paula Abdul called him “totally hot.” He was 20 years old at the time, and now it’s been over 20 years since it happened. However, it still cracks me up that Ritchson’s fans are discovering this and reacting in big ways.
Not long after that, he got his first on-screen gig, playing Aquaman in Smallville, and from there, the actor picked up parts here and there. He was in 39 episodes of Blue Mountain State, and he popped up in shows like CSI: Miami, Hawaii Five-0, and 90210. However, my favorite random credit from the earlier days of Alan Ritchson’s career has to be The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Did You Know Alan Ritchson Was In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire?
About eight years into Ritchson’s on-screen acting career, he booked a part in the second Hunger Games movie. I, being a child of the 2000s, was obsessed with those books and did see the films as they came out in theaters. However, I did not clock the Reacher star until my most recent rewatch.
In Catching Fire, Ritchson plays Gloss, one half of a brother-sister pair of tributes from District 1. Since this game is made up of all victor tributes, it’s clarified that Gloss and his sister Cashmere won back-to-back games. That alone implies how lethal they are, however, Haymitch also explicitly says that when he’s making a game plan with Peeta and Katniss. And I just have to mention that if you’ve seen Reacher, you know Alan Ritchson can play lethal very well.
During training, you can see him throwing some daggers. Then, during the interviews, he’s the one to explain that they’re not going into the games by choice, while saying the Capitol is their family and they’ve been loved well by them.
Then, once we’re in the games, Ritchson gets a pretty big moment by the cornucopia when he kills Wiress. Katniss is quick to shoot him with her bow and arrow, and that’s the end of his story.
I’m dead serious, I gasped when I realized I was seeing Alan Ritchson in this film, and much like people discovering his Idol audition, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. However, he did a good job, and, like Jack Quaid, he’s one of the actors who played a small role in The Hunger Games movies before he became a household name.
So, unlike Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, who became household names because of these, or Philip Seymour Hoffman and Woody Harrelson, who were established A-listers when they joined the cast, Alan Ritchson fits in a different category. He became a household name years after doing this small part in Catching Fire, and it’s so cool to look back and think about all the roles that got him to where he is today.
Now, to see Alan Ritchson in Catching Fire, you can stream the movie (and all the Hunger Games movies, for that matter) with a Netflix subscription. And to see what he’s up to these days, you can stream new episodes of Reacher every Wednesday with an Amazon Prime subscription.
