Anthony Michael Hall can marvel at how art and life have merged with his role as a troubled millionaire single father in Prime Video’s global hit “Reacher.”
Based on Lee Child’s bestselling thriller “Persuader,” this series, currently streaming its third season, finds the 6’5”, 250 lb., ex-military big guy Reacher (Alan Ritchson) undercover in the employ of Hall’s millionaire rug importer Zachary Beck.
As Reacher tries to trace a missing operative and expose an extensive arms smuggling operation, Hall’s Beck, who has long been estranged from his son Richard (Johnny Berchtold), is struggling to stay alive.
Because, we discover, appearances aren’t what they seem.
“I had instinctive feelings about how to play this bad guy who on the surface, is operating this network. For the first few episodes, you don’t even actually know he’s not the big boss, he only appears to be,” Hall, 56, said in a Zoom interview.
“Ultimately, Brian Tee’s character is revealed to be the real boss, Quinn. What I really enjoyed exploring was the stuff with his son. That gave a real richness to the character, made him certainly very mortal, very fallible and very human.
“It was a dichotomy for me to play a guy who on the one hand is a criminal, trying to stay alive with the guys that he’s working with who are arms dealers, and then he’s a parent.
“Having become a father myself” – his son Michael is two in June – “it gave me all I needed, knowing what it feels like now that I am a family man.
“That was an interesting exploration for me as an actor to project forward and look at that, then play this father who was never really there for his son.
“You know, I was actually born in West Roxbury in Women’s Brigham Hospital. My mother became a single mom; I didn’t actually meet my biological father, Larry Hall, until I was about 22.
“I share that personal biography because it feeds right into this. That I was able to discover the process of playing this part because I’ve been Richard in my own past, as a little boy.
“Fortunately, my mother went on to marry a great guy and my stepfather wound up adopting me and raised me in New York City.
“So for this character there was a lot to draw upon within my own heart, becoming a father and a husband deep into my middle age.
“That being sad, it was great to draw upon all that stuff to play this criminal.”
Season 3 of “Reacher” streams on Prime
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