In recent years, Alan Ritchson has emerged as a prolific leading man thanks to his breakout role on Amazon’s Reacher. The larger-than-life actor’s career has come a long way since his early years as a catalog model before landing big-screen roles in The Hunger Games and Fast & Furious franchises. In the midst of paying his dues in Hollywood, however, Ritchson endured his worst acting experience playing Raphael in 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

For more than 40 years, the popular comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird has often found a new generation of fans in animation and live-action projects. The Michael Bay-produced reboot starring Megan Fox and Will Arnett reimagined the heroes in a half-shell as fully CGI characters played by Ritchson and his fellow castmates. Though popular at the box office to warrant a sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows in 2016, critical reception was largely negative, holding a 20% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences may have dismissed the critics in favor of embracing “turtle power”. But for Ritchson, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was an ultimate career regret.

Alan Ritchson’s Nightmare Experience on ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’

During a 2019 interview with Collider Live, Ritchson reflected on the sore subject of his Ninja Turtles experience. The actor was offered to play the aggressive, hard-headed Raphael, who was the strongest among his brothers Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello. There was resistance on Ritchson’s part to accept the role, not only because of Paramount’s low-ball deal but also the fact that he would be playing a fully mocapped character. Ritchson recalled his concerns, stating, “I’m going to waste years of my life, the best years of my career, on something that nobody’s going to even know I’m a part of.”

Eventually, Ritchson came around to playing Raphael as part of a contract for three Ninja Turtles movies under the impression that he and his castmates would be more than actors “in a mask” and intended to be highlighted during the publicity tour. Additionally, the actor saw the enduring kid-friendly appeal of the franchise as something his own son could appreciate. When production started, however, Ritchson claims all the studio’s promises were broken almost immediately.

The Ninja Turtles production was full of long hours and a lack of overtime pay, according to Ritchson’s Collider interview. To highlight the disorganized Hollywood production, Ritchson recounts completing a day of shooting as he and the other Turtles actors awaited transportation to get home for several hours. Making matters worse was how the production allowed the crew to get transportation first due to the actors not being obligated to do overtime. Ritchson remembers “calling my team in L.A. like ‘They won’t give us a ride home, what the f*** kind of production is this?! Get us home! We shot for 14 hours today. I wanna go home.”

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Actors Rarely Get Respect

Ritchson’s complaints are not the first time the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles faced such difficulties for their actors. The original 1990 blockbuster involved stunt actors in rubber latex costumes created by Jim Henson. Judith Hoag, who played April O’Neil in the 1990 adaptation, told Variety in a 2014 interview that the stunt actors playing the turtles were constantly getting injured and had no protection from the union due to being China-based. By going with mo-cap actors in the 2014 reboot, one would expect that the filmmakers and actors could avoid the harsh conditions of the original. Yet, Ritchson and his castmates were quickly lost behind their CGI designs as fans were divided by the reboot’s deviation from the turtles’ cartoon and comic book counterparts. Between the ‘90s movies and the 2014 reboot, the issue remains a recurring one: the actors portraying the turtles rarely get their flowers.

Upon release, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saw stars Fox and Arnett doing most of the publicity tour while Ritchson and the other mo-cap actors were forbidden to do so. The idea of the future Reacher star becoming as popular as Andy Serkis playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy was never realized. Despite his frustrations, Ritchson revealed he was unsuccessful in getting out of his contract to appear in Out of the Shadows. Though plans for more films beyond the 2016 sequel were halted due to its critical and commercial underperformance, Ritchson and the Ninja Turtles IP were better off for it. The turtles were successfully revived with the critically praised Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in 2023. Meanwhile, Reacher has elevated Ritchson to the Hollywood A-list, with his name being circulated for other blockbuster properties like the DCU’s Batman. If any lesson was learned from his nightmare experience, Ritchson believes that as a producer, “I treat people with the kind of respect that I want to be treated with.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is streaming on Paramount+ in the US.

Here you can find the original article; the photos and images used in our article also come from this source. We are not their authors; they have been used solely for informational purposes with proper attribution to their original source.[/nospin]

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