Reacher actor Alan Ritchson has revealed that he well and truly put his foot in it when meeting Fast & Furious veteran Vin Diesel on set.

Ritchson is making big waves in the action-thriller genre starring as Hank Hall/Hawk in Titans, Jack Reacher in Reacher and having recently joined the fast-paced underworld of street racing as Aimes in Fast X.

The actor joined talk show host Rich Eisen on his show (The Rich Eisen Show) to discuss joining the movie franchise and in doing so revealed that he accidentally insulted the long-running saga’s lead on set.

“I didn’t watch any other ones [movies], and I let Vin know,” he started.

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Recounting the awkward moment when he met Diesel, he said: “I go ‘Hey man, I hadn’t really watched any of them. I watched the first one in high school, and now that I got the part, I’ve seen them all, and I just love what you’ve been doing with the last two decades.'”

Cringing in the video interview, he continued: “And he was like ‘I…thank you. I appreciate that.’

“He’s spent 20-plus years of his life, this is his baby! I’ve spent a couple years working on Reacher. It’s such a fixture in my life, if somebody was like ‘Thanks for having me on Reacher, man, I haven’t watched any of them’, I’d be like, ‘You’re the stupidest… Why would you say that?!’ And this dude is decades in. I’m an idiot.”

He did say that despite the blip, Diesel was “very polite”.

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During the interview, he revealed that when doing his homework and watching the past nine films, he felt the pressure of having to “live up” to the status of the multi-billion-dollar franchise.

He ended: “I am so grateful to be part of it at this point in space and time because I feel like I am at a point in my career when it makes sense, and this franchise is at a point where, although it’s sort of the beginning of the end, there is something still so fresh where this story has matured and the cast it has assembled, it’s just such a fun point to take part in this.”

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The actor won’t need to worry about the awkward moment, with his action skills firmly solidifying him as hot property in Hollywood.

Details on Reacher season two are under lock and key, but Amazon Studios’ head of television Vernon Sanders recently said that “It’s going really well” and that “Alan is back, and he is so fantastic in the role”.

He added: “I’m so proud of the producers [for] finding that fit for Reacher. The Reacher fans of the book, their reaction to the show has just been a dream.”