By Michaela Gordoni
MATLOCK’s Jason Ritter has great things to say about his dad, the late actor John Ritter.
“He was a wonderful dad. I mean, I think one of the things that he did…he really encouraged us all to be ourselves, and he would sort of follow our interests instead of trying to dictate to us,” Jason told Jennifer Hudson on her show. “When I said I wanted to be an actor, he was like, ‘All right, well, here’s what that life really looks like, and here’s the books you should read, and here’s all the movies you should see,’ and you know, took me seriously.”
His dad never forced him or pushed him to be something he didn’t’ want to be, and Jason loves him for that.
John’s attitude was, “Let me help you grow into who you were meant to be.”
Jason and his actress wife, Melanie Lynskey, have a 7-year-old daughter who doesn’t want to follow in her parents and grandpa’s footsteps.
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She recently told her parents, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be an actor.”
“That’s totally fine. We’re not trying to push you into it,” Jason laughed.
Jason enjoys working with actress Kathy Bates on MATLOCK.
“It is amazing,” he gushed. “She’s just such a lovely person. She’s such a collaborative person and she’s just so good at what she does and she’s always so authentic that sometimes I feel like when we’re working together I feel like she can see all of my lies and all,” he laughed.
“So like she’s so real and she’s so genuine that you sort of feel your own artifice a little bit more. So it’s helped me a lot,” he said.
John, a star in THREE’S COMPANY, died in September of 2011 at the age of 55. According to Entertainment Now, he had an undiagnosed heart condition called aortic dissection, which caused his death.
John’s influence occasionally pops up when Jason is performing.
Jason said, “That definitely happens to me. In auditions, I would come in, and I would do it the way I had practiced a hundred times, and it was probably kind of rigid. And then every once in a while, a casting director would go, ‘Try it this way.’ And I go, ‘Oh, that’s great. I have no idea what to do there.’ And I just sort of jump off the cliff and try it.”
He continued, “And there have been times where those have been the best moments in my auditions, and I’m like, ‘That didn’t feel like I did that.’ ”
Legal serial MATLOCK’s Season 2 finale debuted on April 23.
Read Next: Why Kathy Bates Chose MATLOCK Over Retirement
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