“What the fuck made you so sad?” Bill Maher asks the brawny ‘Reacher’ star, who openly fields that too.

Bill Maher welcomes actor Alan Ritchson to Club Random this week—first putting to rest a lingering question he had about the muscled lead of the Amazon action-crime series Reacher and burgeoning film star.

“People make all these jokes about how big you are,” Maher tells his jacked, 6’3”, 205-pound guest. “Like, is he really insanely huge or is he just a big guy? Now I have my answer. You’re a big guy, but you’re not like a sasquatch.”

“I’m really not,” says the understated Ritchson, hulking over Maher before taking a seat in a Club Random easy chair like it’s an IKEA foldout. “I was never supposed to be Reacher. They were trying very hard to find somebody who fit that iconic 6’5’’, 250-pound frame. I was a jockey when they booked this thing, so I had to put on weight for the role.”

Ritchson is clearly big enough for the part, assures Maher, a fan of the show, who also points out that he’s definitely upsizing a role originally occupied by Tom Cruise in the Reacher films. But enough about body type. Personality-wise, Maher wonders, is Ritchson at all like his lone-wolf character in the show?

Ritchson’s yin-yang response runs deep—delving into the actor’s intensely private side and yearnings for deeper connections, his greatest passions and darkest moments, his open struggles with mental health, his dedication to family, epiphanies of faith, and helpful work with a psychiatrist.

“It strikes me as odd that someone would have religion in their life and also a psychiatrist,” reflects the podcast’s famously atheistic host—and frequent skeptic of couples’ therapy, if not psychiatry.

“Really??” says a dumbfounded Ritchson, opening up a thoughtful discussion about the actor’s own rebound from crippling depression that nearly ended his life during an earlier peak in his career (see excerpt). Faith and professional help played tandem roles, he tells Maher, who seems nearly convinced—just not for himself.

“This would be a very successful episode if you got me to be a Christian by the end of it,” jokes Maher, telling his guest to steel himself for serious tabloid-worthy stardom ahead—where past trauma can actually pay dividends.

“People who read the tabloids don’t want to hear about how good other people are doing,” says Maher. “They want to feel like a good-looking, very successful guy has had things in his life that are actually worse than theirs—and this will fit the bill perfectly.”

Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one-on-one, hour-long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t just about politics and Bill Maher and his guests talk about all of it.

Random Moment: “Dad, We Want You to See All This”

Bill Maher: I hope this isn’t too personal, but it strikes me as odd that someone would have religion in their life and also a psychiatrist.

Alan Ritchson: Really?? Why?

Maher: Because I feel like they’re redundant in what they do. You used to go to confession and tell your sins to the priest. I did that many times.

Ritchson: I did that too as a Catholic.

Maher: It scared the shit out of me. The priest would tell you, “That was wrong, you’re bad, say 15 Hail Marys.” Then you go to a psychiatrist and the shrink would tell you, “Well don’t feel bad about it.” Is it not the same ground they’re covering?

Ritchson: This is why I talk about this stuff so openly. I personally feel that there are three things that are very important to me that we stigmatize and have to learn how to have conversations about in a healthy productive way: faith, family, and mental health. Mental health is something I’ve struggled with. You don’t know much about me personally, but I’m very open about my struggles. I’m bipolar, I’m ADHD, and I’m a suicide survivor—when I was 35.

Maher: 35??

Ritchson: Yeah, not long ago. I’m 41 now.

Maher: So why didn’t it work?

Ritchson: Weirdly, while it was happening, I saw my kids—but they were grown. And they were totally calm and emotionless, and they said, “Dad, we want you here. We want you to see all this.” And I just climbed out of it.

Maher: But what the fuck made you so sad??

Ritchson: Depression is crazy, dude.

Maher: Oh, yes it is. So it’s just a chemical thing.

Ritchson: Yeah. And you wouldn’t believe the power that it has over you. It doesn’t matter how many muscles you’ve got. I couldn’t get out of bed.

Maher: There have been people—Mike Wallace was one of them, I think Dick Cavett was another one. You may not know these people, but they were stars of ilk in their day who talked about how they were in therapy for years and years and years. And then they just gave them a pill. It was just a chemical thing. You just have to pour something in the test tube that is lacking. That is really a sad thing because it’s so simple, and no you can’t beat it with your will or anything else.

Ritchson: It was hard to accept at first, because I didn’t want to be labeled. But there’s so much power in having a label, and knowing what the diagnosis is. And now, I’ve read dozens of books about it. I’ve talked to doctors and professionals about it. There’s a way for me to manage this in a healthier way than feeling like there’s only one gift for me left to give, which is suicide.

Maher: I gotta tell you something. Not that it was good that it happened, but it actually is a great thing for your future. Y’know why? Because you’re about to embark on this trip to stardom. You’re right at that moment. It’s gonna get really, really heady.

You’re big, you’re handsome, and you’re gonna need something that makes you vulnerable—because the audience, the reason why they read the tabloids is not to hear about how good people are doing. They want to feel like somebody who is a good-looking, very successful guy has had things in his life that are actually worse than theirs—and this will fit the bill perfectly.